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Sean Canady had taken the call while he was standing on the sidewalk on Conti Street, having just otten safely into their cottage

"Canady here," he said

"It&039;s Bobby, Lieutenant We&039;ve got trouble"

"Go on"

"We have another floater"

Sean&039;s heart sank, and he swore silently "Where?"

Bobby gave him the coordinates He was thankful to hear that they weren&039;t in the heart of the city

"Send a car for ave his exact location

"Yessir"

"Bobby?"

"Yeah?"

Sean paused "Headless?"

"Yeah, Lieutenant Headless"

"Don&039;t scream Please, don&039;t scream I swear to God, I have no desire to hurt you, I&039;h her ed from her own doorway

She should screaree, but theto scream bloody murder

His eyes seemed so sincere And he was definitely a powerfulher somewhere else, he could have done it easily

Screahout history had died because they had listened to the words don&039;t screahter of a cop, for God&039;s sake

"Please, if you&039;ll just listen to ain You just have to listen to er you&039;re in"

Actually, I want you to touch me, even if you look at me and think of Katie, even if I&039;m not quite sure whether you&039;re sane or not

Bad thought

But when he eased his hand away froers at hi Despite her promise to herself, she didn&039;t scream

"The cops know all about you," she warned

"So about"

"They know you&039;re staying here"

"Please" He didn&039;t touch her, though she could tell he wanted to "Come next door For ten minutes And you can leave any ti to screae with hier, she tried to reassure herself The cottages were sether If she screamed, someone would hear her

Wouldn&039;t they?

"If you still think I&039; to what I have to say, I swearI&039;ll leave you alone"

"I could have you arrested," she lied

"Your lives are worth the risk"

He sounded so sincere

She knew that the voice in her head telling her to just say no was right Sure, she was attracted to the man, attracted in a way she had never believed she could feel again In his presence, she felt as if her every sense was heightened, but that was a stupid reason to trust him And yet

"This better be quick," she said brusquely "Wait here I&039; to lock the door"

And to her amazement, she calmly went for her key, then made sure that the door was locked behind when she exited the cottage, this time of her own volition He led the twenty feet or so to his own cottage and opened his door, ushering her in

She took a deep breath as she walked through the doorway

Had she just signed her own death warrant?

The cottage was like her oith a bedrooe, the sofa bed in the living room was made up Here, it remained a sofa She took a seat on the chair that faced the sofa She was not going to let hi to drink?"

"No You said you want to talk to me, so talk"

He sat on the couch opposite her, a coffee table between theht and held hers

"You know the danger is real A headless body was found floating in the Mississippi"

"It&039;s hard to miss the newspaper reports," she replied

"And I told you, I knoho the killer is"

I should be suspecting that it&039;s you, she thought But somehow she couldn&039;t believe that If she had, surely she couldn&039;t-wouldn&039;t-have calht not be entirely sane, but he was entirely sincere

"How can you be so certain?" she asked hiesting what he had said, then asked carefully, "And you&039;re certain that what you&039;re telling me isreal?"

"Stephan Delansky is very real," he told her quietly "I&039;ve come here because I ca here With an army"

"An army?" she queried "Who is Stephan Delansky?"

"An old eneo I took a trip to Kiev, in the Ukraine I met a woman there Katya"

"The one I remind you of"

"Yes," he said very softly, then took a deep breath "I&039;inally After I met Katya, she came back here with me I was head over heels, and so was Katya Katie, I called her We were going to go back there to getreat castles over there But while ere still here, she thought she kept seeing an old friend of hers-Stephan I saw her speaking to hiested she introduce us, but he had no interest inBut before it could take place, Katie was dead Because of Stephan"

His voice wasIt touched her in some deep core over which she had no control She wanted to listen to him, wanted to believe hi that maybe the pain of his loss had made him delusional She knehat it was like to deny the truth, to go through the fury, the agony and then the dull acceptance of loss

Maybe he hadn&039;t come quite so far

"Did he shoot her? Stab her? What?" Lauren asked softly

His head lowered for a minute She was tempted to reach out To touch the lush darkness of his hair

He looked up at her again, straight in the eye

"Stephan is a va that she hadn&039;t heard hi that she had

"I see," she said But the only thing she saas that he was delusional It was so sad The first ht want to at least have a relationship again, ain

A relationship?

OK, sex

She told herself that she needed to get a grip She had never been the type to indulge in casual sex

Except there was nothing casual about thishim talk with complete seriousness about the existence of vaht-rich darkness of his hair

He shook his head, the curve of his s

"I know you don&039;t believe me But I know your cop, the one who showed up at the bar,, the one who followed you here His name&039;s Lieutenant Sean Canady I ith hi blankly at him

"I needed to see the body"

"The headless woht scared the hell out of her

"Yes"

"Let ht Lieutenant Canady, a police officer, took you in with him to see the corpse of a crime victim?"

"He did You can ask him"

There was a note of absolute truth in his tone She knew that Canady really had taken him in to see the corpse

Great The cops were crazy, too

He lifted a hand "Please, hear me out The cops aren&039;t insane any more than I am But this is New Orleans Voodoo central They&039;re aware of all kinds of cultists and weird practices going on here"

"Sure," she et out of here He had sworn he wouldn&039;t stop her All she had to do was stand up and leave

But she didn&039;t

"And when you saw the body?"

