Garreth drove with frustration and urgency hissing through him. Unlike a scent trail, the bond tug told him only Raven’s general direction, not which turns the Mercedes took. It pulled him off Ward Parkway into a residential area. After that it left him in a maze. The streets curved between big houses in big yards that always seemed between him the direction he needed to go. While the sun reddened and flattened on the horizon. With every blocked passage, every loop away from the tug, his nerves wound tighter. He cursed more passionately. He dared not underestimate Ice. Had Raven met him yet? Had they had their confrontation or was he too late for it? Would he feel it if she died?
Then as he felt the sun sliding over the horizon, the tug pulled from beyond a closed iron gate and house with a black Mercedes parked on its circular drive.
His rush of relief matched that at any sunset. Now he needed to park. The Porsche fit the neighborhood...except no locals parked on the street.
But he remembered some street parking a little way back, where there appeared to be a party. He turned around and drove back. After pulling in on the closest end, he jogged back to the gate.
It presented no barrier. Landscaping included enough bushes and trees to give him cover to the house. There a stone terrace stretched across the front and halfway back along one side. On the terrace, windows reaching nearly floor to ceiling showed him a living room on one side of the massive front door, and behind it along the terrace, a library. Rich wood paneling, floor to ceiling bookcases, big leather chairs, a massive desk with a tunnel knee hole, a stone fireplace with weapons displayed from the mantle to the open-beam ceiling...cavalry saber, flintlock rifle, dueling pistols, battle axe, Morningstar.
He sucked in his breath. Though he had paid little attention to the setting in his vision with Raven and Ice, recognition rang in him. The confrontation happened here. The fire and ice of adrenalin pumped through him. Triumph. Fear. He can destroy you.
Raven’s cowboy hat sat on a corner of the desk with her glasses folded on the brim. Seconds later Raven herself appeared, pacing from somewhere between the windows to the fireplace and then the desk, hands behind her back with the sling bag swinging from them. Waiting.
Garreth edged up to the window nearest the desk and gritted his teeth against the flare of fire enveloping him. He reached out to rap on the glass.
Only to jump back as the door opened. Peering around the edge of the window, he saw Ice stroll in. His eyes shone red. “Raven. News stories said you were killed at that gas stop. How gratifying to find you weren’t. I confess to being surprised, though, that you aren’t in police custody.”
He sounded, Garreth reflected, like his father...a glossy urbanity just above the frost point.
Raven beamed with childlike pride. “I escaped. It was like something from a movie. I smashed my hospital window and jumped out in a rainstorm in nothing but a hospital gown. Then I had to hide in a mausoleum and steal the clothes from a corpse so I could hitchhike to Des Moines and shoplift better clothes, scam myself some cash, and...come find you.”
Garreth grimaced. Watch yourself! Keep it simple!
“Exactly how did you manage to find me?” Ice reached behind the desk and casually pulled Maggie’s Desert Eagle from a drawer.
Raven started to step backward as he laid it on the desk top, then stopped. She hiked the sling bag to her shoulder. “Well, I tried to think like you. You need good hunting ground so you’d head for a city. I looked around Des Moines for a bit and you weren’t there so the next logical place was Kansas City.”
“Really.” Ice stepped toward her. “You won’t mind if I check you for police wires?”
She gaped at him. “You think I’d lead the cops to you? No way in hell!”
“Oh, of course not.” The red eyes gleamed. “But let’s just check...starting with your brand new bag there.”
She shrugged and held it out. Only to recoil, fact twisting. “Bastard! Lying son of a bitch! You didn’t just lie about your age; you’ve been lying about everything! It’s all fake! You’re no vampire!”
Ice stiffened and stared down at her. “Where did you get a foolish idea like that?”
Almost the scene in his vision! Garreth hurled himself at the window...and smashed into the wall of flame. The glass seared like a hot grill.
Inside Raven hissed, “Because I can smell the blood in you, you stupid bastard!”
“Raven!” Garreth shouted. “Raven!” If only she would shut up, hear him, and call him in!
Instead she kept snarling at Ice. “You’re a bigger fraud than my father’s ever been! He just covered up his past, he didn’t make it up. He doesn’t parade around bragging on himself and pretending to be something high and mighty! And he’s never deliberately tried to hurt anyone. But you damn well enjoy that, don’t you!”
Nor did Ice appear to hear. He had gone dead still, his face congealing into icy fury. His voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s enough.”
