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Da It wasn&039;tTall, narrow Too fes, and fire escapes with huge sections ly red bricks looked ready to crumble The security was nonexistent It wasn&039;t a slu here
She ca down at his black car He shivered a little when she leaned on the iron rail The da probably wasn&039;t in any better shape than the rest of the place After that he saw her part the curtains a few ti to see if he was still there Almost as if she expected him to leave
Maybe she&039;d be better off if he did
Da himself to believe he&039;d killed those other wonore the possibility, either He didn&039;t knohether this change in his hunger was nore He didn&039;t know if others had killed without even being aware of it Was so like that possible?
He thu wheel as the questions tors blinked off one by one as this less-than-elite section of Arista went to sleep
He wished now that he hadn&039;t avoided all contact with others of his kind, wished there were sos, and about this DPI, whatever it was, and the ht to know As far as he are, he was the oldest of any of theht to have the answers, but daht of the letters he&039;d received from the one who called himself a scientist, Eric Marquand If anyone could shed so, curiousfor help The very thought of contacting Marquand made him squirm with unease He&039;d existed alone, in a vacuu now His only emotional ties were the safe ones he felt with his crowds of fans When they stood and cheered for him it was almost as if tiain, a beloved king, basking in the unconditional love and loyalty of his people It was the adoration of those crowds that had driven him to perform all these years AThe audiences gave hih to sustain him It was the only love allowed into his solitary life, and it was enough It had to be enough
He shook his head slowly No, he&039;d try to solve this thing on his own He&039;d only use Eric Marquand and his studies of the undead as a last resort And in the meanti to her
A job that would be a lot easier if only he could listen to her ain sent a bolt of phantoh his te who he was He ought to use every tool he had to solve this puzzle, to keep her safe
He braced hian to lower his defenses to allow the myriad vibrations outside to filter into his mind He consciously kept a thin veil in place and focused all his energy on her, putting her ie firmly in his mind&039;s eye He tried to attune his senses to hers, to feel what she felt
For an instant the rush of sensations surrounded hiainst the bombardment and concentrated harder Gradually, the intensity eased, quieted, lightened He sifted, searched, sent his mind out in search of hers
She wasn&039;t in the aparter Alar a rear exit A parking lot
Da around the building He saw her there, her feet and legs bare and cold in the autuown that shimmered like silk, but wasn&039;t, and her hair was pulled up into a bushy blond ponytail that bounced wildly as she ran over the pave men crouched at the door of a primer brown Corvette that had to be as old as Shannon was One of the hed She never slowed her pace The thief started toward her and lifted his hand Da as he did that he couldn&039;t reach her in ti down, no doubt about to crush her skull
But Shannon&039;s s the tire iron&039;s descent Her knee jarunted loud, doubled over The tire iron clanked to the broken pavement Damien froze for a shocked instant as Shannon spun backward, s him flat on his back It happened in two clicks of a second hand
The second un frohts on her, she kicked it out of his hand, sending it sailing in an arc and then skittering across the pave a fist at her, but she ducked, and when she straightened, she brandished the tire iron the other one had dropped
He held his hands up in front of hi away "Okay, lady Okay, you win" As Da helped his partner to his feet, and the two ran into the darkness He heard their rubber soles slapping They didn&039;t go far, though
He gripped Shannon&039;s arht?"
She nodded, but didn&039;t say anything, still trying to catch her breath Damien turned to look at the unpainted car and shook his head He was going to blast her for risking her life over a hunk of scrappulled back His head went up, and his piercing night vision showed hi it at Shannon
Da hiht He felt Shannon hit the ground hard underneath hih him
Anthar watched as he alatched--witness to every breath the pagan drew--and smiled slowly to himself The bastard The insolent, blasphemous bastard Damien the Eternal Whatever he called hione, vanquished, destroyed by his own hand Conquered by his own es whose s the wo fools, yes But at least one of them had fired his weapon at her And the heathen had thrown himself in front of the bullet
Finally, after endlesssoul Anthar had waited so long, tried so often to hurt him this way But Damien kept to himself, cared for no one Not even the women he took on occasion, while Anthar watched from the shadows, his presence so carefully cloaked even Damien couldn&039;t sense hiently, so careful not to harutless worm! So tenderly he would use them that Anthar would beco there But alas, none ever came When those women had died, Da
Da torment!
