LIANNDRA

Lianndra leaned down and patted the dog on the head, feeling the silky smoothness of the dog’s fur, which felt and looked more like human hair than anything else. The little dog had been the most adorable puppy the last time he had seen him and hadn’t grown much larger. He was always going to be a small dog, barely reaching Lianndra’s knees.

"Well hello Pookie, you’re still the cutest little dog in the world," he murmured, so low a mortal couldn’t hear, but that a sharp-eared dog could.

The little dog yipped and jumped straight up in the air, scrabbling for purchase against Lianndra’s coat. The vampire gave his little boy’s laugh and stood up, hugging the little dog against his slender chest. He laughed again as the dog squirmed madly, his tongue flashing out and his fluffy tail flapping wildly.

~there, there, my little bear, aren’t you just so sweet? If I could, you know I would, turn you into a vampire pup,~ he spoke straight into the little dog’s mind.

Pookie gave what amounted to a dog’s version of a laugh and wriggled himself closer to the cool flesh of the vampire boy.

Animals have a sort of sixth sense about vampires; they can tell which are good and which are bad. Depending on what their own inner natures consisted of, they chose their own vampires to follow. Pookie was a good little dog and knew that Lianndra was the vampire he wanted to follow.

If he had wanted, Lianndra could have started a second army to compliment his one of mortals. It would be an army of animals ready to sacrifice themselves for their vampire lord.

He smiled at the thought, ruffling the dog’s fur one more time before setting him back on the floor where he could run around behind Lianndra’s legs in preparedness to follow the vampire boy anywhere. He would never attempt to change such sweetness into something sinister. It would have been a crime against everything right in the world.

"Hey, where’s Michelle?" he asked, seeing that she wasn’t there.

Her mother looked up with a distasteful look on her face. "In her room doing whatever it is she does up there," she said. "She doesn’t spend time with her family. She just doesn’t seem to be part of the group."

"Yeah, she spends all her time in her room," Jim added to his mother’s testament.

Lianndra frowned. That didn’t sound like the sweet and rather carefree girl he had known since she was as young as he looked. In all of the time that he had known her, she had been gentle and kind, always the first to smile and say something to bring up the mood. Yet from what her family was saying, there were changes afoot.

"Why don’t you sit down and watch the show?" Jim asked from where he lay on the floor. At nineteen he was tall and thin without being skinny. He had a bit of a scruffy goatee that fit his Asian features and went well with his long hair. Because he was half-Japanese, he had the right to reduced cost education and took full advantage of the opportunity by going to the community college, Olympic Community College, or OC as it was called.

Don Shimoto was Japanese and had lived in America for over fifteen years, while Sally Shimoto was American born and had been born and raised to the age of eleven deep in Kansas tornado-country. She had met Don while she was in Japan and had brought him back over with her after they were married. There were occasional fights, but all in all, life was all right.

They had four kids, Randy, Jim, Michelle and Shanna. At the moment, Randy was living in Florida with his girlfriend and newborn baby son Gabriel. He hadn’t lived with the family in something like three years.

Lianndra knew as much as he did about the family not just because he had lived with them off and on for years, but because he had his undercover operatives keep an eye on them and ran all of their information through scheduled checks. Out in the world there were vampires and mortals that were unnoticed by others of their kind--ones that secretly carried the mark of Lianndra which allowed them to pass messages on to him. They were in key places, places that made them privy to information regular people never got to see and probably didn’t want to know about anyway.

His informers kept him abreast with almost everything that went on in both the mortal and immortal worlds. In his secret hiding place under forty feet of ground in the Mojave Desert, he had a giant mainframe computer that was tied in with all of the other computers that he owned and had whole directories filled with the information that was given to him.

Much of the information was collated, filed and never used, but some of it was. Right now he had plans for a particular tidbit about a certain tycoon rich-girl that wasn’t quite the girl she seemed. Felicienne Chronos was about to get a surprise visit from someone that knew her from way back, someone that had experienced dealings with her both as an immortal and as a business person.

The Chronos Corporation, which was valued at something along the lines of twenty billion dollars, was owned, run by and named after Felicienne. She had bought the business with capital earned from some rather good business decisions she had made in the past, decisions affected by the deaths of certain key individuals.