“RAVEN!” Garreth tried pounding on the window. His fists never reached the glass. Fire shrieked through him...hissing, searing, consuming.
“Because you can’t stand the truth!” Her lip curled. “Because you want us gullible little runaways to think you’re the biggest frog in the pond when you’re nothing but a fucking phony, while I--”
“RAVEN, NO!”
“--am the real thing!” She stretched her jaws wide, extending her fangs.
His vision, exactly! And having come, the moment filled him with a blast of foreboding. He can destroy you.
Raven dropped her bag to snatch up the gun and aim at Ice. She had to hold it in both hands for a secure grip. “Your games are over, Mitchell Craig Blackburn. You’re father wants your head on a platter and I’m fucking happy to--”
“Sleeping beauty,” Ice said.
Abruptly Raven went slack. She remained on her feet but her eyes closed and her chin and arms dropped.
Ice retrieved the gun from a nerveless hand and returned it to the desk top. Then he walked around her shaking his head. “Well. Well, well.”
Garreth slid back from the window before Ice faced his direction. He barely felt the flames ease. His skin still crawled...with dread now. Being human did not render Ice one bit less dangerous, with Raven helpless. And Garreth Mikaelian, too. He pounded a fist against the stone of the house. Somehow he had to get in!
Inside Ice said, “So there really are vampires? And you managed to meet and become one. I wonder how. Not that it matters. You’ve been a busy little bitch this past week. Turning vampire, learning my name, talking to my father, tracking me here. I’m impressed. You have one thing wrong, though; I’m not a complete fake. I know hypnotism...and I’ve made myself very very good at it. I’m always the best at what I do. You know what can be done with hypnotism?” He bent to Raven’s face. “Anything. Post-hypnotic suggestions, for example--” He pointed at her with hands folded into gun shapes. “--are very useful, as we see. I’m happy the command held despite your...transformation. And you ‘servants’ are so suggestible. Tell you to sleep all night and you do, so I’m free to go have a good meal and pick up a real woman to screw. I can even create virtual reality without a computer...a poker game played with dead men, or turn our hotel room into a bar.” He sneered at her. “You were so proud of the show you put on with that piano man. Sex as a public spectacle was something even Teddy Rivers wouldn’t do. But guess what, it wasn’t public, or much of a spectacle. Any two-bit whore could give me a better ride than that.”
Though she never moved, color surged in Raven’s face.
“You are right about one thing.” He continued circling her. “The games are over. Now I’m going to do Vampire for real. Listen to me, Raven. When I count to three you’ll wake up and when I say: ‘Here’s my throat,’ you will drink from me and bring me across. Do you understand?”
Hope flared in Garreth. Do it! Do it! We can make sure he never revives!
For a moment Raven said nothing, then, in a flat voice: “Yes.”
Ice smiled. “Good girl. One, two, three.”
Raven lifted her head.
Ice sat down on the desk and tilted his head back. “Here’s my throat.”
She ignored it and sprang for the gun again. “Go to--”
His backhand, delivered almost vampire fast, cut her off before she finished the curse or reached the gun, and as it flung her backwards onto the floor, he spat, “Sleeping beauty.”
She went limp.
Garreth smacked the house again. Damn her! What a time to resist Ice’s hypnosis. Damn himself...turning her so far against Ice he lost control.
Ice dragged her up by an arm and flung her in a chair beside the desk. “Sneaky little bitch. Aren’t you full of surprises. Did vampire powers let you resist me? At least the sleep command still works. For the rest, well, I guess I’ll have to encourage voluntary cooperation.”
He left the room.
Garreth pressed back against the window, into the fire. “RAVEN! Can you hear me? Invite me in!”
She never moved. Until Ice returned leading Amber by the hand. Then a tremor ran through her.
Garreth jumped back from the window. The son of a bitch!
Amber stared at Raven. “What’s wrong with her?”
He smiled. “Oh, I’m giving her a time-out. Those cops really twisted her while they had her. We need to heal her. Will you help?”
Amber beamed. “Oh yes.”
Ice stroked her hair. “Do you love me?”
She stared up adoringly. “Oh, yes.”
He put an arm around her. “Do you believe I love you?”
The silky tone chilled Garreth. He stared at the window, clenching his fists. Since no one invited him in, he had to make it on his own. His gut knotted. Could he? The mind rules, Irene said. All he had to do was believe that. Did the mind always rule? Even against the dwelling barrier? She believed in the power of Holy Water and managed to survive touching it.
