As soon as night fell o'er the landscape and granted its dark grace upon the good earth, Darius dematerialized from his modest abode and took form on the shore by the ocean with Tohrment. The "cottage" the symphath had described was in fact a stone manse of some size and distinction. There were candles lit inside, but as Darius and his protege tarried amid an outcropping of foliage, there were no overt signs of life: No figures walked past the windows. No dogs barked a warning. No scents from the kitchen wing wafted on the cool, calm breeze.

There was, however, a horse turned out in the field and a carriage by the barn.

As well as a crushing sense of foreboding.

"A symphath is therein," Darius murmured as his eyes probed not just the visible, but the shadowed.

There was no way to know whether there was more than one sin-eater within the walls, as it took only a single of them to create the barricade of fear. And no way to ken whether it was the symphath they sought.

At least, not as long as they stayed on the periphery.

Darius closed his eyes and let his senses penetrate what they were able of the scene afore him, his instincts beyond that of sight and hearing focusing to ascertain danger.

Verily, there were times when he trusted what he knew to be true more than what he beheld.

Yes, he could feel something inside. There was frantic movement within the stone walls.

The symphath knew they were here.

Darius nodded at Tohrment and the two of them took a chance and tried to dematerialize into the living room.

Metal embedded in the masonry itself prevented them penetrating the stout walls and they were forced to re- form at the house's cold flank. Undeterred, Darius lifted his leather-covered elbow and smashed the leaded glass of a window; then he gripped the dividers and pulled out the frame. Tossing it aside, he gusted in with Tohrment, becoming corporeal in the living room--

Just in time to catch a flash of red ducking through an internal door down toward the back of the house. In silent accord, he and Tohrment took off in pursuit, reaching the exit that had been taken as the pins of the lock were turning.

Copper mechanism. Which meant there was no moving it mentally.

"Stand aside," Tohrment said as he leveled the muzzle of his gun.

Darius briefly stepped clear as a shot rang out, and then he shoulder- rushed the door, forcing it wide.

The stairs down below were dark except for a jostling, ever-fading light.

They descended the stone steps with pounding boots and sprinted over the packed-dirt floor, running after the lantern... and the scent of vampire blood that was in the air.

Urgency thundered in Darius's veins, wrath warring with desperation. He wanted the female back... Dearest Virgin Scribe, how she must have suffered--

There was a slamming sound and then the underground tunnel went pitch-black.

Without losing his stride, Darius powered onward, putting his hand out against the walling to keep straight on his path. Tight on his heels, Tohrment was with him in pursuit, and the echoes of their clamoring boots helped Darius determine the termination of the passageway. He pulled up short just in time, using his hands to locate the latch on the door.

Which the symphath hadn't taken the time to lock behind himself.

Ripping open the heavy wooden panels, Darius got a deep lungful of fresh air and caught sight of the jangling lantern up ahead, across the grasses.

Dematerializing and re-forming up close, he caught the symphath male and the vampire female next to the barn, blocking their escape such that the abductor was forced to halt.

With shaking hands, the sin-eater held a knife to his captive's throat.

"I shall kill her!" he screamed. "I shall kill her!"

Up against him, the female didn't struggle, didn't try to pull away, didn't beg to be saved or set free. She just stared ahead, her haunted eyes listless in her bleak face. Indeed, there was no paler skin to behold than that of the dead by moonlight. And verily, the daughter of Sampsone might have possessed a beating heart betwixt her ribs, but her soul had passed away.

"Let her go," Darius commanded. "Let her go and we shall let you live."

"Never! She is mine!"

The symphath 's eyes glowed red, his evil lineage shining in the night, and yet his youth and his panic evidently rendered him incapable of using his race's most powerful weapon: Although Darius braced himself for a mental onslaught, an invasion of his cranium did not ensue from the sin- eater.

"Let her go," Darius repeated, "and we shall not kill you."

"I have mated with her! Do you hear me! Mated with her!"

As Tohrment leveled his gun right at the male, Darius was impressed by how calm he was. First time in the field, captive situation, symphath... and the boy was right in the midst without being consumed by the drama.

With deliberate composure, Darius continued trying to reason with their opponent, noting with vicious anger the way the female's nightgown was stained. "If you release her--"

"There is nothing you can give me worth more than her!"

Tohrment's low voice broke through the tension. "If you let her go, I won't shoot you in the head."

It was a good enough threat, Darius supposed. But of course, Tohrment wasn't going to fire the weapon--too much risk to the female in the event his aim was off by even a fraction.

The symphath began walking back toward the barn, dragging the vampire with him. "I shall slice her open--"

"If she's so precious to you," Darius said, "how could you bear the loss?"

"Better she die with me than--"

Boom!

As the gun went off, Darius shouted and jumped forward, even though he couldn't possibly catch Tohrment's bullet with his hands.

"What have you done!" he hollered as the symphath and the female landed in a heap.

Racing over the grass and then falling to his knees, Darius prayed that she had not been hit. With his heart in his throat, he reached out to roll the male off of her....

As the young symphath flopped over onto his back, he stared in blind fixation at the heavens, a perfectly round, black hole in the center of his forehead.

"Dearest Virgin Scribe..." Darius breathed. "What a shot."

Tohrment knelt down. "I wouldn't have pulled the trigger if I hadn't been sure."

They both leaned toward the female. She too was staring at the galaxy above, her pale eyes locked and unblinking.

Had her throat been cut after all?

Darius rifled through her frothy, once-white nightdress. There was blood on it, some of which had dried, some of which was fresh.

The tear that spilled forth from her eye twinkled silver in the moonlight.

"You are saved," Darius said. "You are safe. Be not afraid. Be not of sorrow."

As her pale stare shifted over to meet his own, her despair was as cold as a winter wind and just as isolating.

"We shall take you back from whence you came," Darius vowed. "Your family shall--"

Her voice was nothing more than a croak out of her throat. "You should have shot me instead of him."

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