12

It seemed like an eternity before Garreth heard the door downstairs open. From where he lay stretched on the floor with his hand on Fowler's throat, he listened to two sets of footsteps ran up the stairs. Three sets. The third were just a whisper of sound. They all echoed as though from a great distance through the thick fog enveloping him.

A rap sounded at the door. "Garreth?" Lien called. The knob rattled. "Damn! It's locked. What are we going to do?"

"Irina . . ." his grandmother's voice said.

"Is a difficulty. This is a dwelling and I have never before been invited- Nichevo. I will tend to it."

She had discovered the barrier gone. Garreth's pulse jumped. Now she knew Lane was dead. Would she guess how?

"Holy Mother!"

He twisted his head toward the door. Her voice came from this side of it now. She stood just inside. But stood only for a second, then she jerked open the door and ran for the bay window.

"Lien, Grania," she called in a voice turned to a hoarse rasp. "Take him into hall away from this garlic."

Footsteps raced into the room toward him. And halted in two gasps.

"Garreth!"

"Mother of god." Grandma Doyle dropped to her knees beside him. "The devil's killed you. I knew it. When you left I felt a wind between me skin and me blood."

Garreth shook his head. He was not dead yet.

Each of them grabbed an arm and began dragging him toward the door.

He pulled against them, shaking his head again. "Coat," he whispered. Being in the hall would not help a bit as long as he wore these clothes.

Irina had the drapes pulled wide and all three windows in the bay open. Coming back to them, she stopped short, too. "Is on him. Quickly; remove his coat and shirt."

They sat him up and stripped him to the waist. Irina removed the two pieces of clothing, carrying them to the kitchen like someone with a bomb, held as far away from her as possible.

Gradually the unbearable pressure in Garreth's chest released. Air trickled in. Nothing had ever felt quite so good before. He leaned back against his grandmother and closed his eyes.

Her arms tightened around him. "He looks like a corpse, Lien."

"I'll call an ambulance." Her footsteps moved in the direction of the telephone.

"No," Irina's voice said firmly. "You cannot."

He opened his eyes to see her holding Lien's wrist with one hand and blocking the dial face with the other.

"But you can see he's seriously hurt. He needs a doctor."

Irina shook her head. "We're strong. We heal quickly. All he needs is blood." She turned to look at him. "Human blood."

Garreth stiffened. "No."

"Yes. This is the point at which animal blood fails us."

Fowler groaned.

Irina crossed swiftly to him. Rolling him over on his back, and removing her glasses, she sat down astride him and stared hard into his opening, dazed eyes. "You are a statue. You cannot move or make a sound, nor can you see or hear anything unless I choose to talk to you again." Fowler went stiff. Irina put her glasses on again. Coming over to Garreth, she squatted beside him and took his face in her hands. "Listen to me, child. This is not a matter of choice but necessity. Only human blood will heal you."

He closed his eyes. "No."

She shook him. "You're being foolish. Taking blood does not have to be an act of rape."

He opened his eyes with a start to stare up at her in disbelief.

She smiled. "That is a choice. Ours is by nature a solitary existence, but not one in a vacuum. From humans we come, and we remain bound to them by our needs for food and companionship. Lack of either brings death, of mind if not body."

Like Christopher Stroda, Garreth thought suddenly.

"Does it not make sense, then, to treat people not like cattle but as friends, and ask for what we need rather than just take it?"

"Ask?" There he had her. She was crazy. "Who would say yes?"

"Me," Lien said. While he gaped at her, she unbuttoned the collar of her blouse. "You need blood; please take it."

"Or take mine," Grandma Doyle said. "Your life comes from me already through your mother. Let me give it to you again."

He twisted his head to regard her with wonder. They meant it! But . . . how could he sink his fangs into his own grandmother's neck, or Lien's?

Irina murmured, "There are vessels where punctures are less conspicuous than in carotid artery. Brachial at elbow, for example, and popliteal behind knee."

