"Get them down."

"Sir, I believe you underestimate the hostility currently directed at you. I think you also overestimate your ability to handle the threat."

"I don't care. Get them down."

William nodded. "All right."

"Get them down, and then get the h.e.l.l away from my desk."

"Sir."

Julian wanted to spit at the little sycophant. He'd never liked William, had always had an intense urge to slap him around whenever he saw him. Being a minion was one thing-being a minion with absolutely no trace of backbone was another. And 56 he didn't seem at all distressed by the loss of his former master.

William quickly gathered the bones and left the room. Julian sat down behind the desk.

He felt strange suddenly, a wave of vertigo flooding his system. He put his head in his hands, then down on the table.

"You know you have to do it."

He didn't look up at the sound of Lorelei's voice. He couldn't. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to pick his head up off this desk. "I don't have to do anything."

"You can't resist this any more than you could the Senior."

"I can resist. I've resisted human blood for two centuries.

I can resist yours."

But he was certain he couldn't. She was right-the pull was too strong. Exactly like the pull he'd felt from the Senior, except even stronger. He needed something, something he could only find in her blood.

"It's the only way to complete the transformation," Lorelei went on. The voice came now from the other side of the desk- she must have sat in the chair across from him.

"Perhaps any human blood would do."

"No. Only mine. There's a genetic marker of some kind."

Julian looked right at her, surprised by her words and then by the fact he could lift his own head. "Who the h.e.l.l fed you that bulls.h.i.t?"

She pressed her lips together in irritation, then said, "A vampire came in while you were gone. I don't know where he came from-"

He blinked slowly. "Tall? Broad-shouldered, in a cloak and cowl like frigging Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi?"

"More like Qui-Gon Jinn, but yes."

"Did he tell you who he was?"

"No. Do you know him?"

With a sigh, Julian put his head in his hands again. "We've met. I don't know who he is. I'm not even sure he's a vampire."

"I've met him, too. Before today. A long time ago, when I was a little girl."

Again, Julian was surprised enough to lift his head. "Tell me." 57 She told him, while he stared in increasing amazement.

Then, as she finished, he shook his head vehemently. "No," he said. "I won't kill you. I'd rather die than take human blood. I don't care about the transformation, or whatever the h.e.l.l's going on-"

"It's important, Julian-"

"Nothing's that important-"

"I don't think you understand-"

"I don't think you understand." She opened her mouth to break him off again, and he came to his feet, reaching across the desk to grab her by the shoulders, shake her, make her look into his face, into his eyes so she could see he meant what he said. "I won't kill you, Lorelei."

She studied his face. He meant it, she could see that. He would pa.s.s over the transformation and everything it might mean just to keep from shedding her blood.

That was wrong. Deep down in her heart, perhaps as deep as her DNA, as the genetic code that had been planted in her blood, she knew this transformation had to happen. Julian's change meant more than just the change of a single vampire. It meant a change of the world as every vampire on Earth had come to know it.

She looked into his eyes, saw his sincerity. Saw something she suddenly recognized as love. Her own eyes p.r.i.c.kled with tears.

She looked into his eyes, and lied. "It won't kill me. He told me that."

Julian's hands softened on her shoulders. He looked away then, so she couldn't see what struggles rose in his eyes. He sat back down, heavily, as if he was too weak to stand any longer.

"How could he know that?"

She shrugged. Fear burned at the back of her throat, but she swallowed it. "How could he know any of this?"

Julian closed his eyes. "I'm so tired."

"You're dying. If you don't take the final step, it'll all be over."

He looked up at her again, desperation heavy in his eyes. 58 "I don't want to do this. I don't want to be this."

"You have no choice."

Slowly, he rose from the desk. He turned and went back through the door, into the Senior's room. Lorelei sat for a moment, gathering courage, then followed.

In the other room, he'd sat down on the furs where he'd slept. She sat next to him and laid her hand on his arm.

"Did he tell you anything else?" Julian asked in a dead voice.

She shook her head. "No." She lifted her hand to his face.

"You have to do this now, or it'll be too late."

"Lorelei-"

Her hand cupped his cheek, turning his face gently to hers.

"It's all right," she said. "Everything will be all right. But do one thing for me."

"Anything."

"Make love to me."

He bent his forehead to touch hers, looked into her eyes and then closed his. He knew, she thought. He knew she'd lied to him. But he said nothing more, only bending forward again, turning his head until his lips touched hers.

As he pulled her down to lie next to him, he felt completely human. Soft and familiar as she slipped her hands beneath his shirt to feel the hair that curled against his chest, but hard where he needed to be as he rolled her under him.

