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Heidi was asleep, and yet

She felt as if she were awake

Awake and

Being seduced By so unknown, that couldn&039;t- shouldn&039;t -be So tainted with an irresistible touch of sin It was as if the covers had been drawn back and a stranger had joined her A knownstranger She felt the air, warainst her flesh as the covers were stripped away She fire against her flesh as his hands teased along her thighs, fingers dancing delicately across her flesh He spread her legs, and she couldn&039;t believe the things he did to her then, the inti taken But, oh, God, the excite in her center, hot, wet

All while she was sleeping

"Let me," came a voice

And she knew she couldn&039;t bear it if she didn&039;t

It was a dream, she told herself, only an erotic dream

More and more intimate as that husky whisper repeated the words "Let meLet mein Let me into you"

She burned Ached Writhed

"Let ainst her flesh

"Yes," she whispered "Yes"

Although Maggie accompanied her, Lauren could tell that the other wo to the library She didn&039;t seem easy with Lauren&039;s research, either But she sat there at a neighboring coly looked up various dates or pieces of information at Lauren&039;s request

Lauren found the process frustratingly slow It seemed that every reference led her to another reference, and another, then finally to a dead end

"HeyI think I found one of Mark&039;s ancestors," she said at last, ski a newspaper article that had been written before the Civil War "&039;Randolph Davidson and son supply regular cavalry&039;" She looked at Maggie with excitement, then went on "Davidson was the owner of Innisfarroup He was apparently quite wealthylook! His son&039;s name was Mark!"

"You know faie said

Lauren kept scrolling through the now-defunct local paper So much of what she read was so sad Lists of the dead and pleas for infor sons Then the man called "Beast" Butler came to New Orleans in 1862, and the city remained under Northern control fro any more information on Mark&039;s ancestors when she was startled to co fro; the war had ended, but not the loss and the bitterness Even so, engage listed She read aloud "&039;Mark Davidson arrives in toith future bride&039; His bride-to-be was na was planned for the bride&039;s hoie "How ridiculous! This is more or less the story Mark told ie stared back at her, then sighed "There&039;s more"

She reached over and scrolled down the screen

"&039;Tragedy strikes again Noble house falls to ie, asn&039;t even looking at the screen as she began to tell the story

"Father and son, and all the family ere still alive after the war, traveled to Kiev On the day of the wedding, Randolph Davidson shot his daughter-in-law in the back with a silver-tipped wooden arrow Katya&039;s fa turned into a boodbath Davidson was killed first It was assuh his body wasn&039;t returned for burial, as the father&039;s was It was a terrible day when Davidson was buried He was put to rest on fa on, the house burned to the ground The land still lies vacant"

Lauren shook her head, staring wide-eyed at Maggie "I don&039;t understand Is Mark suffering from some kind of delusion? Does he think he&039;s this Mark Davidson? And if the father killed Katya why does he claiie said "But he doesn&039;t just think he&039;s that Mark Davidson, he is that Mark Davidson"

"I&039; to anyone here," Lauren said and glanced quickly away, then back at Maggie "I&039;, because I&039;ve known creatures like Stephan before If you don&039;t end this now, you will live in fear all your life Either that, or you can just accept the life he wants for you" Maggie shook her head "I wish the others were here Lucian would be especially helpful"

"Lucian," Lauren said, frowning "Jonas talked about Lucian About co to see Lucian so he could work herefind a hoie went on as if she hadn&039;t heard Lauren, as if her thoughts were elsewhere" It would be great to have Brent here, too" She turned to Lauren then and said, sounding quite sane, "Brent is a olf"

Lauren blinked They were all crazy, including this woie added "The war, you know"

"The Civil War?"

"No, no World War II"

Lauren stared at Maggie "If I&039; meNo, it&039;s just insane That would mean that Mark was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War And that he survived the battles and Reconstruction, and in eighteen-seventy he irl nairl from Russia Buthis father, not Stephan, went mad and killed her, and soie looked uncomfortable "You really need to talk to hi the Civil War?" Lauren de

"You&039;re telling me that you were"

"Please, Lauren, talk to Mark"

Lauren suddenly felt as if she had to escape Sitting in the library, surrounded students and retirees busy at the co for books, and mothers with their children, she felt as if she alone had entered a world of insanity Vah, but all this

The dream that had haunted her now seemed far too real Had Stephan somehow entered her mind? She wouldn&039;t have come here, to the library, if it hadn&039;t been for the drea Stephan for over a hundred years? Since just after the Civil War?

No, it was impossible

But what if it were real? Then she could understand the build-up of hatred, of his desperate longing to find justice But that still didn&039;t explain why he blamed Stephan, not his father, for Katya&039;s death

She shook her head, as if to clear her mind She really couldn&039;t take anyabout a friend as a olf and had apparently been "ernhanced" in so herself to listen She was too busy obsessing over the possibility that Mark had been around for over a hundred years

She stood up, feeling ill Had Mark been lying to her all along? Evading the truth all along? Had he mistrusted Jonas when he was really no better than the other man?

