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Eventually, after a long silence, he asks: “Are you…sure you want to do this?”

“No,” she answers, truthfully, as she finishes fastening her dress.  “but I don’t think I have much choice.”  When he does not respond after a few seconds, she asks him a question in return.  “What about you?  Are you…okay with it?”

The sound he makes on the other side of the door could be either a growl or a laugh.  “Oh, I’m…fiiine.  I’ve just got to follow you and stay out of sight.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s what I do.”

She puts on her rings and the pendant he gave her; a tiny dead sunflower sealed in glass.  She checks her makeup in her hand mirror; just a little pinkish red around her eyes and across her lips, accentuating her unnatural pallor.  “But…you understand why I have to do this?”

There is another long pause.  She can imagine him, standing in the semidarkness of her overflowing bedroom-cum-library, a gangling scarecrow, head bobbing and weaving inside his black hood.  When he is nervous, which is more often than he would ever acknowledge, he is as restless as a boxer or a caged tiger.  It is one of the first things she ever noticed about him.  That, and his willingness to endanger himself on behalf of his friends.

A willingness that now, it seems, has become contagious.

“I understand,” he says in the end.  “I may not like any of this, but I know that’s not going to stop it from happening.  The story of my unlife.”

She moves to open the door of the walk-in closet where she has been changing, but pauses, nerves getting the better of her for a moment.  They have each seen the other unclothed, many times by now, as what neither of them is calling their relationship has progressed.  Exposing themselves to one another took a lot of time, courage and trust on both their parts but, in the end, they shared the scars they both bear; his, the curse of his clan, hers the result of individual malice.  Even the blush of life does nothing to conceal them.

Sometimes she gorges herself on bagged blood so he can feed from her.  He always insists the blood be unadulterated, afraid of losing control under the influence, of hurting her.  Still, she thinks he feels better about it than what he was doing before to ease his hunger.  She also thinks he does not believe her when she tells him how much she enjoys it, even though she is only speaking the truth.  At other times, they undress so they can explore different scenarios and fantasies, sometimes with cold bodies and sometimes roused to temporary warmth, sometimes some combination of the two.  She finds his occasional prudishness endearing; she thinks she shocks him a little with her willingness to experiment, to push him to his boundaries.  She suspects that in life he was much less liberated than she was.

And sometimes they curl up in bed, skin against skin, and read books and listen to music and talk until the dawn comes and the sleep of death overcomes them.  There are different kinds of intimacy, different kinds of pleasure, and she does not think she realised how much she missed all of them until fate threw the two of them together.

There was no intimacy in the Chantry, and precious little in the solitary existence she led after she escaped it.

And before all that…

Somehow, though, tonight felt different. There are too many memories tonight, too much at stake.  For some reason she cannot articulate, hiding herself away seemed the natural thing to do.

She was tempted to take something, something to dull the nerves and wash away her fears.  She drank clean blood instead.  Tonight, she cannot afford not to have a clear head.  She must be clinical.

She steels herself and pushes the door open, stepping out into the room.  His pose is exactly as she imagined it, but when he sees her new dress for the first time he straightens up with a start.  For a second, he is very still.

“How do I look?” she asks, twirling to show the dress off; a playful gesture, a playfulness she is in no way feeling right now.  It has a long skirt and sleeves, a neckline that is low but demure.  And it is a deep, glistening red.  From her shoulders down to her ankles, she looks as though she has been dipped in blood.

“Very, uhh…”  He growls or laughs again.  Somewhere in the deep shadows of his hood, the dim light of the lamp glints from an exposed fang, a pale eye.  “You know, when you talked about you not always wearing white, uhh…I knew red would be your colour.”

“It hasn’t been in…a long time,” she murmurs, looking down at herself.  “Not since…”  She is wearing a pair of matching satin pumps and has painted her fingernails and toenails in almost the same shade too.  The dress has no pockets, so she has a small purse, also red, slung around her body.  As she rearranges the folds of her skirt, her hands look even paler than usual against the vivid fabric.  She has decided against her usual floral headdress.  That is an affectation she picked up after arriving in Los Angeles, not from the time before.  She has brushed out her hair so it lays across her shoulders in a torrent of white tangles, like a foaming waterfall.

“You look, uhh…good in red,” he tells her, as if it is an effort to force out the words.  She knows now that is just how he covers his occasional bashfulness.  Kind words do not come easily to him, but when they do, they are heartfelt.  “It suits you.”

“Thank you.”  She looks down at her shoes.  “What time is it?”

“Nearly time.”  He has his phone in his hand, scratched and battered, generations behind whatever is considered the current standard.  Nevertheless, to her it still seems like a device out of science fiction.  “Victor…sorry, Baron Temple,” he makes another sardonic growling sound, “just texted.  The car’s on its way.”

She nods to herself, fussing with the dress a little more.  It is something to do.  It distracts her from thinking about where she is going.  “Then we should go outside and wait for it.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, but makes no effort to do so.  “Uhh…Eva…” he awkwardly begins, before trailing off.

“Yes, Jasper?” she prompts.

“When I say you, uhh…look good, I mean…you’re…  You’re beautiful.”

She forces a smile as she steps towards him, placing a hand on the sleeve of his well-worn hoodie.  She presses her forehead to his chest, smelling his musty smell, feeling his long arms enfold her.  Even wearing heels, she is nearly a foot shorter than he is.  They stand like that for a little while, neither of them moving or speaking.  She wishes she could while away the night like this, but knows she cannot.

“It’s going to be okay,” he rasps.  Coming from him, it sounds like a phrase in some dead language.

“No, it isn’t,” she replies, surprising herself with the evenness of her voice.  “You know it isn’t.”

“You’re right,” he admits, in something much closer to his normal sarcastic tone.  “I know it isn’t.  Fuck.”

