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The final test It would be definitive After this there would be no question as to Damien&039;s fondness for the delicate mortal woman
Anthar had allowed himself no contact with her He&039;d kept his mind utterly isolated from her, just as he knew his nemesis had wished to do It would never do for Anthar to develop a soft spot for her She was a pawn Her purpose was toe to protect her And if he had, he&039;d have ignored it The fuel that powered his actions was eance He&039;d been obsessed with the downfall of this oneti to interfere
And the test he&039;d devised this time would tell him all he needed to know He&039;d use an element that could spell destruction for any immortal Da pain of a bullet to save his mortal pet He&039;d risk his very existence this time, or watch her die If he should try and fail to save her, well, that would only add to his torment If he should not try at all, then Anthar would know he hadn&039;t cared
It was all so siht, with the first layer of darkness on the autu her sleep very soundly
The story was riveting
She hadn&039;t wanted interruption She&039;d turned on the answering machine and refused to answer the door, even when theiry CIA Spock by the name of Bachman She had no idea why he didn&039;t just break in Maybe he really believed she wasn&039;t here
Didn&039;t matter She had no ti to decide whether Damien Namtar could possibly, in her wildest dreams, be a cold-blooded murderer Or maybe he was just completely insane Multiple personalities, perhaps, and maybe one of those personalities was a vampire
After he&039;d left, she&039;d tried to sleep, couldn&039;t Countless scenarios popped into herThe result being that when she finally did sleep, she hadn&039;t awoken until noon She was beginning to keep some pretty vampiric hours herself
When she did finally rouse herself, he was on her ain, from the second she opened her eyes The only conclusion she&039;d reached was that she just didn&039;t know enough about the ment call And she&039;d decided then and there to read this book, cover to cover To try to see as in here that moved him so deeply, and maybe find a clue to what made him tick
And now she knew, and itand the man who becaa man, fierce in coht of as half otten how to feel compassion for his people
Enkidu was raised on the steppe, aht of him as half man, half animal But he came into the ancient city of Uruk one day and deliberately stood right in Gilgaht, and the description of the battle was ht she&039;d ever read:
They fell like wolves
at each other&039;s throats,
like bulls bellowing,
and horses gasping for breath
crushing the gate they fell against
The dry dust billowed in the s raced
in and out between their legs
A child screamed at their feet
that danced the dance of life
which hovers close to death
And quiet suddenly fell on theamesh stood still
exhausted He turned to Enkidu, who leaned
against his shoulder and looked into his eyes
And saw hiah
And clutched each other in their breathless exaltation
A lump formed in her throat as she read on The two had been inseparable froether, how they were two parts of a single whole And how, finally, Enkidu had slowly died as his friend looked on, helpless to save hi, and that surprised her She hadn&039;t expected writers fro earlier than 4000 BC to be so expressive She blinked back tears as she read another passage, aloud, just to savor the beauty of it as it described Gilgarief
"The word Enkidu
roah empty lairs
in search of food The only nourishrief, endless in its hidden source
Shannon stood very still, knowing exactly how the rief when Tawny had died She still felt it She had to wait a few minutes before she could read further Her tears blurred her vision, but she had to finish
Engrossed, she read on Gilgareat ruler but an ordinary man who&039;d lost his andered in the desert, perhaps a little insane, in search of the secret to eternal life He beca that secret ho Enkidu back to life A mission that was doomed to fail
By the time Shannon closed the book, there were s at her breastbone She brushed her eyes dry, shook her head and tried to focus on her reason for reading this heartbreaking tale in the first place To understand Damien
Of course He said he&039;d lost his best friend God, he&039;d even described their closeness in a way that amesh and Enkidu in the ancient tale No wonder he identified with it And with her It was as though so connected the three of them
But what did thatthe cover, and paced the length of her living rooain Could Damien be a killer? A man as moved to tears by a story thousands of years old? A s more deeply than any man she&039;d ever met? He couldn&039;t even let her kill a little field mouse, for God&039;s sake
All her life she&039;d been taught, over and over again, not to trust anyone Not anyone So why did she so stubbornly persist in wan ting to trust hi look at hersteamy soak in a scented bath
She&039;d never been with a man, had never wanted to be
Until lately Lately, she&039;d caught herself thinking about itif there was a chance it could actually be as wonderful as Tawny used to always tell her it could be And she had to be brutally honest and adhts No wonder, really He was such a sexual creature
It was getting dark outside He&039;d be here soon, to stand guard over her for the night She really ought to get out of the water and dress What would he do, she wondered, if she kissed hi to find out
Was she?
