"A young bird, too young to leave the nest, that's still fed by its parents." Was she going to have to feed from him?

"Lord, no, Dixie." He looked more horrified that she felt. That was progress. "We don't feed off each other."

Back to square one. "You're saying I have to feed, but a full-blooded vampire doesn't need to." He nodded. "Why haven't I fed then?"

"You did. When I transformed you, you had a very deep feeding. I practically drained your body and then replaced everything with our mingled blood. I gave you extra, hence my need for the blood supply in the fridge to replenish my own body. Most times we feed, we take a pint or so. Not enough to weaken or harm the subject. No more than a blood donor gives. Your deep feed will last quite a while."

"How long?"

"Two or three weeks, depending on how you use or conserve your strength."

She pulled from the circle of his arms and walked to the still-open door. The cool night air on her face did nothing to soothe the raging cancer of panic erupting inside. She had to feed. Sooner or later there was no escaping the fact. How long since Christopher fed her? Five, six days. At best, she had two weeks before she had to suck blood. She fought the spiraling. She had to. Or did she? "What happens if I don't feed after three weeks?"

"The same as any other fledgling vampire." She waited, silent, knowing in her heart he'd tell her, no matter how much he didn't want to hurt her. "After two and a half, three weeks, you'll weaken, lose your speed and your vampire senses over several days, and slip into a deep rest, that's sometimes been misidentified as drug-induced coma. After twenty-four hours or so, the fledgling returns to their previous state minus, all memory of their temporary transformation."

"I see." She did, with horrifying clarity. She'd be dead.

"Many colonies transform living mortals. We don't. I'm afraid it knocks out that choice for us."

Scents of night stocks wafted from outside, along with the honeysuckle that grew beyond the stone wall. Out on the moor, night creatures stirred in the heather, and miles away along the main road, engines hummed as trucks and cars traveled to and from York. If she concentrated enough, maybe she'd hear the surf on Whitby beach. She sighed at the thought of the powers open to her if she fed. "There's always a choice," she said, speaking slowly. "The alternative may be impossible, unthinkable, or irrational, but there's always an option."The kitchen got quieter than the night outside. "If I had to set you in a tomb, Dixie, I'd bury my heart, too."

How could she even think it? With a sob, she stepped toward him and let his strong arms and broad shoulders lock out the choice she dreaded making.

"Don't let it worry you." His words soothed as he stroked the top of her head. "It's not as bad as you fear. Trust me. I'll be with you when you're ready to feed, I'll explain what to do." She didn't even want to think about it. At least not now. "I told Justin it was too soon to introduce you to the others, that you needed more time. He wouldn't listen."

"Don't blame him. This way I have longer to get used to the idea, to decide."

"Let me take you to bed. I want to love your anxiety away."

She couldn't, not in this frame of mind. "Later. First I want to walk on the moors."

"Want to run to Boggles' Roost?"

"Walk. Not run. I want to try to remember what it was like to be mortal."

"You can never be mortal again."

"I know." Her throat tightened. "I just want to remember."

They walked all night. Dixie lost herself in the darkness and the choice ahead, until Christopher insisted she turn back. "Dawn is only a couple of hours away," he said as they stood on a ridge, watching two dormice courting. "We must go back."

"Race you."

They ran, leaping over stone walls, jumping streams and racing over the rough ground. They arrived at the back door, neck and neck. "You could have won," she said, turning to him as she stepped over the threshold.

"You dislike being my second. If I'd let you win, I'd have insulted you. Together and equal seemed best." If only they were!

"We have eternity, Dixie. One day you'll be my equal in strength and speed."

But could she pay the price of eternity? She didn't want to know. Not yet. She took his hand and led him upstairs to the pitch- roofed bedroom and the four-poster bed. They made gentle, slow love until dawn overtook them, and she slipped into deep rest, nestled in his arms.

She woke to an evening of torrential rain that beat on the roof, poured down the windowpanes, and washed over the gutters.

Not a night for strolling the moors. She understood now why old-time builders put in foot-thick walls.

A fire glowed in the stone fireplace in the old parlor. "Come sit by me," Christopher said. The dented cus.h.i.+ons on the sofa and an open book showed how he'd spent the afternoon.

"It's a great night for reading, watching the fire and sipping hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows," she said. Except she had no need of the hot chocolate. Or the marsh-mallows.

"Roasted chestnuts come to mind for me." He settled back down on the sofa and patted the seat beside him. "Sit by me, let's imagine the scents and tastes of chestnuts and chocolate with marshmallows. I've smelled chocolate but never tasted it. What is it like?"