She raises her head to look him in the face, reaching up to push back the edge of his hood.  She wants to see him.  He looks down at her with eyes like milky blue marbles.  His skin is nearly as colourless as her own, but crazed with dark, diseased-looking veins.  She wants to tell him he is beautiful too, to her eyes, but knows that once again he would refuse to believe her.

Instead, she says: “Whatever…happens tonight…”

“Eva, don’t make any promises you might not be able to keep.”

Even knowing him, the face he shows the world, the kinds of things he says, hearing that hurts a little.  “Don’t you trust me?” she asks him, quietly.

He gives a jagged-edged grin, the way he does when he is upset or in pain.  “I’m sorry, I’m an asshole.  I trust you more than I trust anyone else in this world.”

“That’s not a particularly high bar to clear.”

He laughs again, a sound like somebody dragging a stick along a set of rusty railings.  “What I mean is…you have no way of knowing what’s going to happen tonight.  You’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do to get through it.  Just don’t make yourself feel worse about it later by trying to be kind to me now.  I don’t fucking deserve it anyway.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I’m sure of it.  I’m a terrible person, Eva; you know some of the things I’ve done.  You know there are things I haven’t even told you yet.  And even knowing all that, you still want to…be with me.  There’s nothing you’re going to do tonight that’ll come close to that shit, so don’t worry about it.”

She thinks he has no idea of some of the things she has done in the past, is capable of doing, or how the person she tries to be now is a deliberate effort, a fight every single night, not to be the person the Pyramid trained her to be.  She says none of this aloud.  She merely raises herself to her very tiptoes, tugging on his hood until he inclines his head a little further forward and their lips meet.

When she lowers herself back onto her heels and gently pulls away from him, he looks the way he always does after she kisses him.  A little surprised, a little scared.  She very much doubts he is as scared as she is.

“Do you have your knife?” she asks him.

“I have two.”  He half-turns and pulls up the edge of his hoodie to show her the handle of one of them.  He carries the weapon strapped across his back.  The skin of his torso is just as pale and hairless as his face and head, just as covered in veins.

“Do you need two?”

He shrugs, a complicated gesture with his skeletal build.  “You can never have too many knives.”

She smooths out one last imaginary crease in her dress.  “Then I suppose we’re ready.”

Half an hour later, they are in the back of one of the big black luxury SUVs Victor seems to collect the way other people buy shoes, heading west on Sunset Boulevard.  They sit ensconced in deep, soft leather seats subtly embossed with the Temple of Boom logo, hidden behind tinted windows.  The silent driver keeps his eyes discreetly on the road.

She stares unblinkingly into the darkness, at the blur of city lights sliding past the window.  She can make out no individual buildings, no people.  She knows every passing second, every blurred light, brings her closer to the moment of truth.  If her heart still beat, it would be thudding in her chest by now.  If she still breathed, she would be trying not to hyperventilate.  If she still sweated, her palms would be damp.

“Do you remember what it was like to feel scared?” she asks him suddenly, without turning from the window.

“Uhh…yeah,” Jasper replies, reluctantly.  “To tell the truth, I’m scared right now.”

“No,” she says, “I mean really scared.  The way living people feel scared.  I remember.  I remember it vividly enough I can almost convince myself I’m feeling the same thing now…but only almost.  I think I’m scared…I should be scared…but do I really feel it?”

“I don’t think I’ve, uhh…noticed any difference,” he replies.  “But then again, I was a pretty fucked-up human, so…”

“You’re still young,” she tells him, “even compared to me.  Give it another decade or three, and you’ll know what I mean.  And not just fear; happiness, sadness, hate, love…  All duller than they used to be.  You’ll feel your humanity draining away and do everything you can to try and hold onto it.”

“Again, I was a pretty f…”  He stops himself.  “You told me that’s why you do drugs.  To feel how you used to feel back when you were a goddamn hippie.”

She glances over at him with a wan smile.  Him disparaging the counterculture she was involved with in her living youth has become a private joke between them.  “I’ve used many methods over the years; psychedelics, music, books, meditating on my memories, taking pride and joy in my magical researches…  All to remember what it is to be human.  It was harder because of…”  She hesitates.  “Because of what was done to me.”  She looks down at her dead white hand.  “And because I had to hide after I left the Chantry, but in the end, I thought I’d come to terms with myself, my condition in life.  I thought I was mostly content, if a little lonely.”

“At least you never resorted to stalking your mortal girlfriend,” he observes.  “I honestly don’t know if that was me trying to retain my humanity, or just being the same fucking creep I’ve always been.”

She looks out of the window again.  “I’m sorry about…Chloe.  I should have…”

“Not your fault.  All you did was help us, after I fucked everything up.  I tried to make you responsible for my problem, and that was…wrong.  And then with the thing at the Hollywood sign…”

She shakes her head, exasperated as much as upset.  “Jasper…”

“You had a good thing going up at the Observatory, or at least a safe thing, and then I came along with my idiot friends and just…dragged you into all our shit.”

“That’s not true,” she protests.  “The connection I felt when I first met you, it…it was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.  I wanted to keep feeling it.  And spending time with you, meeting your coterie, it made me realise how I’d been lying to myself, that any safety I thought I’d gained was nothing but an illusion.  I realised I had to stop pretending the city I dwelt in had nothing to do with me, that I didn’t need anybody else…that I could ignore the evil in the world.  That’s what people don’t understand about the flower children; we weren’t trying to cut ourselves off from the world, we were trying to change it.”

“Anarchs for life,” he comments, sarcastically.

“Yes!  This past year has been hard, I’ll admit.  I’ve done some things I wish I hadn’t.”

You’ve fed from the vein again, Neonate.  After all those foolish promises you made yourself.  Worse, you’ve bestowed the final death…and enjoyed it.

“Sometimes, I still wish I could just escape all this,” she confesses, trying to ignore the hectoring voice within.

“Fly up among the stars…” he rumbles, almost wistfully.