His grandmother stretched her arm out across his shoulder. It brushed his cheek, soft and freckled, smelling of lavender and warm, salty blood. "Take the blood. Don't let that devil destroy you."

Don't let the scum win. Think survival.

With the words reverberating in him, Garreth turned his head and kissed the inside of her elbow. A pulse fluttered against his lips. Blood. He could smell it, could almost taste it. Locating the strongest beat with the tip of his tongue, he sank his fangs into the arm. Blood welled up from the punctures . . . warm and sweetly salty as he remembered the auto accident girl's as being, everything he longed to drink, a delicious fire in his throat. He swallowed, again and again. Slowly, strength seeped back into him.

"Enough!" Irina's voice said. "Release her. Let . . . go."

A grandmotherly knuckle thumped him on the head. Reluctantly, he drew out of her arm. "I haven't had enough," he protested.

"You have taken enough from her."

His grandmother smoothed hair back from his forehead. "I want to help you, but I've no desire to join you. The price of forever's too high."

Lien knelt beside him and held her arm out. "Take the rest from me."

He bent his head to her arm.

This time he drank less greedily, and found himself feeling the rhythm of her blood, watching for signs that he might be taking too much. But hunger ended and he pulled back before she showed any weakening. He eyed her for some evidence of repugnance or regret.

Instead, she smiled. "Now you carry my blood, too. How do you feel?"

"Still shaky." Pain remained in his hip and shoulder. It had lessened noticeably, however, and the bleeding had stopped.

Irina handed him his glasses. "Do you feel strong enough to tell us what honorable, legal solution you have found to our problem?" She gestured toward Fowler.

Garreth bit his lip. If he admitted he had no solution, she might impose her own. Fowler's catatonic state gave him an idea. "We have the power to make people forget us. I think-"

Irina interrupted with a shake of her head. "Our powers are limited. We can edit his memories of today, but not make him forget either us or his hatred of us. That stretches back through his entire life."

"What about making him one of you?" Grandma Doyle said. "To tell anyone about you then would be to betray himself as well."

"I think that would make no difference to him," Irina said. "Would it, Garreth?"

He shook his head. "For a long time I hated what I'd become so much that if I could have brought Lane to justice by announcing to the world what she was, I would have, and not given a damn about the personal consequences. I would have welcomed true death."

"I, too," Irina said. "I planned to confess about myself to Prince Yevgeni as soon as I had my revenge on Viktor. I did not, obviously, but only because by time I could, my instinct for self-preservation had reasserted itself. We wouldn't have time for that with Englishman. He would run into street screaming denounciations of us."

"Let him," Lien said. "There are more people like my husband than me in the world. Who will believe him?"

"Even a few is too many. We cannot afford scrutiny." Irina sighed. "Is a problem with only one solution. Grania, you and Lien take Garreth home. I will see to cleaning up here."

"There has to be an alternative," Garreth protested. He thought desperately. There had to be! Clearly people were much harder to convince about vampires than he had been afraid they would be all wrong. He should be able to use that.

"I am sorry, Garreth."

Lien and Grandma Doyle each slipped an arm under his.

He shook them off. "No. Wait! What if-" What if what? An idea had raced past him just a moment ago. He struggled to find it again in the swirling chaos in his head. There! He snatched at it. Yes. Yes! It might work. "What if the people he denounces can bear scrutiny?"

Irina went still. He felt the hidden eyes staring at him. Finally she said, "Explain, please."

He explained.

Irina pursed her lips thoughtfully. "What if he attacks?"

"You and I will be close enough to intervene."

"This will prevent him from killing again?"

"That's the beauty of it. Once he's discredited, he's safe to run through the criminal justice system like any other murderer."

Grandma Doyle grinned. "You're the devil himself, boy. I'll do me best to make it work."

"Me, too," Lien said.

He knew he could count on them. "What super ladies the two of you are." He squeezed their hands. "Let's get cracking."