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I snatched my ax from inside my coat with my right hand, as with my left I grabbed Rhoshamandes's left forearm, and I brought the ax down with a loud crash on his left wrist. In a tenth of a second it was done. The crescent blade flashed beautifully in the light.

The severed hand flew across the table. Rhoshamandes screamed in terror. Others around the table were gasping audibly, and shifting in their chairs.

Rhoshamandes stared at the hand, the blood pouring from his wrist, and tried to jerk himself free from me.

But just as I'd hoped, he couldn't do this. He couldn't move.

Marius and Seth and Sevraine and Gregory had all risen and were staring at him, pinning him there obviously with the Mind Gift as I knew they would.

The blood continued spurting out of his left arm, gushing on the table.

He tried to stifle another scream but he couldn't.

"Is there any place," I asked, "where we might burn that hand? I mean I can incinerate it here easily enough but I don't want to scorch the table."

"No!" he bellowed. He went mad trying to free himself from me, squirming, struggling against my hand and the invisible force that held him. I could see the preternatural flesh healing the breach at his wrist.

"You call that stupid little sorcerer's apprentice of yours now," I said, "and you tell him to free my son, or I'll hack you up piece by piece. And I'll burn each piece in front of you." I leaned down and looked into his eyes. "Don't think about trying to loose that fatal fire on me," I said. "Or they'll burn you black and dead at once."

He was frozen in rage and panic. Unfortunate for him.

I yanked his arm out and swung the ax again right below his shoulder, slicing the arm free.

The screams that erupted from him shook the chandeliers. He stared down at the stump.

I flung the arm down the length of the table to the middle. At once several of the others pushed away from it, with the scrape of their chairs on the boards, and shrank back.

He stared at his arm, unable to stop the screams ripping from him until he clamped his right hand over his mouth. A long ghastly moan came from him.

More of the others had risen and were backing away from the table, a reaction that didn't surprise me.

Seeing someone dismembered is difficult even for vampires of supreme detachment and self-control--even when they know that the limbs can be reattached and thrive again. And of course, speaking of burning the limbs, well ... that would take care of any future reattachment, wouldn't it?

"We need a brazier with coals," I said. "Or should we simply incinerate these fragments with the Fire Gift?" I glanced at the others, then back at Rhoshamandes "I'd tell the Voice to go to Hell, if I were you, and I'd call Benedict now and tell him to release my son."

I drew the phone out of my pocket.

"Benji, put the little thing on speaker, will you?" I slapped it down on the table.

Benji did as I had asked.

"I see your arm is already healing, friend," I said. "Maybe I should chop off both your legs at the same time."

With the greatest restraint, Rhoshamandes held back his sobs. I saw pure agony in his eyes as he looked at me, and then back at the severed arm and hand.

"I will command Benedict to kill the boy," said the Voice, filled with panic and rage as surely as Rhoshamandes was. "I will tell him now."

"No, you won't, Voice," I said under my breath. I looked down as I spoke to make it clear to everyone present that I was talking to the enemy himself. "Because if Benedict were like to do it, it would be done. He won't do any such thing until he knows his maker's safe. I'll wager his loyalty to his maker is a Hell of a lot stronger than his loyalty to you."

I turned to Rhoshamandes. "Now make us hear your fledgling Benedict talking through that phone now, clearly and distinctly, or I will chop off both your legs and split your breastbone with this ax."

Rhoshamandes put his right hand to his mouth now as if he were about to be sick. His face was blanched, and covered in a thin film of blood sweat. He was trembling violently. He reached for the phone and lifted it and struggled apparently to make his trembling fingers and thumb obey him.

He dropped the phone back onto the table, or it slipped out of his blood-tinged sweating hand.

All waited.

A voice came out of the phone, the voice of a blood drinker.