"Even though she had been beheaded, you could still see the marks"

"Theas if she needed to run as fast as she could, but fascinated by the conversation despite herself

Wishing desperately that

That they weren&039;t having this conversation at all

"All right," she said "Let&039;s go back to ent on tonight at the bar Deanna considers thatto beat hiht Stephan was the vampire?"

"Stephan is one vampire, a very old one Very powerful He can influence people around him, command respect" He let out a sound of derision "Just like a cult leader," he said quietly "I think Stephan has come here with an army of vampires And I&039;m convinced he knows you&039;re here"

"And he&039;s after me because I look like Katie?"

"I don&039;t know if he&039;d been in love with her, after her, for years, or if having her simply became a matter of pride, an obsession, for hiht-even for a split second-that you were Katie, I can promise you that Stephan would have reacted exactly the same way"

She ht, soso if Stephan wants me, why is Jonas after Deanna?"

"I had hoped to find that out tonight Deanna is beautiful Any man would notice her in a crowd Maybe that&039;s all it is Perhaps Jonas, having seen her, just wants her for himself Or maybe Stephan has decided to pick off your friends one by one to get to you, so he&039;s ordered Jonas to go after Deanna And of course Stephan knows I&039;m in the area now, as well"

"How does he know that?"

Mark looked grirounds I know that, too"

"You&039;ve seen him?"

"I&039;vesh Lauren She should be laughing

No, she should leave Should have left ten ain, she si in his words, a cal He spoke with such an element of truthor true belief, at least

She sat still for a moment, then leaned forward and said, "Mark I knohat it&039;s like to lose soed myself My fiance was in the er over there, but so terrible will happen to someone you love He was a pilot, and his plane went down I tried for months to believe it was a lie, a mistake, that it was someone elsebut then his body carief, you know Denial, fury, guiltI&039;m sure it hurt terribly to lose Katie I know there were days when I thought I&039;d lost my mind Seriously, I&039;m a pacifist, but I wanted to nuke half the world"

He shook his head, dark lashes shielding his eyes Then he offered her his rueful grin, the one that et closer to him

"I have no desire to hurt anyone other than Stephan-and his kind"

"As in vampires"

He hesitated "As in his kind," he repeated

She lifted her hands "What do you want me to do?" she asked

"Let me protect you"

"You want to follow us around?"

"Yes"

She rose, thinking that she very seriously needed to get away froain At the sa with hi his voice All she wanted was for this to be a norh with him She wanted to be pulled into his armsto explore the dream

"I have to think about this," she told hio to the police in theand report me as a lunatic, and you want to put your life in the hands of the authorities But they can&039;t help you I&039;m not sure the police can even help themselves"

"Look, I&039;ht now I don&039;t knohat I think" She started for the door but turned back "And I&039;m not Katie"

He shook his head "I know that You&039;re very different, entirely yourself" There was a husky tone in his voice, and she couldn&039;t help the very sexual ih she knew that she had to be bordering on insanity to even be considering a relationship with him

She realized that she had needed to know he realized she was different, her oory with herself becasuse it was so important She didn&039;t intend to be a substitute for any other woman, so if

If she did wind up in bed with hi, he clearly wasn&039;t right in the head

"So why the interest in me?" she demanded harshly Too harshly

"Because you&039;re remarkable," he told her

Suddenly it was all too ht wake up, and they&039;ll panic if I&039;ht was suddenly broken by a bloodcurdling scream

The sound of helicopters over water practically deafened Sean

Without that, and the sounds of the work force gathering, it ht on the river Though he couldn&039;t hear the nearby, and there was actually a breeze off the water, carrying with it the scent of nolias If he closed his eyes

He would still hear the helicopters and the shouting all around hirisly find; they were now huddled on the embankment, wrapped in blankets, pale and scared Sean knew they&039;d had nothing to do with the murder, and he called for a couple of officers to take theuy is one sick fuck," so He knew the guy wasn&039;t sick at all Wasn&039;t demented He was demonic And smart Sean knew he had to keep the situation under control, keep local cops thinking there was a run-of-the-ed killer on the loose

"I don&039;t want her touched until Mordock gets here," he said, nodding to Bobby, ould see that his as carried out as law

He walked down closer to the water, knowing it would give hiuy waseveryjust enough hints to throw the cops on the wrong track Du the water would wash away so many clues

"Lieutenant? Mordock is here," Bobby called

Sean strode back to the body He looked down He&039;d never becoht for it He cared for its people

But the dead girl didn&039;t even seem real No head Her skin sickly white, her flesh swollen from immersion

Mordock looked up at him "I&039;ll know more after the autopsy," he said

"What do you kno?"

"Dead two to four days, er"

"Decapitated before or after death?" Sean asked, but he already knew the answer

"After"

One of the cops standing nearby crossed himself "Thank God for that," he muttered Then he turned around and walked away Sean could hear hi

"Drained of blood?" Sean asked wearily

"You bet," Mordock said He looked at Sean "Do we have another va," Sean said "Excuseand tough and fast, but Lauren still beat hi

A shape