Few people knew it, but the woman that was worth something like thirty-four billion dollars was a werepanther. Sort of like a werewolf, except she turned into a panther. And like any panther, she was a hunter and killer, a rather experienced one at that.

She licked the flesh off her victims with her surprisingly rough tongue, then drank their blood, her sharp teeth rending and tearing the rather delicate mortal flesh. He had watched her do it and so knew how heartless she was in her panther form.

In her human form she was the nicest person anyone might ever meet, even if she was called the "Iron Maiden" in the business world. Some people said that she was a tiger in the business, but she wasn’t, not really. She was a panther.

He blinked and brought his attention back to the here and now. Sliders, the show the Shimotos were watching, was about people "sliding" to parallel worlds. In this particular world, vampires roamed the earth, something that struck a definite chord within him.

A man with twisted features and a horribly gaping mouth came leaping out of the shadows, his fangs bared in a terrible openmouthed way that showed off what looked to be bad dental work done to his fangs. Lianndra blinked again, staring at the TV in horrified fascination.

Why did people do that? Stereotyping vampires as being ugly monsters when they really weren’t at all, not physically anyway.

Movie fangs were always shown as being huge and ill-fitted to the human mouth, when in real life they weren’t. They weren’t really as large as they were on TV, otherwise how would a vampire be able to chew gum? And who would want to be bitten by someone with fangs so long that they couldn’t close their mouth and spent all of their time drooling? Vampires use their preternatural beauty to attract mortals to them; what human would be interested in a hideously ugly freak? It just wasn’t happening like that.

It was a well-known fact that vampires attract their prey to them, rarely having to go in search of prey that they have to leap on and subdue forcefully. That was something they only did when they wanted to have a little fun. It is called playing with your food. It’s considered bad form, but there was nothing to stop anyone from doing it.

Someone once said that beauty is the ultimate drug; it not only feels great, but it can get you almost anything. Lianndra well understood that, even though he knew he was never going to grow up physically. It wasn’t something he could really expect to have suddenly happen.

He could imagine the expression on everyone’s faces if he were to show up one day as an adult. He trusted that he would be extremely attractive, so he had no worry that people would run away screaming. It was sad really, the fact that he was never going to grow up. It was such a waste of the good genes that he had inherited from his mother and father, both incredibly attractive and intelligent people.

Here he was, two hundred and twenty-one years old and still looking like the day he was Made. Next month he was going to be two hundred and twenty-two years old, and what did he have to look forward to? An eternity of looking seven. Wasn’t life just such a bitch?

He sighed with a mental shrug. There was no reason to be bitter about something there was no hope of ever changing. He was always going to be in the childish form that he was in now; he might as well look to the good side of life. Like the way he could stick his hand through the small gap in the couch to retrieve things that fell through, that was good. But was it good enough? No!

He bit his lip with his right fang, indenting the rose-tinted flesh that looked as mortal as any mortal’s, even though it wasn’t really.

That was something that absolutely infuriated him. Here he was able to change the way that he looked to make himself appear a normal child, even though he never would be. Yet he couldn’t do what should have been the easiest thing, the thing that every other living thing on earth could do with effortless ease. He couldn’t grow up.

It was like the story of Alice in Wonderland. She wished for a change, a chance to go to her own personal world, but when she got there it turned out to be a nightmare she had to fight to wake up from. Lianndra had wished for something great, and he had gotten it, only he had gotten a little more than he had expected or really even wanted.

He was immortal, but… he was trapped in the body of a supposedly helpless child. Most of the things he wished he could do, he couldn’t, because he was too "young." Here he was almost two hundred and twenty-two, and he couldn’t even vote or drive a car. Life really was a bitch, and he wished she’d leave him alone.

He needed to get away from his thoughts before it was too late.

"What’s keeping Michelle? Didn’t she hear us drive up?" he demanded impatiently.

Sally looked up from the TV. "She’s always doing this. Unless you call her down specifically, she doesn’t pay attention to anything. It’s like she’s deaf or something."