“But I know that’s just another delusion.  There’s nowhere I could go that’s far enough away, well enough hidden.  And I have friends now.  I have…somebody.”  She shyly glances at him again.  “I have a cause, something to stand for.  It’s dangerous; I may not survive it, but I couldn’t hide away forever.”

“Nothing lasts forever.”

“That’s right,” she agrees. “This night was always going to come, sooner or later.”

They ride in silence for a while after that, as Sunset starts to meander to the southwest, wending its way towards Beverly Hills.  They are passing out of friendly territory now and onto enemy turf, venturing from the Barony of Hollywood into Prince Vannevar’s personal domain.  They are almost at their destination when Jasper unexpectedly jerks a bony thumb towards the rear window while addressing the driver directly for the first time:

“You do know we’re being followed, right?”

She steals a furtive glimpse behind them, seeing a river of headlamps.  Without augmenting her senses, which would risk rousing her Beast, she cannot notice anything but normal-seeming traffic.  Jasper, however, is an expert in following and being followed.

The driver answers without looking back.  “Um, yes, sir, that’s our backup.”  He sounds nervous, as well he might chauffeuring two visible monstrosities such as themselves.  “Courtesy of Mr Temple.”

“Our backup?”  Jasper breaks out in another shark-toothed grin, but she can see how his head bobs agitatedly, rage flashing in his eyes.  “Oh, grrreat.”  He thinks he does not need backup.  That is another lesson he will learn if he avoids the final death for long enough.

“Victor’s just trying to help,” she tells him.  “To keep us safe.”

“And what happens if somebody on the other side sees our…backup?” Jasper asks.  “Calls ahead?  You could find yourself walking into…”

“Then perhaps I shouldn’t have told the coterie about any of this,” she counters.  “Perhaps I should have gone alone.”

His grin only widens at that.  “Like I would have, you mean?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He goes silent again for a time, brooding inside his hood, but when he speaks again the anger has faded from his voice.  “No.  Telling Victor and the others was the right call.  The way things are right now, with this cold war going on, everybody’s getting a little paranoid.  If you didn’t tell them you were doing this and they found out later…”

“Exactly.”  She hesitates before voicing her next thought.  “I worry they don’t trust me as it is.”

He looks at her, visibly horrified for a second.  “Why would you think that?  Of course they trust you.”

“After what Chloe told Annabelle…”

“Don’t worry about that.  And don’t worry about Annabelle, truly; her problem is she isn’t distrustful enough.”

The driver pulls over a block or so from the agreed rendezvous, keeping the engine running as he takes something from the glove box and reaches backwards over his seat to hand it to her.  Again, he avoids looking into the back seat.  It is another science fiction device, she sees as she takes it; a cheap, prepaid generic cell phone, gleaming new.  What Victor calls a “burner.”  The rulers of the Camarilla are rumoured to behead their subjects for possessing such things.

“Mr Temple said you should have this,” the man explains, his gaze fixed on the dashboard.  “He told me there’s just one number programmed into it.  If you get into, um, a bad situation, all you need to do is call that number.  You don’t need to say anything, just keep the phone turned on.  The guys in the backup car will find you and get you out, even if they have to go through Vannevar himself, and fuck the truce.  Mr Temple told me I had to tell you that in his exact words.”

“Thank you,” she tells the driver as she slides the phone into her purse.  She tries to imagine half a dozen of Victor’s security personnel, even the ones he has ghouled, going up against an elder Ventrue and his retinue…and then tries not to imagine it, with considerably less success.  She supposes it is the thought that counts.

“Yes, thank you, Victor,” Jasper mutters, as though he cannot believe what he has just heard.

“I’m going now,” she announces, but sits motionless for another few seconds, holding the door handle, mind racing as it tries to avoid contemplating what is about to happen next.

Jasper pulls his hood even lower over his face.  “Remember; I’ll be right behind you.”

Slowly, she climbs out of the car and starts clicking her way along the sidewalk.  She is out of practice when it comes to walking in heels; it takes her a little while to get into the rhythm.  She has left the car door open behind her.  She hears it slam a second or two later.  Then the SUV passes her, disappearing into the night.  If all goes according to plan, the driver will pick them up here a few hours from now.  She does not look back as she continues to walk, not that there would be any point without activating her ability to sense the unseen.  Jasper is in his natural home now, the dark nooks and crannies of the city, effectively invisible to natural perception.

Even so, the knowledge that he is there, somewhere behind her, watching over her, gives her some small measure of comfort.  It allows her to keep her courage screwed tight, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

She is not entirely sure where she is.  Beverly Hills is not somewhere she usually frequents.  She passes upscale boutiques and bars, a hair and nail salon, a yoga studio, a non-dairy, non-gluten coffee shop.  The sky and the sidewalk alike are painted shadowy orange by the glare of the lights.  Apart from the bars, most of the businesses are closed at this hour, their storefronts dark and shuttered.  There is little traffic and few pedestrians about to notice her white hair, her marble skin, her red, red dress.

And then she sees her, standing under a lamppost outside the bar at the far end of the block, looking in the wrong direction.  Her unrelenting pace falters at the sight.

Katya…

She wears a black vintage dress and coat, just as she always did, knee-high boots with many, many laces; her hair is as artfully unkempt as ever.  For a moment, it is fifty years ago and Eva is alive again and nothing has changed.

Everything has changed.

And then Katya turns and sees her, and smiles, and raises a hand to wave as she calls out an excited greeting:

“Evangeline!”

They meet under the light and she sees the emotions fighting each other on Katya’s face as the smile fades; joy and sorrow, uncertainty, affection…hunger.  And is that a hint of fear?  Is she scared too tonight?

“Oh, lastochka moya,” she whispers, “lastochka moya…”  She reaches out to take Eva by the hands, the way she used to, and hesitates, wavering, remembering past pain.  The hand she burned at their previous meeting is almost healed now, but the skin of its palm and fingers is still a little puckered and discoloured.