Never tasted chocolate? "You missed something. I love it! Loved it." She amended. She loved it and would never taste it again.

"Have you really never eaten it?"He shook his head. "It didn't arrive in London until the late 1650s. I'd been a vampire almost sixty years by then."

Dixie took the offered seat while she pondered the fact that she loved a man from pre-chocolate times. It made one pause. She spent a lot of time pausing these days.

"Pick something to read."

She had enough choices. Books filled every room but she knew what she wanted to read. Back upstairs, she pulled her aunts'

last journals from her bag and settled back next to Christopher for a long night's read.

She hadn't appreciated reading at vampire speed. She got through it in a couple hours and half-wished she hadn't.

Blackmail, finagling and double-dealing aside, her great-aunts weren't ancestors to be proud of, but neither did they deserve the ends their journals implied.

What could she do? Quite a heap considering she could run as fast as a small car and, okay, bullets didn't bounce off her, but they wouldn't kill her, even in her fledgling state Deliberately, she s.h.i.+elded her mind, tucked her nose back into the book and thought Everything snagged back to Sebastian She'd take care of him She owed him one for Christopher, Stanley, and Vernon and in all probability her aunts and. Lord knew what else. And now she had her chance.

True, she might end up another of his victims but what did she have to lose? Her days were numbered unless she decided plasma snacking was her style, and all of Christopher's a.s.surances couldn't ease the instinctive disgust over feeding It seemed right and fitting to settle the score before her final end Sebastian believed her dead? Did she have news for him?

"A penny for them." Startled, she blinked at Christopher. "Your thoughts, a penny for them." With a smile like that, he could open her soul. She clamped her mind shut.

"I've been thinking, Christopher I need some time alone." She ignored the shock on his face "I want to go back to Orchard House for a while."

He looked like a drowning man robbed of a life jacket "You'd leave me?"

The hurt in his eyes slashed into her heart and ripped her conscience into shreds She missed not being able to take a deep breath "Last night threw me for a loop Discovering you have two weeks to choose between immortality or oblivion is unsettling I need a couple of days to sort things out."

He smiled as relief lit his face "Two or three days?"

She felt like sc.u.m for lying Well, not exactly lying She'd told the truth. Just not all of it. "Yup." It shouldn't take that long. "Can I get a night train at York?"

"It won't work. You'll end up in London in broad daylight. I'll take you."

No, he wouldn't! She didn't want him anywhere near. "What about the police?"

"We drive at night. I'll drop you a few miles away. You run the last leg of the trip. Just make sure you're safe inside at least an hour before dawn." He ran his hand through his dark hair. "I'll wait at Tom's. When you need me, send me a mind message. I'll be there."

He bought it all. Even offered to help. Now she felt like something on the sole of a shoe. "I don't want you in any danger."

"If push comes to shove, we can both outrun the police." He glanced at his watch. "It's too late to start tonight. If we got held up in traffic, we'd never make it by sunrise. You could survive in the trunk with a bag of soil, but upstairs is better." Upstairs was better. But the sofa came a close second. They tried them both. Slow and gentle on the sofa, then he carried her upstairs for a wild, crazed coupling that left her sated but tormented with conscience stabs. She felt worse the next evening.

"Here you are." He stopped at an exit of the M24, just north of Leatherhead. "Make for the station, then go out Randalls Road.

You'll have a straight shot across country. Come into Bringham from the west, across the common."

"You sound as though you've done it a few times."

"I have." He grinned. "The first few times, there wasn't a railway."

She didn't have time to think about that. She had to hurry.

"Thanks for bringing me. Please be careful." If the police got him, what would she do?

"I'll be fine, Dixie. You hurry. I want you inside, at rest, long before dawn."

"I will be." She blew him a kiss and stepped out. Even at this hour, a steady stream of traffic surged both south and north.

Bending her knees, she took one leap over all six lanes and took off running.

Christopher watched her disappear, drove through the deserted town and took the Guildford road. Dixie should be home in fifteen minutes. His drive took thirty. He parked in a gypsy clearing on the common. Hidden behind the high growth of summer, he had a better than even chance of going unnoticed a couple of days. And if push came to shove, he'd abandon the car. He had other hiding places.

"Dixie, I have to talk to you. About Stanley. And you. I know who tried to kill you. He killed my Stanley. Phone me. I'm still at Monica's." Ida's shaky voice crackled on the answering machine. How long had the message sat there?