Lianndra looked at the woman for one long, thoughtful moment, then turned and headed for the stairs and the room he knew belonged to Michelle. As he climbed, he heard the popcorn popping sound that came from fingers quickly moving over a computer keyboard. She was writing again, something she always did and probably always would do. Pushing her passion into a computer screen, opening herself up for anyone to see.

He heard the slight pause in the tapping as she heard his footsteps climbing up, then the typing resumed. He figured she thought that if someone visiting wanted to see her, they would know to knock, otherwise it was none of her business what they were doing.

He knocked on her door, listening to the way she stopped typing and her chair squeaked as she adjusted her weight on it. "Yes? Who’s there?"

He smiled to himself. "Pizza delivery with a delicious onion and pinto bean special."

He heard her laugh softly. "Come on in, Mr. Pizza Man," she called.

When he opened the door and peered around it, he found her grinning at him from where she was sitting in front of her desk. The glow of the computer screen reflected off her glasses, making it hard to see her eyes. "Lianndra, I didn’t think you would come so fast. The mailman must be quicker than I thought he was."

"You mean mailperson. ‘Mailman’ is an outdated form of address," he said.

Her lips twisted wryly. "Well excuse me ‘Mr. Eighteenth Century Vampire.’ Hey, did you watch Forever Knight? You know, the show about the vampire police officer that lives among humans?"

"You mean the guy that has managed to give the identity of most of his vampire friends away?" he said. "The guy that managed to keep the true vampire existence secret for several hundred years, only to suddenly reveal all to the police? That show? Yeah, I’ve seen it, just not today.

"You know what I can never understand? Why can’t these shows be more like real life? I mean, here we are living amongst you being worshipped as modern day deities, yet in the movies we’re always portrayed as horrible beast-like creatures that never have any money. What is with those writer people? Don’t they think we could make a few dollars over an eternity of life? Haven’t they ever heard of stocks and bonds?

"Plus, why can’t they understand that we’re everywhere and are into everything? Not to mention the fact that if vampire hunters really wiped us out, the world would probably stop running? Think about it: most of the decisions that are made today are backed by vampires. The government is run by vampires that control mortal thought.

"O-kay," she drew the word out as she looked at him as if he were crazy, as if she were wondering if there was someone she should call to get him his medicine.

"Never mind, I’m just in a bit of a mood tonight," Lianndra said, shaking his head to try and clear some of the garbage from his brain. "So, what’s this I hear about you becoming an antisocial brat that doesn’t want to be seen with her family? Are you becoming a teenager?" He said "teenager" as if it were some dread disease that no one wished to catch.

She laughed and shook her head. "No way! Would I do that to you? You know I’ll always be your Michelle-baby, the chick with enough wick to get your pipe lit." She lowered her voice seductively, giving her words double meaning.

He laughed and hurried across the room to give her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. He might not have enjoyed being touched by strange mortals, but Michelle definitely was not one of those. She was his friend, someone he had known since she was a baby. Her grandfather was one of his friends for God’s sake. They had known each other for an extremely long time, and they would always be friends, no matter what.

Sometimes he had trouble comprehending her sense of humor, but that was easily remedied with a bit of time spent around her "basking in her glow", as she liked to say.

There was something so appealing about being around such a free spirit, as if some of that freedom would rub off on him and lighten the load of responsibilities that he carried around with him from night to night. It felt good to be around someone that was truly young and didn’t just look like she was.

Being a vampire did have a few things wrong with it, like the fact that after awhile everyone gets a little jaded about what they see from day to day. They also get a bit blasé about the things they themselves do as well.

No matter how old a being is, they have no right to shrug off someone’s death without a thought. Being truly evil still didn’t mean that human beings should be classified as just another form of insect. If a person were truly evil, they would at least enjoy the sensations inherent with taking a life. There shouldn’t be just a sort of blank curiosity. That wasn’t right. Not right at all.

He sighed. There were quite a few things about the world that weren’t right. One of which was facing him right now.

Though she tried to be just as carefree as she had once been, there was a sort of darkness about Michelle that had never been there before; an aura of gloom that hung heavy about her head. As if something had happened to her, something so traumatic that it had wiped away all but the memory of the girl who used to be and replaced that girl with someone totally emotionless. Someone that was dead inside--someone that knew they were dead inside and either didn’t care, or couldn’t do anything about it.