She thought about the dream again, the dream that was no dream, the images coming to her as his lips touched the curve of her throat. The other vampire, the one who'd marked her, had done it with such delicacy. Julian's lips tasted her throat with a similar care, but he didn't bite. Not yet. Instead, his mouth moved on while his hands drew her shirt up. He mouthed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, fangs p.r.i.c.king her gently. She didn't think he'd even broken the skin until she looked down and saw the small, perfect droplets of blood.

"I'm sorry," he whispered against her skin.

"Don't be," she said, and pressed his head back against her.

His skin grew warmer as he bared more of it, until he lay 59 human-warm and naked on top of her. He took his time, rushing nothing, learning her as he hadn't been able to do in their first, hurried encounter in her apartment. His hands explored, long- fingered and clever, finding pleasure places on her skin where she'd never known they'd existed. Eight hundred years of experience, she thought, ought to be good for something.

He held her trembling at a peak higher than any she'd ever experienced, then pressed inside her, deep and hard. He was still inside her when the trembling changed to pulsing fire, and as she shattered apart around him, he sank his fangs deep into her throat.

Her o.r.g.a.s.m turned orange, then red. Blood pulsed out of her throat as her body pulsed, and he went rigid against her, only his mouth moving as he drew life from her. There was no pain. Lorelei felt only the joining, the fusion of his body to hers where he still pierced her, the fusion of her blood to his as it pa.s.sed out of her. She became a heartbeat, every pounding pulsation a climax.

"I love you, Julian," she said, not sure she spoke, not sure she could speak.

She pounded and pounded, and the last furious climax took her into darkness.

The blood slowed. Julian swallowed, made himself let go.

He could still hear her heartbeat, faint but rallying, could still feel her body pulsing around his s.e.x. As his fangs withdrew, he finally softened and withdrew there as well. He'd lost track of his own o.r.g.a.s.ms, which had pounded in time with each of hers, with each rush of her blood into him.

Gently, he eased her to the floor. Her throat was smeared with blood, but the flow had stopped. He laid a finger on the groove on the other side of her neck and again felt a soft pulse.

She was still alive.

He sat away from her and shook.

Unlike the former stages of transformation, this one brought no pain. It was as if his blood had turned to light, flooding his body, cleansing it. All trace of hunger disappeared behind the brilliance. An understanding began, as if his body told him what 60 it had become, but only a little at a time. Each cell had to awaken and tell its story. Only after they'd all spoken would he know the full truth.

He knew a little, though. Enough to bring Lorelei back.

He lifted her into his lap, cradling her. She sagged limply within the support of his arms. Still alive, but fading. He'd left her very little blood, not enough to carry all the oxygen her body needed. Her lips were turning blue already.

He bit deep into his own wrist, let his mouth fill with blood.

Then he bent to her, kissed her, pressed her mouth open and let his blood fill it. Slowly, letting her swallow instead of choke, until she moved a little in his embrace, then opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"What happened?" she asked.

"It's over," he told her.

"I'm still alive."

"You sound surprised."

"I am, a little." She shifted away from him, glancing at her

nakedness and the smears of blood on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly. "I need a bath."

"I'll be sure you get one."

She looked at him then, studying him, first gravely, then with a smile. "You don't look any different."

"I feel different," he admitted, "but I'm not sure what's changed."

She smiled and crawled back into his lap, curling up like a little naked cat. "You'll find out," she said, "and I'll be here to find out with you."

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, tears springing to his eyes. He hadn't cried in three hundred years.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you for loving me."

"I had no choice. Now, love me back."

"I do. I always will."

"Good. Now watch over me. I need to sleep."

He smiled, caressed her black, black hair, and watched over her while she slept. 61 NICHOLAS.

Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me.

-Exodus 4:25b In the earliest days, the First Born Ones walked among men, and taught them the ways of the Blood G.o.ds. But others of the First Born Ones denounced the Blood G.o.ds and spoke of the Changing.

-The Book of Changing Blood A Knight came to us in the dark days. His touch healed the plague. He visited only within our walls, and when we asked in whose name he healed, he said, "In the name of the Eaters of Light, of which I am the only one."

-Fragment from a record kept in an English monastery. Received via e-mail by Julian Cavanaugh, sent by the Western European Vampire Alliance 62 BEFORE.

Vivian's party was, as usual, all the rage. The house crawled with vampires. Mortals, too, dragged themselves in off the street to indulge in the spirit of the evening, or were brought in as invited guests.