Inside, Amber answered Ice. “Yes.”
Ice stepped away from her to Raven and leaned down to Raven’s ear, smiling, showing fangs. Garreth heard his whisper. “She loves me. How do you think she’ll feel after I rape her on the desk?”
Raven turned bone white. Garreth ran for the next window, out of Ice’s line of sight, and pressed into the fire, straining for the glass. Surely he could stand a little pain--well, agonizing pain-- long enough to pass through the window. He just had to believe.
“You can save her, “ Ice said. “Say yes.”
Do it! Garreth urged silently. Do what he wants!
Raven, muttered, trembling. Garreth barely made out the words. “Kill you.”
Garreth shoved into the fire. Touched the glass. Pressed into the scalding inferno, teeth gritted. It could not stop him. The mind rules.
“Was that a no?” Still smiling, Ice turned to sweep Amber up and sit her on the edge of the desk. A hand casually pushed her skirt up her thigh.
The fire of the sun seared him. Garreth forged into it. The mind rules.
Raven almost lifted her head. “Bastard.”
This time the other two heard her. Amber frowned in puzzlement. “Don’t you want us to heal you?”
Ice cocked his head. “They really did a job on her. I think she needs a big shock to break free. What do you think of object rape, Raven?” He picked up the Desert Eagle.
Raven bared her teeth and shifted as if trying to stand up.
Amber stared from the gun to Raven to Ice in puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”
“Let me demonstrate.” Ice pulled Amber back flat by the hair and shoved the Eagle’s barrel up between her legs. He pinned her lower legs with his.
Amber screamed.
Push. Believe you can push through the pain. Go, you dumb flatfoot! Now!
Raven snarled and rocked in the chair.
Ice banged Amber’s head on the desk. “Shut up, bitch!” He raised his voice as her scream became a shriek. “This is all Raven’s fault because she won’t give me what I want, and if this gun accidentally goes off, what a big hole it makes. Innocent blood will be on her head.” He smirked over his shoulder at Raven. “We can even make it Biblical, in honor of your father.” His voice went sing-song. “This is Amber’s blood shed for you...unless you take and drink from me in the hope of my resurr--”
Howling, Raven jerked forward out of the chair and flung herself Ice.
Through! Garreth charged Ice, too.
Ice froze in surprise. In that moment Raven chopped the arm holding Amber’s hair. Garreth hauled him backward by his belt, spinning him across the room into the fireplace. The gun flew out of his hand across the carpet. Amber threw herself off the desk, screaming hysterically, and shrank into the knee hole.
Raven started to dive for the gun. “You blasphemous son of a bitch! Let’s see how big a hole this makes in you!”
“No.” Garreth staggered in front of her, cutting her off. The fire had not extinguished with entering. It remained strong as ever, making every movement, every breath, agony. “Leave him to me.” He struggled to talk. “Get Amber out of here. ”
She gaped at him. “How did you get in? No one invit--”
“Go! Now!” He could not fight the pain and deal with three people.
Raven stared hard at him, then pulled the hysterical girl into her arms. Hugging her close, crooning reassurances, she ran for the door.
Ice struggled to sit up. “Sleeping--”
“Not again!” Garreth shouted it to drown Ice’s words.
Ice glared at him. Blood trickled from a graze on his forehead. He had lost a contact lens, leaving him with one eye blood red, the other pale icy blue. Fingering his forehead, he climbed to his feet. “Who the hell are you?”
“The law.” Every breath scorched Garreth’s lungs. “You were half right; Raven led a cop to you.” Ignore the pain. You can bear it. “Though I’m not here in exactly an official capacity.” It surprised him how even his voice sounded with fire scorching him...and the scent of Ice’s blood battering him. A scent, a pull, telling him beyond any hope of mistake, that the albino had drunk his blood, too. Bile rose in Garreth’s throat at the thought of a bond between them. “I’m the officer driving the car you ran off the road.” He picked up the Desert Eagle. “The officer whose partner you killed.”
Ice tensed, staring intently at the gun. “That guy was dead.”
“Not exactly.” Fire raged through Garreth’s bones.
Ice’s gaze rose slowly from the gun...up to Garreth’s face. He sucked in a breath. “You. You’re the one who brought her over.” Light blazed up in the blood and ice eyes. “Bring me over, too.”