"Are you all right?" Lianndra asked on a more serious note.

She smiled a bright, false smile. "Sure, why wouldn’t I be? My mom told you that there’s something wrong with me, didn’t she? Well, don’t worry about it, I’m just a little tired, that’s all."

He examined her closely, expressionlessly, as if silently asking, "Why try to fool me? There’s no way a kid like you could ever kid a kidder, so why are you trying to put a snow job over on me?"

She seemed to sense what he was thinking, because she flushed bright red and looked away from him, trying to seek some kind of mental escape. If she could have slid into a coma on a whim, she already would have been there.

"What happened to you? What changed?" he asked bluntly.

"What are you talking about? Nothing--nothing’s happened. Everything’s fine," she said, innocently puzzled, as if it were normal for her to be going off half-cocked.

He might have been fooled by her act, except he saw the glint in her eye. She was hiding behind a mask of everything’s-all-right. He would play along for now, but he would have answers, and soon.

"Oh no, I’ve reached the mid-teens, between childhood and adulthood. Who would have ever thought this day would come? After this comes middle-age, it’s a well-know fact, don’t you know," she said, laughing.

He smiled in reply. Even though he knew what she was doing, he was unable to help being charmed by her naïve mortal attempt at humor. "That’s all right, I’ve got you beat. I’m close to my mid-two hundreds. Believe me, after the first fifty years, time seems to just fly right by."

She made a face. "Asshole. Why do you always have to be such a smart-ass, and so late at night too. You know that my mind isn’t really all there. I feel like I’m falling off my feet."

"Another late night and early morning?" he asked wickedly, giving her a lecherous smirk.

She mock-scowled at him. "Sometimes I just want to smack you, then I remember that you’re a vampire."

"Afraid of me, are you?" He quirked a brow and preened.

She laughed and shook her head. "Nope, it’s just that all you vampire types have incredibly hard heads. I don’t want to hurt my hand."

"Bitch," he said with a smile.

She grinned. "Meow."

He smiled, looking at her as she sat there, the lamp giving her face the look of something out of a painting, a being of both light and dark, half her face hidden behind shadow. Her eyes burned with the passion of her convictions behind her thin-framed glasses. Her hands were the hands of an artist preparing to commit the ultimate act in order to create her art.

She had told him a faintly amusing anecdote about her hands once. While she was at the grocery store buying gum, an old man had looked at her hands and mistaken her for a famous pianist that had been visiting Washington that month. She had thought it was particularly funny, considering the fact that she was practically tone deaf and couldn’t have learned the piano if her life depended on it--she’d already tried. Still, even though she would never be able to pound out Chopin, she had the hands of a pianist always ready to play.

There was something beautiful about a fledgling artist. All of the talent and raw conviction was there, but there was no trace of the failure, cynicism, or pain that came later in their career. When they are young, they are young, children pretending to be grownups; but when they are old, that is all they are.

Children carry all of the hope of the world around with them, even if they don’t know it. When they are young there is always the promise of them being able to be anything that they want to be. There is an air about them that says they can be anything, can do anything and most of all that they can beat all of the odds and do the impossible.

Artists are like children for all of their careers. They carry all of the hopes and dreams, all of the promise of what they might do. And sometimes, like children, they get sidetracked and end up doing something entirely different from what they are expected to do. When an artist turns away from their art, it is like a child turning away from the dreams of childhood for the responsibilities of adulthood. There is something so touchingly innocent about a true artist, something that called to him--maybe because he wore the body of a child himself. He was never going to become old, and he was drawn to spirits that somehow fulfilled him.

And this young girl before him drew him to her like none other. There was so much raw talent there, so many hopes and dreams, yet at the same time there was something dark. It was almost as if her talent had been corrupted, as if she had come into contact with something that had changed her forever, something that had made her a little wiser than she should be for her age. Even that momentary darkness called to him.

"What has happened? Tell me truthfully," he said, all traces of a smile wiped away by the worry and dread that hung over him like a dark cloud.

