We were back in the tunnel.

I wasn't shivering, although I should have been. Then again, I should have been dead somewhere deep inside that tunnel system, too. But I wasn't, of course.

The freak lives on.

Allison crowded me eagerly, her mind still closed off to me. Did she know her mind was closed off to me? I didn't know, but would talk to her about it later.

Kingsley, admittedly, took up most of the tunnel. A ceiling that I had thought was high actually got brushed by his big head.

The satchel sat dripping on a rock before us. The bag itself had been leather at some point, but was now black and seemed to be deteriorating with each passing minute.

Perhaps it had been held together by alchemical means.

Waiting just for me.

Perhaps.

I looked at my friends. Kingsley nodded. Allison's eyes were alight with an inner fire. Then I began opening the bag. And by the time I'd done so, the material irreparably fell away in tatters.

Revealing a single coin.

Not a coin, actually. A golden medallion inlaid with three opal roses. It caught the light of Allison's silly flashlight app, refracting it beautifully.

That such a medallion was presently in me was hard to fathom. That my son had consumed one in a potion was another hard reality to accept. That a demented entity was bent on releasing his trapped sister within me, was, of course, the hardest to believe of all.

But it was all true.

Every bit of it.

Further proof that I was undoubtedly in an insane asylum, far away from here, rambling to myself incoherently while nurses and staff stared at me sadly.

Perhaps, perhaps not.

For now, I was standing in a mostly- dry cave, staring down at the third of four priceless medallions. Priceless, that is, to me and my kind.

The vampire kind.

"Well, now we know why the others couldn't find the medallion," said Kingsley. "It was meant for you to find, Sam." He held my gaze. "You and only you."

I nodded. Of that I had no doubt.

Except how and why Archibald Maximus knew I would be here 100 years later was, of course, the greater mystery.

"The first medallion reversed your son's vampirism," said Kingsley.

"Mostly," I said.

He nodded. He knew all about my son.

No, we hadn't been romantic over these past few months, but we had kept in touch, and I had consulted with him on Anthony's growing powers.

"And the second one..." he began.

"The second helps me exist in daylight."

"So, one has to wonder," said Kingsley. "What will the third one do?"

"A good question," said Allison, who had remained silent up until now. "But one that must, sadly, go answered."

I turned to her, frowning. God, she'd been acting so weird...

And then I saw it...what had been a miniscule black thread, so tiny that it had gone unnoticed by me, quickly swelled before my eyes. I had a brief image of a garden hose coming to life, engorged with water, swelling, thickening.

The black, ethereal ropes encircled her aura, weaving in and out. Lariats of death. It was as if Satan himself had lassoed my friend.

Her dark eyes, once beautiful and full of sweet mischief, now shone with fear - even while her lips curled into a Cheshire cat-like smile, the corners of her lips pushing up deeply into her rounded cheekbones.

"Is your, um, friend okay?" asked Kingsley.

"She's fine," answered Allison, in a voice I now recognized, its inflection similar to what had come from Edwin and Tara. And now from Allison. "She's just sort of taking, let's say, a temporary back seat."

"Sam..." said Kingsley, now facing Allison. "What the devil is going on?"

"He's here," I said. "In Allison, except I don't..."

"You don't understand how, Samantha Moon? Perhaps some things you aren't meant to understand, my dear. But let's just say this: your friend was right, she is indeed distantly related to the Thurman clan."

I grabbed the medallion and backed away. I had no idea what the entity within could do, what sort of powers it possessed. But if it was truly a highly evolved dark master then it might be capable of anything.

"There is no escape, Samantha Moon,"

said Allison. Or, rather, said the entity within her.

I looked at the hulking Kingsley next to me. "I like our chances," I said.

"Surely you wouldn't hurt your friend, Samantha Moon," it said. Tears appeared in Allison's horror-filled eyes, and poured down her cheeks.

"Just give me the medallion, Samantha Moon, and I will release your friend."

"Don't do it, Sam," said Kingsley.

"Or would you prefer to watch your friend drown herself in the ocean? Or, even better, bite off her own tongue and bleed to death in front of you?"

Allison's eyes widened, and I might have - might have - detected her shaking her head no. She was fighting the entity, I was sure of it, and one thing I was also sure of: she didn't want me to give it the medallion. I suspected I knew her reasoning: for now, the entity needed her alive. For now, she was safe.

"Why do you want my son?" I asked suddenly.

"I think you know why we want your son, Samantha Moon."

I took a threatening step toward Allison - my sweet and silly friend Allison. The entity only grinned broader, which seemed impossible to do, but it somehow managed to pull the corners of her lips even higher up. Tears continued pouring from Allison's pleading eyes.

"Would you like to strike me, Samantha? If so, I strongly encourage it."

The entity turned Allison's face toward me and chuckled lightly. "As the good book says, turn thy other cheek and all that."

"You're evil."

"I am motivated, Samantha, by that which is important to me."

"You want to release your sister," I said. "From me."

"That, my dear, is a very, very strong motivation."

"And you need the four medallions to do it."

It nodded, raising Allison's eyebrows.

"I see you have done your homework, Samantha Moon. You never cease to impress us."

"I have one such medallion in me, and my son has the other in him. I'm holding the third. Where is the fourth?"

Allison turned to face me. Kingsley, I noted, had moved close to my side. He was ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

Kingsley might be a womanizing bastard, but he was certainly all hero.

The entity continued regarding me through Allison's eyes. "I see you do not remember, Samantha."

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about..."

"Sssister," hissed Allison. "Speak to her, remind her of what she has seen and forgotten."

I knew instantly of whom he spoke: the female entity within me. His sister. Even as I shuddered, a memory materialized within me, summoned, I suspected, by the dark entity who shared my body.

It was an image of Fang.

I gasped, and Allison grinned.

The image clarified, took on more shape. It was an image of Fang back before I knew he was Fang, back when he was just a flirty bartender. He always gave me and my sister so much attention - and now I knew why, of course. He'd stalked me, relentlessly. He'd also fallen in love with me. So many emotions with Fang: from anger to love to everything in between.

The image clarified further...the longish teeth that hung from his chain...teeth that I had once falsely assumed were shark teeth. They weren't, of course. They were his teeth, pulled cruelly in an insane asylum...pulled from his very mouth.

The image clarified further still. It was Fang smiling broadly at me and my sister, leaning an elbow on the scarred counter at Hero's in Fullerton.

There was something on his chest.

Just behind the fangs that hung from the leather strap.

Was it a tattoo?

No.

The image clarified further, coming into even sharper focus.

It was a circular-shaped pendant hanging from his neck. But I hadn't recognized it because it had been flipped over, revealing only its golden backside.

The fourth medallion?

"Fang," I whispered.

Allison grinned broadly, even as her eyes pleaded for me to help her. "Ah, sssister. I see she remembers now. The fourth medallion is, in fact, not very far at all."

"Sam..." said Kingsley next to me, pulling me out of my reverie. "Sam, you might want to see this..."

I blinked and looked to where he was pointing.

Through the cave opening, I saw people coming. Slowly, deliberately, plodding through the sand along the beach.

Toward the cave. Toward us.

I recognized them all.

The Thurmans. From the very old, to the very young, a dozen of them or more.

Sweet Jesus.

I snapped my head around and looked at Allison. The entity within her tilted her head slightly. "We are legion, Samantha Moon, and we will have the medallion - all of the medallions."
    
 

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