“It’s all right,” Eva tells her, mutedly.  She can barely hear herself.  “I recast my wards after last time.  We can…  That is, you can…”

Katya’s smile reignites as she takes both of Eva’s hands in hers, giving them a little squeeze.  She hesitates again, but then leans in almost furtively to kiss her, first on one cheek and then the other, as light and cold as falling snow.  She is wearing the same perfume she used to wear all those years ago, something antique and musky and expensive.  Everything is just the same, Eva thinks, just the same as the memories that haunt her as she lies on the edge of sleep each morning.  She turns her head instinctively, by just the right amount to plant her own kiss on Katya’s cheek before she withdraws again.  Just the same.

And then she remembers Jasper standing in the darkness, watching them.  Will he think that kiss was just acting, her playing her part in this charade?  Is he really that naïve?

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Katya murmurs, looking her up and down with misty eyes, taking in the blood-red dress with obvious approval.

“Why not?  We arranged to meet.  Why wouldn’t I…?”

“I thought…”  Katya shakes her head.  “I’m a silly old woman, that’s why.  Look at you, Evangeline.  You look…exquisite.  You look…  It’s just like the dress you wore the night we…”  She trails off, lost in recollection.

“I remember,” Eva confirms.  “That’s what I thought of when I saw it.  I knew I had to have it, had to wear it tonight.”

Katya’s fingers brush the white curls lying on one of her shoulders.  She seems troubled for a moment.  “Your hair.  That used to be so red too.  Oh, what did they do to you, moy bagrovyy lepestok?”

“They didn’t do anything,” she replies.  “He did.”

“Come, Evangeline,” says Katya, leading her by the hand, as if she did not hear what she just said.  “I have a car nearby.  We should go somewhere private.  Somewhere we can talk without…”

She freezes in place, until Katya is practically pulling on her arm.  “What?  I thought we agreed to meet somewhere public.  In case…”

“That’s what you said,” Katya replies, “but the things we need to talk about…  They are not the kinds of things that can be spoken where there might be curious ears.  You must know this.”

She can feel the panic rising inside her as the courage she has mustered begins to crack.  “I…  Katya, I…”

“Come on,” Katya urges.  “It’s not far.”

She anticipated this, of course.  In fact, it is a sign that things are going to plan.  She did not expect it to happen so quickly, though, or for Katya to take her somewhere further than walking distance.  She expected Jasper would still be able to watch her back.

She takes a moment to centre herself, and casually shifts her purse to hang on the left side of her body instead of the right.  She can imagine Jasper’s alarm on seeing the agreed signal that she is going somewhere he cannot follow.

“Lead the way,” she tells Katya, as calmly as she can, nearly calmly enough to fool herself.  For a second, she wonders whether Katya is using her powers of domination, prodding her to obey, but she cannot feel the tell-tale pressure upon her mind.  As far as she knows, she follows of her own free will.

The car is around the corner, next to a meter even though parking is free at this time of night.  It is gleaming black like one of Victor’s SUVs, but lower, sleeker.  It is locked and silent when they reach it, without any driver or bodyguard in attendance.

“Do you like it?” Katya asks as she opens the front passenger door for Eva.  “It’s a rental.”

Eva climbs in and puts on her seatbelt.  She can picture Jasper concealing himself in some shadowy alcove nearby, debating his next move, brain and hand itching to pull his knife and put an end to this, now.  She hopes he can resist the urge.  She knows how badly it would go for him.

“You never used to drive,” she says, watching Katya settle herself behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition.  “You said you didn’t know how.”

“I didn’t need to know how when I made my domain in New York City.”  Katya turns the key and the big engine roars to life.  “But times change.  When they do, we need to adapt.  Even our kind need to adapt, Evangeline.”

“I don’t use that name anymore.  I’m Eva, now.  People call me Eva.”

“Eva,” Katya echoes, pulling away from the kerb.  Her red-black lips twist a little, as if the word tastes bad.  “Who calls you that…your friends?”  She cannot keep the disdain out of her voice.  Eva knows she is thinking of Jasper.

“Yes.  My friends.”  They turn off the main thoroughfare, into the maze of high-end residential streets that lead up into the hills.  Katya turns on what Eva still thinks of as the car radio; she is not sure what sort of device they are now, exactly.  She hears sultry female vocals crooning over ringing, jangling guitars:

“You stupid girl…” 

Surely that cannot be a coincidence?

“You know our kind can’t really have friends,” Katya chides her as the music plays.  “Not the way you mean.  We are predators by nature; treachery is in our blood.”

“That’s just the Beast talking,” Eva says.  “We can try not to be that way, if we want to.  Otherwise, what’s the point of us even meeting like this?”

“Oh, we had more than friendship,” Katya answers, with unnerving certainty.  “Much more than that.  Besides, I’m your sire, Evangeline; you’re my childe.  That’s a very special connection and one we’ve never had a chance to explore.  I hope we’ll be able to change that now.”

“You stupid girl.

All you had you wasted…”

“Most of the sires I’ve ever seen treat their childer like servants, or worse.”

“Many do,” Katya allows, “but not all.  As you say, we can try not to be that way, if we want to.”

“All you had you wasted.”

“Anyway,” says Eva, “you owe Jasper an apology for the things you said to him the other night.”

“Jasper…is that its name?”  Katya is watching the road instead of her.  She can see her knuckles tighten angrily on the steering wheel.  “Did you tell me that before?  I don’t recall.”

“His name,” Eva corrects her.  “It’s a cliché, but he’s beautiful inside.”  Even if he strenuously refuses to recognise that about himself.

“He certainly hides it well.”

“That’s another thing you never used to do,” she sadly notes.  “You used to accept people for what they were.  You never prejudged them, or you wouldn’t have taken up with some penniless, unwashed hippie chick stinking of pot and patchouli.”

“Oh, but you were beautiful, Evangeline…”  Katya is silent for a moment, remembering.  “You still are.”

Eva ignores her.  “Does turning into a bigot count as “adapting” too, Katya?”