She looked at him in momentary silence, then shook her head. "It’s bad news, terrible in fact. That vampire I wrote to you about? You know, the one that was preying on my friend? Well, I’ve been having some pretty weird dreams, and he’s in them.

"He wants me, Lianndra, he wants to kill me. I can feel the way he’s yearning out toward me, and I don’t know what to do. It’s so powerful that I know that there’s no way I could possibly fight it. He’s just too damn strong. I’m sorry I’ve let you down, I didn’t mean to, it’s just that there’s no way for me to fight him. No way at all."

He looked at her as she sat there, her computer blinking unnoticed behind her, the lines of script like black worms wriggling across the page. There was something that was so stomach turning and horrible about a man taking advantage of a girl whose only crime was that she had been born in a certain family. One that happened to have close ties with a certain vampire boy.

"Don’t worry," he said, crossing to stand behind her and putting his arms around her trembling shoulders. "I’ll take care of everything. He won’t be bothering you anymore, not when I’m done with him."

She turned in his embrace and clutched at the front of his shirt, drawing him close to her own warmth. She didn’t seem to even care about the coolness of his flesh and the way it almost sucked the heat right out of her own thin body.

He noticed that she had lost weight since the last time he had seen her. Before she had been a little bit overweight, not enough to be called fat and to be made fun of, just enough that she wore really long shirts to cover the roundness of her butt and the little bit of a bulge at her belly.

Now, with that slight bit of baby fat wiped away, she looked good, almost beautiful, and probably would have been beautiful if she wasn’t so intense. Her eyes were too fierce to ever let her be anything so placid and uncomplicated as merely beautiful.

From her Asian blood she had received chocolate brown almond-shaped eyes and long dark hair. From her Caucasian blood she had received a pale complexion that was heightened by the lack of everyday sun in Washington and a mouth that could turn from pouty to mischievous in an instant. Without the baby fat she was eye-catching, someone that made men stop in the street to stare at her; someone that should never have to stay home on a Saturday.

Yet she was still Michelle Shimoto, which meant that she was smart and knew what she wanted and how to get it. This meant that she was willing to miss parties and hanging out with friends so that she could fulfill her destiny and the work that drove her. But the call of Magnus distracted her from her goals, which was why she had called on Lianndra. She wanted him to rid her of the annoyance that was keeping her from her stories. She wanted him to fight and kill Magnus, the Dark Stalker.

He knew that he would face Magnus, but what he didn’t know was if he could defeat him. Still, he couldn’t tell her that he was afraid. He had to be strong so that she and everyone else could sleep well at night without worrying about waking up to the scarred face of death hanging over them. He knew what needed to be done, and he would do it.

"Don’t worry," he said again, relieving some of his own fear by embracing her tightly; not so tight as to hurt her fragile mortal body, but tight enough that he himself felt comforted. "Soon he won’t be able to Call you anymore," he assured her, rubbing his face in her soft, brown, mortal hair.

That was another difference between mortals and vampires. Their hair was different, not just in color, but in texture as well. Ethereal beauty also meant easy to manage, which meant vampire hair was so soft that it was like the wings of a dove, only better and without lice and mites.

To a vampire, mortal hair is rough and coarse, a bit like the difference to a mortal between human hair and a horse’s. So even as it comforted him to rub his face in Michelle’s hair, the roughness of it as it brushed against his face was a little like someone rubbing steel wool against their cheek. It was a little uncomfortable, but it was bearable, for as long as it needed to be done.

"Thank you for coming," she said softly, her hand rising to clasp his where it rested against the beat at her throat.

She was probably the only living mortal that wouldn’t be afraid to let a vampire get that close to her. It was rather refreshing really. There was something so charming about one’s food coming up without either fear or disgust.

He gave her one last squeeze, then pulled away. "I’m sorry, but I really must go now. I have to find a certain person that I know, and then I have to track down Magnus before it’s too late. Just remember that I’m here for you and that pretty soon Magnus won’t be bothering you any more." Left unsaid was the reason that Magnus wouldn’t be bothering her. Either Lianndra would kill Magnus, or Magnus would kill him; in either circumstance, the Dark Stalker would have no reason to bother Michelle or her family and friends ever again.