Ah, but this tiAnthar needed to hurt hi way possible
But he must proceed with caution
Damn, but it wouldn&039;t do to take the bitch too soon He had to test Daain He had to be sure the oldest immortal alive would feel the ultimate pain, shame, remorse He had to be sure
Another test was in order
They were gone He heard the Damien&039;s body lay heavily on top of Shannon&039;s She was on her back He was angled across her chest, his head near her left shoulder
"They&039;re gone," she said, and shoved at hiet offout here like soer, anyway I can take care of my" She&039;d pressed her hands to his shoulders to h his shirt He felt the shock that passed through her body She sucked in a coarse breath "Damien?"
He moved, but slowly It hurt to do it He sat up, and she ju over him His white shirt was stained crimson He pressed one hand to the front of his shoulder and tried to stand
Shannon bent to help hi hione and got yourself shot What&039;s theon &039;s back entrance, pulling hiiddy with relief that he&039;d knocked her out of the way in ti toward your head Was I supposed to stand there and let them shoot you?"
"Yes!" She reached out to open the door, then held it with her hip while she helped hi to bleed to death"
He was not going to bleed to death Actually, the wound was ,pain His shoulder still screas he did know about his kind was that sensitivity to pain--to any physical stith and psychic powers did As for the tendency to bleed dry, it didn&039;t concern him too much He could keep pressure on the wound until dawn It wasn&039;t bleeding all that badly It would heal with the regenerative sleep Any injury would
What did concern him, besides the pain in his shoulder, was the feel of her sht to her side as they entered the elevator, the urgency in her eyes when she looked up at him Her smell Her warmth
"You&039;re pale Did it bleed "
She narrowed her eyes and stared at the spot where he pressed his hand to the wound "It&039;s not nothing--it&039;s a bullet We&039;ll call an ambulance from the apartment"
He shook his head, but studied her deterth in it "Why did you rush out there in your nightgown, Shannon? Why risk your life, when calling the police would have been just as good?"
"What&039;re you, kidding ot here Do you kno long and hard I work just to keep up the payments on that car?"
"Corvettes don&039;t come cheap" Not even primer-coated ones whose rust spots had been sanded off, he supposed
The doors slid open She tightened her grip on him and started into the hall "Not just a Corvette A 1962 Stingray, ine that would blow your black Jag&039;s doors off"
He smiled He couldn&039;t help it, and the pain didn&039;t stop it "Your drea-lutely Nobody messes with my car"
"I&039;ll keep that in mind"
She stopped outside her apartment door and pushed it open She hadn&039;t locked it and that bothered him almost as much as the hole in his shoulder, but he refrained fro on it He&039;d seen firsthand why she kept insisting she could take care of herself She hadn&039;t done half-badly at it
She pulled hio of him until she&039;d eased him onto the sofa And when she did, he felt the absence of her touch like another wound in his flesh She hurried back to the door, locked it So she wasn&039;t co Then she knelt in front of him and reached up to tear the sleeve away from his shirt She tried to push his hand aside so she could look at the wound
"It&039;s barely a scratch" He kept his hand where it was
"That&039;s a lot of blood for a scratch, Damien"
"I&039;m a heavy bleeder I&039;ll be fine"
She scowled at him "Hey, you jumped in front of a bullet for me The least I can do is take a look at it" She reached for the shoulder again
He ducked her hand "Oh? Then you&039;re adhtened, propping her fists on her hips "Yeah, for what it&039;s worth, you probably did"
"At no s, but tilted her head to one side "Well?"
"All right Okay, I&039;ll give you that much So what&039;s your point?"
"That I&039;ot to his feet, not waiting for her reply, and walked to the bathroom He was a bit weaker than usual, a response to the a he&039;d had the presence of ht away It wouldn&039;t take much to incapacitate an immortal as old as he was
He closed the door behind him One place he did not want to spar with Shannon Mallory was in her bathroom, where h he&039;d locked her out It was in the still-da over the shower-curtain rod And in the clothes she&039;d been wearing earlier in a little heap on the floor And in the scent she favored Subtle Not floral or fruity More enticing than that Herbal Like exotic incense or soed with it
He opened the cabinet and tried to put her out of hisso to the wound to staunch the blood flow until dawn He&039;d sit with his hand on it for the next few hours if necessary, but he&039;d prefer not to There A roll of gauze Soold strands catching the light and glowing at him It was like a halo around her, that hair of hers Like soel hair," Netty had called it
Da about her!
He peeled the shirt away fro it so he didn&039;t have to ease the pressure on the wound He tossed the ragged, blood-spattered white garment into her wastebasket One-handed, he wrestled the little cardboard box open and duauze pads into the sink