“He didn’t like me either,” Katya shoots back, petulantly, as she takes a particularly sharp turn, making the car sway.  “He made that more than obvious.”

“And is that any wonder, after what you said?”

“But a Nosferatu…”  Katya gives her a disapproving glance, her normally dark blue eyes flashing green in the dashboard lights.  “You probably haven’t spent enough time with them, but you’ll find out.  They aren’t just disgusting in their appearance and personal habits, dwelling in filth, feeding from rats…  They’re sneaks, muckrakers.  They’ll do anything, however depraved or degraded, if they think they can find out more of their precious secrets.”

“Quite similar to us Tremere in that way.  It’s just the types of secrets that differ.”  The street is lined with long, concealing hedges, broken up occasionally by tall steel gates.  The tile roofs of ostentatious mansions barely peek above them.

“I don’t want to fight,” says Katya.  “Not tonight.  For what it’s worth, I was very upset at the time I first met Jasper.  Perhaps it made me speak harshly.  You gave my ring to him, Evangeline.  The one I gave you when…  How do you think that made me feel?”

She feels herself wilting, falling back into old ways of thinking, back to the days when hurting Katya’s feelings seemed to her like the worst thing she could possibly do.  “Katya…”

“It hurt, Evangeline.”

“I told you, it’s Eva now.”

“It hurt, Eva.”

“I know it did,” she concedes, “but…  I thought you were dead.  I spent nearly fifty years mourning you, thinking I’d never love anybody again…”

“You’re saying you love him?”  Katya does not end the sentence with “that thing?” but the implication hangs in the air.

“I had to move on one day,” Eva tells her.  “I thought…the Katya I knew was the kind of person who would have given us her blessing.”

When Katya speaks again, her voice is low, nearly inaudible.  “I…I never moved on.”  She pauses again, and Eva can see her shaking with emotion.  “They told me you were…gone too.  They told me that’s what happens to unauthorised childer, by decree of the Inner Circle and by enforcement of the Justicars!”  She gives a high, broken laugh before lapsing into painful whispers once more: “Every night, I thought of you, of what I’d lost.  And then when I found out you were here…”  She is overcome for another moment or two.  “What I felt when I saw you again…I can’t describe it.  It was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.”

“You stupid girl,

You stupid girl…”

“I know,” says Eva.  She looks out at the hedges, at the gates and rooftops, hurting several different ways at once.  “I felt it too.”

She wishes that was a lie.

Katya turns the car into an anonymous driveway on another winding, hedge-lined street.  The gates glide aside so it can enter.  As if by magic.  At the top of the drive is a sprawling single-storey house that appears completely dark and deserted.  Katya continues around the back of the main property, finally parking in front of what appears to be a small guesthouse at the other end of the spacious grounds.

“This is temporary,” she informs Eva as she ushers her through the front door and flicks the lights on to reveal an opulently furnished open-plan sitting room and kitchen.  “I’m not meant to be staying in Los Angeles for very long.  I have business elsewhere.  But who knows?  Plans can change.”

Eva surveys the room, a little surprised to find that they really are alone.  She more than half expected him to be waiting here, standing at the inert fireplace in his own red outfit, eyes inscrutable behind tinted lenses.  “Yes, they…c-can.”

“Can I get you anything?” Katya asks, indicating the phone on the kitchen counter, the tall fridge on the other side of it.  “Prince Vannevar is a most solicitous host.  We can have something from the refrigerator…or we could order out?”  She smiles coyly.  “The young people they send are always very clean and polite.  They taste good too.”

“I…I’ve fed tonight,” Eva mumbles, her eyes darting around the room, taking in a hundred little details.  She sees the stack of old books on the glass-topped coffee table, because Katya can never be without her books. That is one thing that has not changed.  Next to the books is the small sphere of rock crystal she gave to Katya at Woodstock, left where she can see it, to remind her that Katya never gave her gift away.  She also sees the signs that this house has been adapted for Kindred use; the blinds are thick, reinforced, and permanently attached to the windows.  A thick steel fire door stands open to reveal an equally well-appointed bedroom without any windows at all.

“I did think you might not come,” Katya says, waving Eva towards the large, richly-upholstered sofa beside the coffee table and then following her towards it.  “I thought…  I thought you might be too nervous after all this time, maybe even a little scared.  Lord knows, I was.”

“I was scared not to come,” Eva admits as she takes hold of her skirts and sits down, carefully arranging them around her.

Katya looks hurt as she perches herself beside her and picks up the crystal ball.  She gazes into it.  “And why would that be?”

“I know some of the things you can do, Katya.  You’re a powerful blood sorcerer, much more powerful than I am.  I worried if I didn’t come, you might…”

“Oh no, Evangeline…”  Katya seems shocked. “What do you take me for?  When did I ever hurt you?”

“I wasn’t scared for me, Katya.”

Katya sets the crystal back down on the table with a clunk, her worst suspicions confirmed.  “Oh, your friends?”

“Was I wrong to be scared?  I’ve seen you angry, remember.  I’ve seen you kill.”

“And are you scared now?” Katya asks, with quiet anger.

“Yes.”

“Scared of what I might do?”

“No,” Eva answers honestly.  “Not of that.”  Katya’s expression is unreadable, her silence deafening.  “I’m…I’m sorry, I’m still trying to come to terms with all of this.  With finding out you were still undead, with seeing you again after all this time.  It’s been a shock for me.”

“I understand,” says Katya, more gently.  “It has been for me too.”

“And where have you been since…since they took you away?  What have you been doing?”

“Working,” Katya replies.  She crosses her legs and clasps her hands upon her knee; a defensive gesture but not, Eva thinks, a sign that she is lying.  “After we…parted, they sent me to Vienna.  They explained that I could wipe away my…indiscretion, redeem myself, by carrying out special tasks for the Council of Seven.”

“And what did they make you do?” Eva asks, thinking she probably does not really want to know.