Michelle nodded, her lips a tight line, as if she knew that he was hiding something from her and just really did not want to know what that something was.

Leaving Michelle’s house, he had to wonder how everything would end. Would he beat Magnus, or would Magnus beat him? Then there was the question of whether he had the gumption and inner strength needed to face Tispith herself; she was rather powerful after all. One does not go up against a demigoddess without thinking things through very carefully, especially without questioning the intelligence of the whole madcap venture.

CHRIS

The whole idea of Lianndra facing a guy that kicked his ass before made Chris want to shudder and hide under the bed. If the guy scared Lianndra, then that meant he would be like a gnat to the man. He wasn’t exactly scared out of his mind, but he was pretty close to it. What if Lianndra lost? It was a horrifying thought, particularly if Magnus decided that Chris and Dezi were flies to be swatted. They would be like mosquitoes on a hot summer night--all over the place.

What was with all of the bug similes? Why did he have bugs on his mind all of a sudden? Maybe it was because he sort of wished he were a pill bug right now so he could roll up and hide away where he couldn’t be hurt.

Deep down he knew that he was still the scared little boy that had run to his friends for protection. And even though he had a practically indestructible body now, he still carried the fear of death around inside him. He didn’t want to die, especially with all of those deaths on his mind.

Five friends had died for him, and he himself had killed twelve people when he had Hungered. He carried seventeen lives on his soul and they weighed down on him heavily.

Now his only friends in the whole world were afraid, and he knew he had a reason to be scared too. Lianndra was his teacher and Dezi was his lover and both of them were older than he had ever imagined that he might be.

He knew that they had given him the chance for eternity, and all he had to do was follow them into the darkness where they would kill the Queen of the Vampires and her strongest minions, the Dark Stalker and the Dragon.

Things like these made Chris want to hide his head in the sand. Why did life always have to be so damned hard? It was almost as if being immortal tripled the affect that life usually had, making living that much harder. It just wasn’t fair. Then again, the fact that he was immortal and the rest of the world wasn’t, was pretty unfair too. So maybe everything just sort of balanced out. He hoped so.

They left the Shimotos’ and climbed back into the limo to drive toward points unknown to both Chris and Dezi. But the house they drove up to was huge, not to mention incredibly beautiful and fairytale like.

The mansion was situated directly in the middle of six hundred and ninety-eight acres of land. The grass that surrounded it looked freshly mowed, and the trees that were carefully planted here and there in little groupings that offered the best shade possible were all carefully clipped and shaped without even a single leaf out of order, and no leaves covering the ground beneath them.

In the distance, Chris could see the vague shape of a barn with the minute movements that signified horses stabled inside. Other than that, there were no other signs of animal life. It was almost as if all of the birds, mice, cats, dogs, raccoons and other creatures had been scared off. As if there was something here that kept them away, a kind of animal repellent.

Since becoming a vampire he had noticed that he had the power to sense when animals and people were nearby. He could literally hear the beats of their hearts from miles away. It was kind of cool, but right now it was giving him the willies because it told him that there was no animal life within a mile of this land in any direction and that the only living things nearby were mortals--frightened mortals--and horses.

What could scare both animals and humans so badly?

Just then, the silence was broken by horrible and drawn-out screams of anguish and pain. A shiver ran down his spine at the sound and he felt his eyes go wide and dilated as he tried, through both walls and darkness, to see what was happening.

"What’s that?" he asked, a slight, almost-imperceptible tremor in his voice. That was one of the added bonuses about being a vampire--it was easier to lie and hide the things that he felt.

Dezi moved in close against his side and pitched her voice low. "That’s Felicienne enjoying her morning snack. Just be very careful when we get in there, okay? Felicienne Chronos is not the kind of person that you want to mess around with. She’ll snap your neck like a twig and laugh while she’s doing it."

Lianndra chuckled darkly from where he stood half-in and half-out of the shadows. "Don’t worry, Dezi’s just trying to scare you. It is true that Felicienne has been known to have a bit of a temper when she’s angered, but that’s mostly taken out on mortals. Since you’re with me, you’re safe. She wouldn’t dare lay a finger on you." He flipped his midnight hair back over his forehead with one hand in a gesture that seemed odd on the small figure of a child. Looking at Lianndra in his disguise as a regular boy, Chris had to admit that the differences were startling.