His naked lust nauseated Garreth. “Not. A. Chance.”
The lust turned to rage. “I’m right for it! I’m a hunter! I deserve it! I certainly deserve it more than that stupid little cunt!”
The flames of trespass fused with Garreth’s anger into incandescent fury. He aimed at Ice. “Mr. Blackburn, you have a foul mouth. You don’t deserve anything except to die.”
“For what?” Ice lifted his chin. “Encroaching on your territory? For being a mere human who dares to hunt like you do?”
“For being a vicious piece of scum who’s brought everyone nothing but misery and pain. But most of all, for killing my partner.”
Garreth expected him to go defiant or defensive, or show fear, but the albino stared at him blankly. “Why do you care about that? She was only human, wasn’t she?”
The thought he had looking at Ice’s eyes in Alexandria’s photographs came back to Garreth...a man without humanity...without empathy...without a soul.
The searing fire and anger pushed at Garreth to pull the trigger and finish this, so he could leave and end his agony. But he hesitated. Not for squeamishness at murder. Not for law and order. How could he let Ice die without first feeling punished...without suffering some of the pain he caused others?
Only one way to accomplish that occurred to Garreth...humiliating Ice by beating him at the power game. Though it was a game he, Garreth, could just as easily lose. He can destroy you.
He laid the gun on the desk. “You want to come across. You don’t need me for that. By drinking my blood you’re already halfway there, a latent vampire.” Could trespassing kill a vampire? He felt as if he were dying by inches. “ When you die, assuming it isn’t by some method that destroys your nervous system, you’ll reawaken a vampire. The way Raven did.”
The blood eye flared. The ice one glinted. Both narrowed. “How do I know you’re not lying, trying to trick me into killing myself?”
Garreth fought not to double over with the pain, fought to talk, to keep breathing when every breath flamed. “Because you have to know the vampire is in you, just waiting to be born. You have to know so you’ll understand when I tell you that while you can become a vampire...” He lowered his voice, Bradshaw-like. “...you never will be. I won’t let you. You’re so close, just a heartbeat away from undeath and all the power you crave, but whenever you die, wherever, however long I have to wait--time’s nothing to me--I’ll be there to destroy you before you rise again. You took away something I wanted, Maggie Lebekov, so I’m going to make sure you never have what you want now more than anything else in this world.” He made his smile thin and cold before he picked up Raven’s bag and brushed past Ice toward the door. “Have a nice life.”
Part of him hoped Ice would let him leave...let him escape this consuming pain! The rest of him listened, teeth gritted against the inferno in him, for the whisper of feet on carpet and the scrape of the gun being snatched up from the desk. Instead, another sound reached him...a ringing hiss of tempered steel leaving a scabbard.
Adrenalin blasted him. The cavalry saber above the fireplace! He spun barely in time to dodge Ice’s rush. Just barely...moving much slower than usual. Because of the pain? Was it affecting his reflexes enough to give Ice a real shot at him?
He can destroy you.
He cut around the desk to the middle of the room to give himself maneuvering space. Ice’s arm length plus the sword exceeded Garreth’s reach. Leaving him only speed and strength on his side. Maybe. He sucked in a breath full of flame.
Ice stalked him, blood and ice eyes glittering. “You can’t stop me if I get you first. Beheading ought to do it, don’t you think?” He swung the saber.
Garreth dodged. Again barely. Almost stumbling.
Ice grinned. The false fangs gleamed. “I thought vampires are supposed to be fast.” He swung again.
Garreth dodged...and found the blade slashing his sleeve just below the shoulder. Ice had only feinted.
“Touché.” Ice saluted mockingly with his free hand. “Did you know I fenced in high school?”
The sword hissed through the air...missed Garreth’s neck again as he dodged but slashed the other sleeve.
“Touché.”
Pain made Garreth’s feet feel leaden. If at some point it became impossible to distinguish between extreme heat and absolute cold, he thought he had reached it. Anger, fear, and fire had all become one torment. How long could he endure this before nothing mattered but ending it?
Long enough to beat this bastard! Maggie’s voice whispered.
Come on; you can do it, lover. Let go. Be all that you can be.
Shred that dog shit for me!
The mind rules.
Ice danced away, back toward him, away, then suddenly lunged, aiming at Garreth’s throat. Garreth ducked under the thrust...popped up again before Ice could draw back, and swung backhand.