“This and that,” says Katya, without meeting her eyes.  “I worked for Justicar Schrekt for a time…”

“Karl Schrekt?”  Eva has never met him personally, but the former Tremere Justicar has a certain reputation.

“Yes.  I travelled the world with him and his people, investigating…anomalies.  Things that even Kindred find uncanny.  It was…interesting work.  I learned a great deal, about the mystical and arcane, also about myself.”  She raises her eyes, fixing Eva with her deep, dark gaze.  “You see, the Pyramid gave me a second chance.  Nothing is forever, Evangeline, even for us; anyone can be redeemed, no matter what they have done.  Nobody need stay out in the cold if they’re useful, and can admit they made a mistake.”

“Is this where you try to persuade me to come back to the Camarilla?” Eva asks, softly.  “To betray my friends?”

“I’m not asking you to betray anything,” Katya replies.  “But you need to know where things stand.  This…truce Regent Strauss has brokered…”

There.  There it is.  She has said the name out loud.  His name.

“This truce,” Katya continues, somewhere behind Eva’s mounting panic, “is another thing that is not going to last forever.  It is not even going to last a year.  Vannevar is building his strength, calling in boons from some very old, powerful people; people even Strauss fears.  Some think the Camarilla weak in modern nights, after what happened in Prague, Vienna, London, San Francisco…  It is not true.  Adversity has only made it crueller, more ruthless, better organised.  When the Prince is ready, there will be war in Los Angeles, and the Ivory Tower will win.  You know it.  The Anarch barons know it; half of them are already talking to Vannevar sub rosa, trying to arrange…  I believe the term Mr Garrick uses is exit strategies…”

“Did Strauss tell you that?”

“It’s the simple truth.  I haven’t been at court long, but I hear things, notice things.  The ones who try to stand and fight; your Baron Temple, Rodriguez and his people, the thin-blooded scum, they will fall and they will meet the final death.  Vannevar does not even understand the concept of mercy.  And I don’t want you to be caught up in that.  I was in New York at the end of the last century, when we finally wrested it from the Sword of Caine.  I saw things…”  She closes her eyes as if trying not to see them again.  “You are too dear to me to let you go through that hell.  Strauss knows how I feel about you…”

“I’m sure he does.”

Katya is very still and quiet for a moment, clearly battling to hold her feelings in check.  When she speaks again, it is the ghost of a ghost of a whisper: “He told me you were here, where to find you.”

“He did?”  Eva already knew that was how it must have happened.

“As…his idea of a kindness, I think.”  Eva did not.  “Elders like him do not think and feel in the same ways we do.  The Prince, though, the rest of the court…  You are my childe, Evangeline.  The traditions are clear; I am responsible for you, for your actions.  Vannevar will hold me responsible.  And there are others…”

“Katya…”

“The shadow-dancer, Aurora.”  Katya goes silent again.  Eva can see the plain fear on her face.  “Strauss knows what happened to her brother; he has tried to keep it from her.  He knows what she will do when she finds out who destroyed him.”

“And he told you to tell me this?  To frighten me?”

“You should be frightened.  She’s former Sabbat; she’s already a blood-crazed animal, even without vengeance to motivate her.  And the Lasombra who have joined the Ivory Tower are the very worst of their clan.  Do you know about the bargain they struck with the Inner Circle?  Aurora and her brother will each have brought the final death to one of their own blood, as the price of their admission.  She is not somebody to be taken lightly.  The only thing that might give her pause is if you were to gain the Tower’s protection…”

“Her brother faced me and died,” Eva reminds Katya, with a cold bravado that is as false as Strauss’s kindness.  “Let her try to do better.”

Katya laughs mirthlessly at that, looking down at her glossy black fingernails.  “Oh, lastochka moya…  Maybe you have changed too.”

“You have no idea.”  Eva rises from the sofa, pacing towards the kitchen before turning back to face Katya.  “So…Strauss sent you to tell me how hopeless my position is, to manipulate and seduce me back into the Pyramid?”

“No!”  Katya jumps to her feet too, genuine anguish in her expression and tone.  “No, Evangeline.  I came on my own account, to save you.  To save both of us.  We Tremere…we need one another more than ever.  You know what happened in Vienna?”

“I heard about it.”

“The Pyramid is gone.  It lies in ruins.  Those of us who remain are scattered, vulnerable.  Do you know…do you know the blood bond no longer works for us?  Not on other Kindred.”

“I know,” said Eva.  “I’ve been telling people I can choose whether to use it or not.”

“Very wise.”  Katya nods, pressing her steepled fingers to her lips, very obviously making an effort to calm herself.  “Very wise.  There are those outside the clan who know the truth, of course, however hard we try to conceal it.  We cannot bind others, but we can still be bound by them.  How long before some Prince decides they want a servile court sorcerer, one who cannot disobey or betray them?  The others will soon take note and do the same.  How long before the other clans come for us, once they know they can drink our vitae without risk, steal our secrets and our souls?”

“You’re talking about diablerie,” Eva reminds her.  “They wouldn’t…”

“Many of the Banu Haqim have joined the Ivory Tower in recent nights.  They are known diablerists and seekers after arcane secrets; moreover, they hate our very blood.”  The words are coming from Katya’s mouth, but they sound to Eva very much like ones Strauss would utter.

“Not without reason.”

“We must join our strength,” Katya insists.  “For all our sakes.  Schrekt acts as the head of House Tremere now; in mortal life he was a witch-hunter by profession; over centuries of undeath he has continued to be one by inclination, but even he realises how desperate these nights are for us.  He has given Strauss authorisation to do whatever needs to be done to rebuild the Pyramid, even forgive those who were once fugitives.”  She smiles a ghastly smile.  “You can come back, Evangeline.  Strauss wants to save you.  You don’t need to be afraid of him anymore; there are no more blood bonds.  You can come back and we can be together again.  We can save your friends too, if that’s what you want.”

“Strauss wants to save me?”  Eva finds herself staggered by the very idea.  She is speechless for a few seconds, mind whirring like a machine on the verge of flying to pieces.

