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"No, it's not an altar. Please be still until Armand comes back. It's a table, that's all."

"Marble," he repeated. "I think it's an altar. You're primitive, savage beings. You hunt the city like wolves. This is some sort of place of worship. You mean to kill me on this altar."

"Utter nonsense," she said. Her face was beautifully animated, her cheeks rounded as she smiled. "Don't excite yourself over nothing." She appeared to mean it. "No one here will harm you. We want to know about you, we want to know what sort of a creature you are."

He smiled. "I would like to trust you," he confided. "But how can I? You have me bound and helpless."

Her eyes appeared to be misting suddenly. Such large dark eyes, with thick lashes, such a fringe of lashes, lashes as lustrous as her hair. Her face was almost blank.

Was she charmed by him, as he was by her?

"Can't you set me free? Can we talk to one another plainly without all this?" He glanced down again at the cable binding his chest and upper arms to the table. "This marble altar is cold."

She bent closer as if she couldn't stop herself. Her eyes were now positively glazed, vacant, as the eyes of the other one, Killer, had appeared just before he'd sunk his teeth into Garekyn's neck.

"It's marble, tell me the truth," he prodded.

"All right it's marble," she murmured but her voice was sleepy, a monotone. "But it's not an altar, I told you...." She was bending down as if to kiss him, and with her right fingers she touched his lips. "We're taking you to the scientists among us. We're not wild beasts." He could hear her heart tripping. Somewhere far off Armand was arguing with Benji. But they were too far away for Garekyn to hear what they said. How far away? How long would it take them to get back here if this woman were to sound an alarm?

She was so pretty, so very pretty. Her hair fell down around him. He could feel it against his forehead and his cheek, feel it falling on his neck. It was now or never.

With all his might he bucked, pulling up with his arms, pounding down with his heels, convulsing his whole body. The marble cracked and he found himself sitting upright, the cables falling loose around him, and the whole stone platform of sorts crashing to the floor in three giant fragments as the woman screamed.

Freeing his arms instantly, he reached for her and clapped his hand over her mouth. Dragging her with him as he stepped out of the coils of cable and the debris of the broken marble, he moved to the door. She struggled mightily, almost managing to free herself.

He slammed the door shut tight in its huge metal frame.

She fought him with all she had, scratching at him, biting at him, even stabbing his left leg with the sharp heel of her shoe. He tried to throw her off but he couldn't, and finally grabbing her by the hair, he waltzed awkwardly to the side with her, pulling her off-balance, and slammed her head against the concrete wall as he had done with Killer.

She screamed so loudly it was like a dagger going right into his ears. But the impact had stunned her body, and the scream was all she could control.

He flung her head at the wall again, and then again.

The bones broke, but her screams did not stop. She slid down the wall to the floor, the blood pouring out of her mouth and out of her ears and down the front of her black silk dress. He could see the pearls being covered in blood, thick, sparkling blood, blood alive with something he could see in the light.

He knew he should flee, get down the passage and up the stairs before Armand and Benji could intercept him. But he stood paralyzed gazing at the blood, the unnatural glittering blood. And her dark eyes gazed up at him as her screams continued, ripping through his thoughts, ripping through his will, her eyes pleading with him though she could not move her arms or legs.

He found himself embracing her and lifting her. He held her as if he meant to kiss her, her breasts against his chest and her head fallen back as if her neck had been

broken. Dipping his fingers into her open mouth, he brought the blood to his lips! Sweet sizzling sensations just as he'd felt them with Killer. He brought more to his lips. Rippling chills all through his body. He bent to suck the blood out of her mouth with his own.

Let her alone. Do not harm her!

Who was this speaking to him?

Let her go. Do not harm her. It is Amel who is speaking to you. Let my child go.

"Amel?" he whispered aloud.

It seemed an age ago that her screams had stopped, and that a great pounding on the metal door had commenced.

He drank more and more of the blood.

She is my child, Garekyn.

"It is you?" he said, the words lost in the blood flowing into his mouth and down his throat. But he caught no image to confirm it, no flash of the Great One of long ago. Only a great web came alive in intricate detail against a sea of fathomless blackness, and all through this great web myriad tiny points glittered and brightened.

The door flew back off its heavy hinges and clattered to the concrete floor.