whole race needs to be wiped out. And Vicky's right, why should they have a clean death, when they
usually don't give their victims one? Nyala deserves to avenge her sister.
"Unless you object or something," Vicky said heavily, and Rashel could feel those pale blue eyes on her.
"Unless you're some kind of vampire sympathizer."
Rashel might have laughed at that, but she wasn't in a laughing mood. She took a breath, then said
without turning around, "It's your show. I agreed that you were in charge."
"Good," Vicky said, and returned to her work.
But the sick feeling in the pit of Rashel's stomach didn't go away. She almost hoped that the vampire
wouldn't come.
Chapter 4
Quinn was cold.
Not physically, of course. That was impossible. The icy March air had no effect on him; his body was
impervious to little things like weather. No, this cold was inside him.
He stood looking at the bay and the thriving city across it.Boston by starlight. It had taken him a long
time to come back toBoston after... the change.
He'd lived there once, when he'd been human. But in those daysBoston was nothing but three hills, one
beacon, and a handful of houses with thatched roofs. The place where he was standing now had been
clean beach surrounded by salt meadows and dense forest.
The year had been 1639.
Bostonhad grown since then, but Quinn hadn't.
He was still eighteen, still the young man who'd loved the sunny pastures and the clear blue water of the
wilderness. Who had lived simply, feeling grateful when there was enough food for supper on his
mother's table, and who had dreamed of someday having his own fishing schooner and marrying pretty
Dove Redfern.
That was how it had all started, with Dove. Pretty Dove and her soft brown hair... sweet Dove, who
had a secret a simple boy like Quinn could never have imagined.
Well. Quinn felt his lip curl. That was all in the past. Dove had been dead for centuries, and if her
screams still haunted him every night, no one knew but himself.
Because he might not be any older than he had been in the days of the colonies, but he had learned a
few tricks. Like how to wrap ice around his heart so that nothing in the world could hurt him. And how to
put ice in his gaze, so that whoever looked into his black eyes saw only an endless glacial dark. He'd
gotten very good at that. Some people actually went pale and backed away when he turned his eyes on them.
The tricks had worked for years, allowing him not just to survive as a vampire, but to be brilliantly
successful at it. He was Quinn, pitiless as a snake, whose blood ran like ice water, whose soft voice
pronounced doom on anybody who got in his way. Quinn, the essence of darkness, who struck fear into
the hearts of humans and Night People alike.
And just at the moment, he was tired.
Tired and cold. There was a kind of bleakness inside him, like a whiter that would never change into spring.
He had no idea what to do about it-although it had occurred to him that if he were to jump into the bay
and let those dark waters close over his head, and then stay down there for a few days without feeding...
well, all his problems would be solved, wouldn't they?
But that was ridiculous. He was Quinn. Nothing could touch him. The bleak feeling would go away eventually.
He pulled himself out of his reverie, turning away from the shimmering blackness of the bay. Maybe he
should go to the warehouse in Mission Hill, check on its inhabitants. He needed something to do, to keep
him from thinking.
Quinn smiled, knowing it was a smile to frighten children. He set off forBoston .
Rashel sat by the window, but not the way ordinary people sit. She was kneeling in a sort of crouch,
weight resting on her left leg, right leg bent and pointing forward. It was a position that allowed for swift
and unrestricted movement in any direction. Her bokken was beside her; she could spring and draw at a
second's notice.
The abandoned building was quiet. Steve and Vicky were outside, scouting the street. Nyala seemed
lost in her own thoughts.
Suddenly Nyala reached out and touched the bokken's sheath. "What's this?"
"Hm? Oh, it's a kind of Japanese sword. They use wooden swords for fencing practice because steel
would be too dangerous. But it can actually be lethal even to humans. It's weighted and balanced just like
a steel sword." She pulled the sword out of the sheath and turned the flashlight on it so Nyala could see
the satiny green-black wood.
Nyala drew in her breath and touched the graceful curve lightly. "It's beautiful."
"It's made of lignum vitae: the Wood of Life. That's the hardest and heaviest wood there is-it's as dense
as iron. I had it carved specially, just for me."
"And you use it to kill vampires." "Yes."
"And you've killed a lot." "Yes." Rashel slid the sword back into its sheath. "Good," Nyala said with a
throb in her voice. She turned to stare at the street. She had a small queenly head, with hair piled on the
back like Nef-ertiti's crown. When she turned back to Rashel, her voice was quiet. "How did you get
into all this in the first place? I mean, you seem to know so much. How did you learn it all?"
Rashel laughed. "Bit by bit," she said briefly. She didn't like to talk about it. "But I started like you. I saw
one of them kill my mom when I was five. After that, I tried to learn everything I could about vampires,
so I could fight them. And I told the story
at every foster home I lived in, and finally I found some people who believed me. They were vampire