“Who else will save you, Evangeline?”  Katya is nearly pleading with her now.  “House Carna?  Garrick said you were rumoured to have joined them.”

“I…have an affiliation with them, I suppose,” Eva admits.  “They reached out to me.  They wanted to learn how I managed to leave the Pyramid by myself.  They taught me…some things in exchange.”

“Have you ever met Carna, though?” Katya wants to know.

“No, not in person.”

“I have.  I had…dealings with her when she presided over the Milwaukee Chantry.”  From Katya’s expression, these dealings were far from pleasant.  “She is mad, a murderer twisted by hatred and fear.  She flirts with the Anarchs while meeting with agents of the Tower, playing both ends against the middle.  She wants to build a cult, in her own image.  She will not save you.”

“And Strauss will?  Don’t you know he told you where to find me as way of manipulating us both, of controlling us, because that’s what he does?”  Eva holds out her hands, reminding Katya how unnaturally white they are.  She touches her face and hair, just as white.  “Strauss did this to me!  What did he do to you, Katya, to make you like…like this?”

Katya recoils as if struck a physical blow.  “He…he…”

“The Katya I knew was never this scared, this…obedient.  We used to lie in bed together and laugh about Strauss and the other dusty old warlocks.”  She can hear herself almost shouting, and does not try to stop herself.  “When I was in the Chantry, after you were gone, I heard things about you.  The other apprentices told each other how you’d been a rebel, how you’d sided with Aisling against Lord Wainwright and the other old men, even after Strauss warned you to be quiet.”  She lowers her voice, because she can see Katya twitching and shaking, sinking back onto the sofa with her head in her hands.  She goes back to sit beside her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.  “How did he hurt you, Katya?”

Katya is trembling.  When she raises her head and flicks her hair aside, Eva can see tears of blood coursing down her cheeks.  The smell of vitae makes Eva’s Beast growl somewhere deep inside her.  She sternly tells it to be still.

“I was stupid,” Katya recounts in a tiny, shuddering voice.  “I was…vain.  I thought I could do what I wanted, say what I liked.”

“You could.”

Katya shakes her head.  “No.  I was disrespectful.  I violated the traditions; I put all of us in danger.  Regent Strauss explained why I deserved to be punished, how I’d brought it on myself.  How I had to work hard to regain the trust of my peers…”

“And he told me I’d seduced you, made you stray,” Eva recalls.  “He told me that so many times while I was studying under him; that it was all my fault, what happened to both of us.  That’s the kind of thing men like Strauss say to their victims.”

Katya leans towards her, half-covering her mouth with her hand as if sharing a closely guarded secret: “I hate him.  I hate him.  I hate him so much…”

“I know.”

“But that doesn’t mean he isn’t right.  There’s no future for us unless we stand together.  There’s no future in trying to defy the Camarilla.  Please, Evangeline, I’m begging you…”

“My name is Eva,” she gently reminds her.

“Eva.”

She leans closer, tentatively combing her fingers through Katya’s hair, exposing more of her face.  “I didn’t come here tonight to talk about politics.  I came here to see you.”

To see whether things really were as bad as they seemed the other night…                  

Katya tries to smile through her crimson tears.  “We used to talk about politics all the time.  Do you remember?  You convinced me to Save the Trees, Stop the War, Ban the Bomb…”

Eva smiles back.  “I remember.  We talked about all kinds of things.”

“I miss those nights so much,” Katya confides.  “I’ve missed you, more than you can imagine.”

“I can imagine.”

“They say Kindred don’t dream, but that isn’t true.”  The raw desperation Katya is showing now is difficult to watch.  “I wake every night with the taste of you on my lips.”

“Every night for fifty years, I’ve thought about you,” Eva responds, and again wishes she were lying.  “Seeing you again, it brings back so many memories I thought I’d forgotten.  It’s almost as if we were never parted.”

“Yes!”  A glimmer of hope lights up Katya’s face, replaced instantly by that same expression of quiet anger she wore before.  “Do you know the Nosferatu was following you this evening?  I used my power of auspex when we met earlier; a precaution.  I saw him lurking there behind you, hiding in the shadows.”

Again, Eva freezes, searching Katya’s face for some hint of suspicion or hostility.  When she sees none, she manages to continue, using one form of consternation to simulate another: “I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised.  He’s been acting strangely ever since the other night.”

“Really?”

“I think he saw how affected I was by seeing you again.  I think he’s jealous, worried I’m going to…”

“Is he a danger to you?” Katya asks, “because I could…”

“No.  Don’t think about him.  Not tonight.”

“And is…”  Katya seems reluctant to voice her next thought aloud.  “Is he right to be worried?”

Eva brushes her fingers through Katya’s hair again.  “Well, there’s a reason I changed my wards.”

She kisses Katya softly on the cheek, tasting her tears.  The rich, sweet flavour of vitae almost stuns her.  Her head reels, her entire body bristles and tingles.  The Beast within snarls and slavers but once again she manages to master it.

“I’ve never tasted your blood before,” she muses, with a sort of wonder. She supposes she must have at the time of her Embrace, but while she will always remember Woodstock, the memories of her actual death and rebirth are garbled and nightmarish. “When I found out more about Clan Tremere, about how the Pyramid worked, I always wondered why you’d never bonded me or ghouled me.”

“I would never do that to you,” Katya protests, appalled.  “That wasn’t what I wanted our relationship to be like.”

“Well, now it doesn’t matter.”  Slowly, carefully, Eva lowers herself to kneel beside the sofa, her blood-red skirts pooling around her.  Reluctantly at first, Katya lets her take her hand.  “Now the Pyramid has fallen, we can be…sire and childe at long last without that getting in the way.”

“Evangeline…”  Katya is staring at her, entranced.

“Sire,” she asks, stroking Katya’s hand until it opens, raising it towards her mouth, “will you grant me the gift of your blood?”