The blow felt clumsy but it connected. The Ice’s head snapped around and he flew sideways into a leather chair.
The blood and ice eyes blazed. The mocking smile disappeared. Working his jaw, Ice climbed to his feet and circled Garreth, feinting first one way, then another, all the while keeping his arm too low for Garreth to duck under it, and driving Garreth backward.
Garreth!
It could have been either Lane or Maggie but he saw the albino’s trap even without the warning. Ice intended to pin him against the paneling. Instead of trying to dodge out of the trap, he gave before the dancing blade until his back met wood. A big leather chair blocked him sideways on the right, a library-sized world globe on the left. He blinked, as if astonished to find himself trapped.
Eyes coldly triumphant, Ice swung the saber.
Garreth gathered the fire to him, stared it in the face...made it himself. Now...or never.
The blade angled down, clearly expecting Garreth to try ducking. But Garreth sprang forward, and by the time the blade reached him, he had reached its hilt. He caught the sword by the guard and shoved upward. At the same time he grabbed Ice by the throat, fingers locking around the adams apple. Ice’s yell cut off in a gurgle.
Deja vu. Without witnesses.
“All right, you’ve had your try at me. Now it’s my turn.”
Squeezing, Garreth shoved, driving Ice backward. Ice stumbled, choking, eyes blazing, free hand clawing at Garreth’s wrist. His lips pulled back as though to talk, but Garreth tightened his grip and the attempt became a wordless snarl. Ice jerked his sword hand, trying to twist free. Garreth tightened his grip still more. Cartilage crumpled between his fingers. The blood and ice eyes bulged and Ice released the sword to claw at Garreth’s wrist with both hands, mouth gaping wide in a vain struggle for air. His knees buckled.
Garreth dragged him the last few feet to the desk and hoisted him back across the top, where he would have raped Amber...laid down the sword...picked up the Desert Eagle and shoved the huge barrel in Ice’s mouth.
The albino stared up at Garreth with eyes almost popping out of his head...disbelieving... terrified. The blue eye turning as bloody as the other from capillaries rupturing in it. He tried clawing for the gun but with the oxygen supply to his brain failing, had no strength and his fingers only waved feebly.
“You lose,” Garreth said before Ice lost consciousness. “Everything...both this life and your chance to be a real vampire. You die just a humbug.” He aimed for the spine. “This is for Maggie.”
Reichert had wondered what monsters she expected to run into that made her pack such a weapon. Meet one. The roar of fire around and in Garreth drowned out the sound of the shot, but Ice jerked in concert with the gun’s recoil and beneath his head, blood spread out across the desk top.
Garreth stepped back to avoid it, laying the gun on Ice’s chest. Other than glazing over, he noted, the albino’s eyes looked about the same as in life...just as empty of humanity.
He picked up the sword again. “And this is to make sure that you never, ever hurt anyone again.” Holding the saber two-handed, he slashed down with all his strength.
The head tumbled backward and plopped into the desk chair.
Way to go, lover! Was it as good for you as it was for me?
“Put a sock in it, Lane.” He searched himself for satisfaction or guilt, but pain left no room for either.
Trying to pick up the sword again, Garreth discovered that the force of his blow had buried the blade in the desk top. He left it. Let the detectives working the case look for a killer big and strong enough to crush a larynx with one hand, then chop through a neck with that much force.
One more thing to do. He checked the desk drawers. As he hoped, Maggie’s billfold and badge case lay in a top one. He pocketed the badge case. The billfold tied Ice to Maggie’s death. The badge would go back to Martin, handed over privately, with the true story of what happened here, whatever the official theory turned out to be. Maybe he would bury the badge with Maggie’s ashes.
“Rest in peace, Maggie.”
You, too. It’s a righteous kill.
Garreth checked his gloves. They looked clean. To be safe, though, he used his handkerchief to turn the bolts on the front door, so it was locked tight from the inside before he passed through. Closed windows, locked door, bloody homicide. This should be an interesting investigation. Maybe they would also find the body of the house sitter stashed somewhere in the grounds.
Outside, the fire evaporated. His bones, too, it felt like. Garreth crashed to his hands and knees. He had to crawl to cross the terrace, then cling to the balustrade to keep from pitching down the steps on his face. Every inch of his body ached.
The Mercedes was gone, he noticed. Candy having the good sense to take off when the screaming started, no doubt.