Dixie had come to plan revenge and to think about her future, to decide if she even wanted one at the price. Ida's desperate appeal offered a chance at her first goal. Ida could help; she'd gladly forgo peace of mind for a little homebrewed justice. It was too late to see her now, dawn was coming. But once the sun set, she'd visit.

A shadowy smile half-welcomed Dixie. Monica, Stanley's widow, held the door wide open. What about the ban on entering human habitations? It worked. A force like steel blocked her entry. "Come on in." The block dissolved and Dixie pa.s.sed into the small hall filled with bicycles and roller skates and a soccer ball squeezed between the newel post and the banister. From somewhere in the back of the house came the sound of TV and young male voices.

Ida sat beside the empty fireplace, a ball of yarn and a cylinder of gray knitting on her lap. The TV hummed in the background, the flickering white light bathing the room in a eerie glow. Ida looked years older than the day Dixie met her.

"I got your message, Ida."

"I left that days ago. Then I heard you'd gone home, left without seeing anyone. What happened?"

"I did plan on going home but something came up. I'm just back in Bringham for a very short time. You said there were things I needed to know?"

Ida nodded and stared. A toothpaste ad jingle intruded on the silence and Dixie noticed a strange, sweet smell. Potpourri?

"How about I fix us a cup of tea?" Monica suggested. "You and Mother could sit out back and talk."Talk, yes. Tea, no. "Not for me."

"I want a drink. We're going to the Bell. Can't talk here with the telly." Ida stood up, her legs a little shaky but her voice determined.

They walked to the Bell. With great concentration, Dixie slowed her pace to Ida's walk. The fresh night air came welcome after the stuffiness of the Collins's house. But the Bell was another matter; the same sweet smell filled the main bar, not unpleasant, but cloying. Some new room freshener?

Ida let Dixie buy her a gin and tonic. For herself, she bought a gla.s.s of port. Good thing it wasn't the Barley Mow. Alf would have drawn her usual Guinness and wondered about her change in drinking habits.

"Cheers." Ida raised her gla.s.s.

"Why did you phone me, Ida?"

The old eyes came straight at her. "Let's make a deal."

Dixie's brain slowed to mortal pace. "What sort of a deal?"

"Information. I tell what I know and you promise me revenge."

"Why not settle for justice?" Lord, she sounded like Justin. But maybe she should.

"I don't care what it is as long as he suffers for killing Stanley. He murdered my son, left my grandsons orphaned and Monica a widow at twenty-eight. For that he should suffer. Long and hard."

"Who should?"

"Sebastian Caughleigh."

Dixie forced a dozen questions still. "You have proof?"

"I don't need it. He killed Stanley. He meant to get you."

Her suspicions had been dead-on, but why did he want her dead? Okay, he was a bit peeved she hadn't fallen for his charms, but murder was going a bit far. "You think Sebastian set the bomb?" Imagining Sebastian under a car wasn't easy.

"He paid for it to be done."

A little more believable. And the professional job failing, he'd gone for do-it-yourself. But again, why? "Why do I frighten him?

Why does he want me dead?" An idea dawned. "My money? Something to do with my house and my money?"

"Not money." Ida shook her head. "Knowledge. For the coven."

"What coven?" At this rate she would be here all night. Why not? She wasn't sleeping until daybreak.

Ida drew herself up. Straight-backed, she took a deep breath. "An ancient coven that once boasted great herbalists-your aunts and others. If we had stayed faithful to the Old Religion..." She shook her head as if shaking off cobwebs and regrets.

"A coven of witches?"

"You don't believe in witches?""Yes, I do." Two weeks ago she hadn't believed in vampires and look what happened. "I just don't understand how the bomb in the car and my aunts all link up. Why me?"

"l.u.s.t. l.u.s.t for power. Sebastian hungers for power. That's why he joined the coven. For your aunts' knowledge." She paused.

"All of it."

So that was it! The nasty files. With those, Sebastian could set himself up for life. "He won't get it."

"That's why he's trying to kill you." Barely above a whisper, Ida's words cut across the s.p.a.ce between them. "He wants what you have and if he can't have it, he won't let you use it. He's dangerous. Mad, even. He fought your aunts for power but they died and hid their secrets. Then you came."

"When he couldn't prevent me from coming, he tried persuading me to leave."

Ida nodded. "You drove him crazy! Few people oppose him. Even fewer succeed. You did."