“There were always those who rebelled,” Maggie said. “Those who would kill indiscriminately, wantonly, cruelly.”

“And those who don’t accept the fact that we are in the twenty-first century, and there are alternatives, so many alternatives!” Sean said.

“Sean wrote the book, Jordan, and Jade, who has a small publishing company, will get it out in the market. Because there is a danger, and has always been a danger. Only in the last few years, because of science and the media, has a clearer line been drawn between those of us who see ourselves merely as predators, and those of us who long for simple survival,” Lucian said.

After two drinks, large portions of straight whiskey, Jordan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This had to be a masquerade, a charade, an entertainment Here she was in New Orleans with a cop and his publisher and God knew exactly who else and what else. Even after all she had seen, all she knew . .

.

“So, you are the king,” she said, looking at Lucian. She stared at Ragnor. “Then what exactly is your role in all this?”

“Ragnor is the enforcer,” Lucian said softly. “He was born the seventh son of the seventh son, and his father had a tremendous strength and power, passed down.”

“And your father, then, was the wolf, which made you Wolf’s son?”

“I enforce the decisions we make,” he said.

“The enforcer,” she repeated, then grew angry with herself. She was beginning to sound like a parrot. “It was you,” she said coldly, “at the contessa’s ball. The wolf.”

“You shouldn’t have been there.”

“You’ve been the fucking wolf I’ve seen, in the streets at night.”

“It’s a matter of thought, and what’s in the mind,” he said. “It’s what is seen by the eyes, a trick of light, or matter. Yes, I’ve been there. Guarding your room by the window, before you invited me in.”

“So you do have to invite a vampire in?”

“I thought you’d read the book,” Sean said.

“The contessa was after you?in a personal vendetta,” Ragnor explained. “I had been watching her, through the city. I knew that she and her followers intended to strike the night of her ball.. . I just hadn’t realized quite how large her cult had grown, what she had done. What they had done.”

“They?”

“Nari is never alone,” Lucian said. “Throughout time, she has searched out the most depraved companions.”

“You shouldn’t have been there, not in the section of the ball where you were,” Ragnor told her. “Even with the belief that she’s a predator, and like a lioness, entitled to the hunt and kill for the simple reason of her being, she’s not usually stupid. She likes a fine and elegant lifestyle, and that can only be achieved when you’re accepted in your chosen community. So to hunt, for her feasts of this type, she seeks out foreigners without relatives in the country. The poor, the lost, prostitutes, known crooks, drug dealers, murderers, and more. The disappearance of a bad seed is seldom researched too diligently; a dead prostitute merely brings about a belief that she asked for what she got.”

“So you decided to save me from the carnage,” Jordan murmured. “How lucky for me.”

“I went back,” he told her coldly.

“You knew it was going to happen; you let all those people die.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. I had just discovered that she had escaped, and I was afraid that she was with someone in Venice, someone with a greater power than her own.”

“Escaped?from where?”

Ragnor glanced at Lucian, who replied, “She had been entombed in a lead coffin at the bottom of the Adriatic for two hundred years. Somehow, she escaped.”

“If she’s a horrible creature,” Jordan said, “Why don’t you stop her?and then stop the others?” Ragnor shook his head. “Nari herself is being used?yes, she’s a horrible creature. But without her, we’ll lose the power behind her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You would have believed all this?”

“I saw all this!”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t just walk into an office of the Venetian police and convince them that Nari was a vampire. I have the ability to kill Nari, yes?”

“Except that it’s against the ancient rules,” Jordan interrupted. “But I just saw you attack a man, sever his head?”

“He attacked me,” Ragnor said, glancing at Lucian and shrugging. “Our old order has fallen into a certain chaos. So we have changed the rules. But at first, I thought that you had wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time. I was afraid that you would put yourself into continued danger by insisting that something be done. But that wasn’t the case at all. You were meant to be there; it was planned that you should be there. Either way, I had to try to follow Nari until I found out who was really behind what was going on.”