The dark hair detracted from his normal otherworldliness, allowing Chris to almost believe that Lianndra was mortal, just another little boy. Then he was reminded of what Lianndra really was by the way he acted, the little mannerisms that he had that showed how much of a child he was not. There was something adult-like about him, a quality that did not belong in childhood and never had. He was a man crammed down into a small, delicate body.

Chris gave another shiver. Things were getting very strange. One minute he was in Lianndra’s apartment living the good life of a vampire’s dependent, and the next he was off on a wild adventure, the end result being either the death of a horrible and powerful vampire or his own death. There wasn’t much choice in there for someone that was a newly Made vampire and didn’t quite know whether they really wanted to get involved with things like this. Still, Lianndra and Dezi had accepted him and he had to repay them for all of the things that they had done for him. So it was almost as if he had to go with them to face Magnus, no matter that he wanted to run away.

He couldn’t help but to feel slightly relieved that he had never met Magnus before. He thought that if he had met the vampire before, he wouldn’t have been following Lianndra directly into danger. He would most likely be hiding under his bed at home. There was only so much one could do for a friend.

Another nerve-tearing scream reminded him that there were some things no friend should make another person do. He didn’t think that he really wanted to meet this Felicienne woman. There was just something a little too scary about the idea that someone might "have a bit of a temper," but that there was no reason to worry about it. Right. That was just a little too suspiciously like what the spider said to the fly to get it to come into its’ lair.

"Wow, she must be really pissed," Dezi said calmly. The very calmness of her tone relaxed Chris slightly. He figured that if she wasn’t really afraid, there was no reason that he should be freaking out. There was plenty of time for that later. Still, there was something a little troubling about all of this. Even a vampire can get scared.

Just then the front door of the large mansion opened and a figure dressed all in black stepped out. Looking at her, his breath caught in his throat and his heart seemed to stutter.

She had long black hair and bright green eyes that shone like a cat’s in the darkness, a stunning crystalline green that made him think of jewels in a crown of stars. They were stupendously beautiful eyes framed in night dark lashes that had just a hint of silver at their tips.

She could have been as beautiful as Dezi. The only thing that kept her from it was the fact that Chris loved Dezi and this rather frightening woman was someone he thought he might not want to meet alone in a dark alley. There was something that was both seductively beautiful and horrifying about her. She had the same kind of beauty that a black widow spider has or a poisonous snake.

She strolled over to where they stood, a frown creasing her face with displeasure. She was not happy to see them and she saw no reason not to show it. Her high, arched brows lowered as she looked first at Chris, then Dezi and finally Lianndra. When she looked at Lianndra, her frown became ferociously angry. Her eyes flamed with an inner fire as she gave a wordless growl of pure rage.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded harshly, looking only at Lianndra, as if the other two weren’t even there, or if they were, they didn’t even exist to her.

Lianndra strode ahead of Dezi and Chris to confront her. "Why do you think we’re here? You think that I wouldn’t have found out about Magnus living in Poulsbo? You think that I couldn’t find you, even after all this time?"

She clenched her hands into fists. "Dammit Lianndra, I came all the way to this backwater of a state to get away from you. I’ve made my own life here and I don’t want you to interfere with that, do you understand? Leave and never come back. I’m telling you this as a former ‘associate,’ and as someone that once cared for you."

Chris was a little puzzled about that one. What the hell was she talking about? "Associate?"

Lianndra seemed to know what she meant, because he walked straight up to her until only about an inch separated them. She quickly backed away with him following closely. It was almost funny: the small boy facing down the young woman that looked to be about three feet taller than him. The woman had to be at least six and a half feet tall, willowy and impossibly strong.

The only thing that kept Chris from laughing was the look on both of their faces. They were both deadly serious, as if this was a situation that could erupt at any moment.

He had no idea what was going on, but he knew that he had better keep his mouth shut and get a clue. There were things buzzing around that he had no part in, but that would involve him anyway. He had to keep a close watch on what was going on, especially if he wanted to get out of this whole thing alive.