She felt a peculiar lethargy stealing over her body as she soaked An unnatural kind of exhaustion, as if she&039;d popped a sleeping pill or soht maybe she&039;d like to find out after all Hell, she had nothing to lose, and why not experience everything she was curious about before her life ended?
God, she was tired Her eyes drooped and her body sank a little lower in the water She dragged herself out of the tub and pulled on a robe Was it this da her so sleepy? She&039;d already dozed half the day Whatever, it was irresistible She shuffled to bed, wet hair and all
It wasn&039;t the s at her, breaking the night with its whistling pitch She was half-dressed before she s her senses, little by little, so she wasn&039;t certain for a ht be , and
She pulled on the jeans she&039;d left on the floor, since they ithin reach She was hopping into the living rooed them up, snapped them, yanked on the zipper She was headed for the door, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the wispy gray fingers reaching toward her fro She took another step and felt a deep terror twist to life in her soul She pressed her palh her teeth and yank thee across her heart She fought it, tried to use her mind She whirled in a circle, then dashed across the roo for the bathroom She jerked at the tub&039;s faucet and du on it up and down until it was soaked, then hauled it out, dripping and cold, and carried it back to the door
The smoke seeped steadily beneath it now, and she duht to the crack under the door Then she watched The sh of relief that she kneasn&039;t called for escaped her lips anyway She ran to the phone, picked it up and jiggled the cutoff Dead Her throat went dry She licked her lips, standing in the roo slowly in a full circle What could she do? She enty-three stories up and her only way out was through a door she knew better than to open What in the name of God could she possibly do?
She went to the bedrooht She saw their orange glow dancing upward frohts of rescue vehicles bathing the crowd that had gathered below She saw people in their nightclothes, wandering like bugs God, how had she slept through all of this? And she saw the huge gap where the fire escape ought to be She would be down there soon, being led around by those fire fighters like the bug people were Just as soon as they put the fire out and came for her She would She only needed to keep her head
She went to the closet, opened it and picked up her worn-out baseball bat She hurried back to the bedroom, and theshattered with the first ih away to avoid the flying glass She iined they were They&039;d expect s to be smashed by the ones still trapped
Trapped
She bit her lip, and tore her gaze away froht sky She went back to the living rooues of fla froo out there No haven there
She returned to the bathroom, stoppered the tub and let more water rush into it Cool water And then she filled a dishpan, carried it into the living room and hurled the water at the hot door The paint on the inside was blistering now The s its way around the blanket The next dishpanful hit, spattered, splashed back on her face
She threw another blanket into the water, this one to wrap herself in should she need it
What else? What else?
Her heartbeat escalated when she realized she eating The te The floors God, the bottoh the floors
Calain Let thenal
She tied several sheets together, taking her ti there was nothing to do but wait When she glanced up, she saw a layer of sot down from the bed to sit on the hot floor She tied the end of her sheet banner to the bedpost and tossed the rest out the
They&039;d see the white flag in the night They&039;d co Her chest hurt
It&039;s the s so ain, to the overflowing tub, but she didn&039;t turn the water off She took a clean washcloth, wet it and held it to her face She swiped at her burning eyes, but when she opened theone The tub spluttered to a stop She held the cloth over her nose and mouth to filter the air, but she choked anyway She pawed for the tub, dragged the wet blanket froue She dropped to her knees and crawled froht behind her
The explosion ca brands rained on her like shrapnel, and a blinding wall of flame stood where the door used to be She crawled faster, on knees only, coughing, clutching the washcloth to her face with one hand and pulling the soaked blanket with the other She found her way to the bedroo like a pool through her aparth, then closed it and pushed the blanket to the botto racked her now, and with each bout she spas her Killing her She sat on the floor, turning herself slowly, blinking her watering eyes in pitch-darkness to get her bearings The --she wanted to get back to theShe ; choked again, dragging in er screa she as burning a brand into it She yanked it off, threw it away Her hair was soaked in sweat, her skin sizzling with the heat