“Garreth?” Raven came tearing up the lawn. “I heard a shot!”
“Yes.” Releasing the balustrade, he tried to walk. Unsuccessfully.
Raven slid under his arm to support him. “Where did he get you?”
Belatedly he realized what his condition made her think. “He didn’t. I got him.” He still felt neither satisfaction nor guilt, only weary relief. In this life his choices so often seemed to be between evils. Maybe not this time.
Raven blinked in confusion. “But if you got him, why--”
He grimaced. “I entered a dwelling uninvited, remember?”
“But you ent-- Oh.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “You mean even after you were inside, it felt like at the door of Lien’s?”
“Every. Single. Fucking. Second. Where’s Amber?”
She gestured toward shrubbery near the gate. “I made her go to sleep.”
“Help me down to her, then you go after the car.” He fished out the keys with trembling fingers and gave her directions to it.
By the time Raven came back, lying full length on the grass had leached away enough of his weakness for him to stand and walk. Slowly. He stripped off the blazer and rolled it inside out with the gloves tucked inside. Somewhere away from the city he would dispose of it.
“Okay, you can drive back to the hotel. Just don’t get us pulled over.”
Raven stared in astonishment he sank into the passenger seat. She handed Amber in to him. “Ice is really dead?”
He cradled the girl on his lap. “Truly dead. For evermore.”
Raven slid under the wheel and headed north. “What happens to us now? What happens to Amber?”
“She’s latent, so I guess she can choose whether she wants to be a vampire. Like a living will. As for the two of you...” Garreth sighed. He felt crushed as if he lay naked in full midday sun. “I can’t turn you loose.” He had no more stomach for death. A righteous killing did not make his hands any less bloody. “You’re fugitives, probably for life, and I’m your best chance for not being caught. So until we find a better solution, you two will have to put up with being in my custody.” A sobering thought. He had been a rotten father to Brian. Could he do any better a second time around?
Raven nodded. “I deserve it.” She pounded the wheel with a clenched fist. “I’ve been so stupid!”
She made it such an ultimate sin that Garreth felt compelled to say, “I hope not. Stupidity is incurable. Foolish, yes...headstrong...rebellious. Young. That was a good thing you did for Becker.”
The Cenotaph song ran through his head. ...Lives enclosed by sunless spaces. Abruptly he remembered the poem that fell clutch of circumstance came from: “Invictus.” Grandma Doyle read it to Shane and him. How could he have forgotten that? Out of the night that covers me...
Raven said, “Do you believe in redemption?”
He glanced down at his hands clasped around Amber. “I hope it exists. We can all use some.”
“My father believes in redemption.”
“Well, he’s living proof of it.”
“I wish I could talk to him.” Her voice trembled. “I wish I could go home. Can I ever?”
“Not the way you’d like. None of us can. But visits, yeah, sure.”
She stared through the windshield. “Maybe after I’ve learned more about me, stuff you haven’t told me...like how you came in through that window without opening it.” Raven paused. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to tell my parents what I am now?”
He shrugged. “It depends. A former Teddy Rivers might understand that living on the edge of hell doesn’t necessarily make someone a demon.”
She drove in silence for a while, then asked, “Where are we going?”
“After we check out of the hotel, because a business emergency requires my immediate presence elsewhere, we’ll boogie back to Omaha to concoct ID for Amber, then catch a plane for San Francisco. After that piece of carrion is found, everyone needs to believe I was out there when he died.” It would be a good time to dispose of things he had had in storage too long, and Lien would be good for Amber. Though this time they would stay at Holle House to keep from hitting Harry over the head with the girls were.
Outside the car the nighttime city flowed by. Presently Raven said, “I think I’ll call my folks from there. So they’ll know I’m--well, sort of all right, and sorry about being such a butthead. And that I love them.”
A stoplight ahead turned red. While Raven sat waiting for the green, Garreth considered “Invictus”. Maybe he could find a little book of poetry with that in it and leave it for Raven to “discover.” A better theme song than the Cenotaph tune. Something he might do well to remember, too. In his head Grandma Doyle’s voice whispered the last verse: It matters not how strait the gate/How charged with punishments the scroll/I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.
The End
The Doppelganger Gambit, Brill/Maxwell #1
Blood Hunt, A Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Book #1
Blood Links, A Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Book #2
Wilding Nights
The Leopard’s Daughter
Aftershock