At least Jonas adry, confused, and thinking there was really only one person she could trust

Herself

"Let&039;s go," she said, hoping her agitation wasn&039;t evident in her voice

"Lauren, please, I wish I kne to convince you that Stephan has to be stopped"

"I do believe he has to be stopped" I just don&039;t knohat else I believe, she thought

Maggie&039;s turned her phone on as they left the library, and seconds later it rang She answered, and Lauren watched her face grow pale

"What is it?"

"We have to get back to the house"

"What&039;s happened?"

"Heidi is gone"

From the mo wasn&039;t right

There were vampires here, that was for certain As the door closed behind theht toward the sound The creature veered slightly, shrieking with pure fury He swung the heavy ha the creature It fell to the floor, stunned His stakes were honed to razor sharpness, and his aim was excellent; he speared it instantly A sasp and disappeared in a puff of dust and grirate; it&039;s skull rolled and crashed into an ar; this ti for Jonas

Jonas cried out and ducked, but he swung as well, replicating Mark&039;s earlier s in air, knock them down, then impale them instantly That seeht across the rooone in places, an d he could see down into the basement below them

"Most of them will be down there," he told Jonas "Hopefully asleep"

Jonas sed hard "Let&039;s go"

They found the stairs Jonas alh a rotten step on the way down, but Mark caught him The basement turned out to be filled with coffins, so "Go for the old ones first," Mark told Jonas

"Shouldn&039;t we do theether?" Jonas asked thickly

"Do you see how many there are?" Mark asked him

"Umyeah"

"No time to partner up" Mark went for what looked to be the oldest coffin and opened it quickly The wo and beautiful, dressed in an elegant gown that spoke of a long-ago time in a distant place She had becouessed

"My God," Jonas breathed froel can&039;t be a creature of evil"

Mark stared at him

The woman&039;s eyes suddenly popped open, and she stared at them in shock and fury Her lips curled back as she hissed out a terrible sound of hatred

"Shit!" Jonas said

"You should know," Mark told him harshly

He lifted his stake over her heart just as she started to h He haain, but this time no sound came Instead, blood spilled out She had feasted quite recently She began to change, her beautiful face turning skeletal, and then she was soot

Mark heard a rustling in the next coffin and turned on Jonas "Damn you, move!"

Jonas sed and came to life

"The old ones Go for the older ones first," Mark reminded him, then headed for the coffin where he&039;d heard the rustling When he swung it open, the dignified and elderly Edwardian varowled, never let out sobut a puff of black

Mark began to move more quickly After a moment he heard Jonas let out a ht He was stranding over an open coffin, his features twisted into a grih," he rated his teeth with i up"

While he was speaking, he was hastilyflipping open lids,By the time they reached the last two coffins, the vampires were out and ready for battle Jonas let out a cry of surprise when one caught hold of his shoulders and prepared to cannibalize him

Mark drew out his water pistol of holy water

The creature, struck, let out a cry like the Wicked Witch of the East Mark shot again, but by then Jonas had gathered both his wits and his strength He turned, his stake dripping blood fro creature

Mark dealt with the last vampire the sa

"All right," he told Jonas "Go back now Wherever the head is still attached, well, you knohat to do"

As they continued to work, Jonas asked, "How the hell is anyone ever going to explain this?"

"That&039;s Sean Canady&039;s department," Mark said "Apparently, he&039;s handled situations like this before"

"Oh, God," Jonas ross"

Mark stepped back, playing his light around the room They had taken care of every coffin in the place and destroyed at least forty of the deadly creatures, but so

"I don&039;t kno he does it," he said

"What?" Jonas asked absently, working on the last corpse, "a juicy one," as he called the younger vampires

"This placeit&039;s a decoy," Mark said "These were Stephan&039;s sacrifices" He stared at Jonas "He wanted us to find this place-wanted me to find it"

"Why?" Jonas asked

Innocently? Mark wondered

"So he could be busy elsewhere," Mark said angrily, and turned toward the stairs He had to get back to Montresse House as quickly as possible

No sooner had Maggie hung up than Lauren&039;s cell She didn&039;t recognize the voice at first

"Don&039;t speak to anyone I don&039;t knohere you are or who you &039;re with, but you have to come to me now Do you understand?"

It was Susan, the fortune-teller, she realized

"No," she said harshly

She could hear a note of misery in the woman&039;s voice Like a sob But was it real?

"I&039;er," the woman said "He has Heidi And he says he&039;ll kill her, and that her death will be on your head"

Maggie was staring at her questioningly

"It&039;s nothing," Lauren lied

"Coe sound A sound of pain, Lauren thought

Don&039;t do anything stupid, don&039;t act insanely, she warned herself

It was as if Stephan knehat she was thinking and was using Susan to et help,him down But Stephan wants to know if that will really matter, because, if you don&039;t come now, Heidi will definitely be dead"

How the hell had he gotten to Heidi?

She remembered her own dream He had that power He could enter the , just a call froain, a whisper this tiive him what he wants You-"

Susan&039;s voice suddenly broke off in a chilling, gasping sound Lauren realized that Maggie was still staring at her and knew she couldn&039;t let her face betray her fear

"You sure nothing&039;s wrong?" Maggie asked

Lauren covered the phone "A client&039;s are not happy with a project, that&039;s all," she said, then returned her attention to the call