“What do you mean, it was planned that I should be there?”

“Your cousin Jared set you up. Why, I don’t know. But he is under Nari’s influence.” She felt a chill. “Jared is my closest living relative. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Normally, no. But that’s not the case now,” Ragnor told her.

She stared into his eyes. “Why should I believe you? Why should I trust you now, when you lied to me.

When you let. . . Tiff is dead. I did see her body. Then I saw you.” He shook his head with aggravation. “Yes, you saw me. I’ve spent days dogging your path, trying to follow without others knowing I was there. You must understand?Nari never works alone. There’s someone more powerful behind her, and strong enough now that I haven’t been able to find out who.

Between them, they’ve created a powerful network.”

“So, you were using me as bait,” she said.

“At first, yes,” he admitted.

She sat back, having expected him to deny the words. “How can you be here? Can you travel the Atlantic by ‘thought’?”

“I was on your plane.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I was in your room when you pulled up reservations on the Internet.”

“And you think that Jared is evil, but so far, you haven’t destroyed him?” The silence that followed startled her, and scared her deeply. Maggie cleared her throat and tried to explain. “There are different things that can happen,” she murmured. “If a person is drained of their blood and dies, they’ll turn?unless the body is decapitated or destroyed right away. Then there’s a blood ...

taking. Bit by bit. Sometimes the infection, or whatever you would call it, can be cured then. Blood transfusions can save lives; other factors may enter in. When a vampire chooses to have obedience from a victim, blood is taken very slowly. Then the victim belongs to the vampire, perhaps doing things he might not do normally. Like Jared.”

“Jared has been bleeding Cindy,” Ragnor said matter-of-factly. “And surely, you know that I’m telling you the truth.”

“You’re not going to destroy my cousin,” Jordan told Ragnor. “I read a great deal of Sean’s book. I’ll destroy you before I’ll let you get anywhere near Jared.”

“As long as Jared lives, there is a possibility that he can be wrested from Nari,” Maggie said, causing both men to stare at her.

“You will not harm my cousin. I?I have holy water,” she warned. Of course, she didn’t really. Not now.

Her purse was back in the rental car. She hadn’t thought to go back after watching Ragnor take the head of the shadow creature.

Her threat didn’t seem to faze anyone.

She turned on Ragnor again. “You let Tiff die!” she accused him.

He shook his head. “I had no idea Nari would go after Tiff,” he said softly. “I was busy watching you.”

“What about Roberto Capo?”

“Roberto Capo is fine. Or he was fine, when I left. I hadn’t realized I’d be leaving Venice so abruptly.”

“Why did you follow me, since you knew I was coming here?”

“I knew they’d be following you as well.”

“How?”

“It’s the computer age,” Ragnor said, aggravated. “And there are those throughout the world who are with us?and those who are not. Don’t you understand? All it would take would be one E-mail, and a killer could be waiting for you at the airport. A killer was waiting for you at the airport. Everything has changed in the last few years. Sides have been drawn. Nari and her group have defied all the ancient rules; they have been creating their own followers. They are weak, and foolish, and they haven’t taken the time to learn anything. They die easily. But Nari doesn’t care about that?her creations are all expendable. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.”

“I saw him?I saw him that night under the arches.”

“Yes, and he knew something was wrong, so he was warning you the best he could. Nari, and her most recent companion, have created a following in Venice. Like the fellow I killed on the road. I stayed behind long enough to see that Capo was safe, then came following after you as quickly as I could. Capo is really sick?he has a terrible flu.”

She kept staring at him. “If all of this is going on, and the rest of you are really such good people, why weren’t you in Venice?”

“Nari isn’t the only danger out there,” Lucian said.

“If it had been Nari alone, I could have dealt with her the night of her ball,” Ragnor said. “What’s important here is that you’ve been targeted. Why and by whom, we have yet to understand. We need your help.”

“I don’t know any vampires,” she told him angrily. “I’ve never had people ripped up in front of me before.”

“You do know about vampires, at the least,” Sean said.