Katya stares some more before remembering to answer.  “Yes, my childe.”

In the Chantry, they used a golden chalice for bonding rituals, studded with jewels and enamel miniatures depicting famous warlocks of the Dark Ages.  It was all part of the pretence that what the Tremere did was somehow different from the sordid trysts of lesser Kindred, somehow cleaner, more clinical, more scholarly.  Katya’s wrist is deathly pale; Eva can see the blue-black veins just beneath the skin.  She bares her fangs and bites down.

“Oh,” says Katya.  “Oh.”  Eva raises her eyes, even as she keeps her mouth battened to the wound she has made.  She sees the vacant, helpless expression Katya wears, but also how her mouth slowly curves into a smile.  She knows how good it feels when Jasper feeds from her, that throbbing, pulsing ecstasy that blots out all thought, all care, for just as long as his fangs are in her.

Katya’s vitae tastes better than anything she has ever drunk, almost too potent, too intense.  The Beast is roaring now, telling her to take it all, to drain Katya dry and take her soul and her power too.  She is glad that Katya is stronger than she is, that she can defend herself if she needs to, but then the moment passes.  By the time she ceases drinking and licks the bitemark closed, she is almost swooning with pleasure.  Looking at Katya, she is feeling something very similar.

“Lastochka moya…lastochka moya…”

And then they are kissing, again and again, as they sit together on the sofa, running their hands over each other’s bodies and through each other’s hair.

“Do you remember what we used to do?” she asks between kisses.  “Before you Embraced me, when you used the blush of life so we could make love like two living people?”

“Yes…yes, Evangeline.”

“We could do it again.  It would be just like it was.”

“I’m sorry,” says Katya sadly.  “I don’t know how long ago it was I last managed to do that.  It’s been too long; I’ve spent too much time alone, seen and done too many terrible things…”

“But I could do it,” Eva suggests.  “That would be just like the old nights too, when you used to feed from me.”

She is not sure whether that is joy or sheer terror she can see in Katya’s eyes.  “Oh, lastochka…”

Eva rises again, taking Katya by the hand once more.  “Come on, then.”

They stumble together towards the bedroom, kissing again, fumbling with one another’s clothes long before they reach the bed.  Eva kicks her shoes away as Katya struggles with her boots.  The red dress slides off easily, falling around her feet like a puddle of clotted gore. She rouses the power of her blood, forcing herself to remember what it was like to be mortal, to be warm and soft.  Katya makes a wordless exclamation as she feels the temperature of Eva’s skin begin to rise.  She presses a suddenly ice-cold hand to her breast to feel her heart start to beat, smiles at the way Eva’s quickening breath stirs her hair.

And then they are on the bed, skin sliding across skin, murmuring together as Katya plants cold kisses on Eva’s neck.  Katya’s fangs slide into her flesh, too sharp to hurt, and she feels the familiar fire spread explosively along her veins, golden and glorious, filling every corner and extremity of her body.

“Yes, Katya,” she hears herself say from somewhere far away.  “Oh yes…!”

She lies there, panting and sweating like a living woman, as Katya finishes feeding and raises herself above her, delicately wiping the last traces of Eva’s spilled blood from her chin and then sucking it from her fingers.  Not one drop is wasted.  And as she cleans her last finger, the pink blush slowly starts to spread across Katya’s cheeks and nose.  Her chest rises and falls as her dead lungs start to pump again.

“Oh, Evangeline…”  Katya holds her hand in front of her face to feel her own breath.  “I can do it!”

They fall together, rolling over and over on the satin sheets, their limbs tangling, their bodies pressed together.  They use their hands, their mouths, their teeth.  They weep tears of blood and saltwater, sighing and gasping as they move together.  It is a different kind of pleasure from the pleasure of feeding.  A lesser pleasure, Kindred say, but only because it reminds them of all they used to have.

When it is over, they lie together, breathing hard and laughing, kissing the bloody tears from each other’s faces.

“I love you,” she tells Katya as she moves to kiss her on the mouth.  And that, too, is not a lie.

Soon enough, their bodies cool again and their heartbeats slow and cease and the last breaths hiss from their lungs.  Still they lie together, holding hands, with Katya’s head nestled against Eva’s unmoving chest.

“Oh, I love you too,” she murmurs, almost deliriously.  “I want to be with you.  I want to go wherever you go, never be apart from you again…  Never again.”

“One night we’ll be together again,” Eva promises.  “One night soon.”

She finally leaves a couple of hours before dawn, putting on her now wrinkled dress, stepping back into her discarded shoes.  She finds her purse in one corner of the bedroom floor, flung aside in her earlier haste.

“Why don’t you stay?” Katya asks, belting a champagne-coloured silk robe that looks as though it came with the guesthouse.  “Spend the day here?” It is strange to see her wearing something that is not black.

“I can’t.  Jasper already knows I’ve met with you; if he calls at my haven tomorrow evening and I’m not there…”

Katya seems to accept that.  “I understand.  Can I at least drive you home?”

“I can make my own way home.”

Katya nods again.  “Very well, Eva.”

They part at the front gate of the property, sharing one last kiss at the end of the driveway.  They promise to meet again soon, a promise Eva knows they will both keep.

She has walked maybe a hundred yards back down the hill when a big black SUV glides slowly alongside her and cruises to a halt.  Jasper is hunched forward in the back seat, looking even more tense than usual.

“Well, following you could have gone better,” he growls as she climbs in beside him and the driver sets off once more.  “Victor’s people tracked the cell phone in your purse, in case you’re wondering how we got here.  So how did things go with the Wicked Witch of the West?”

“They went,” she replies, dully, looking out of the window instead of at him.

“Did she, uhh…mention my smell again?”

“She’s so…broken.  So scared and beaten-down.  When I think about how she was, and how she is now…”  She looks at him imploringly.  “We need to save her, Jasper.  We need to get her away from Strauss, away from the Tower.”

“What, so we can all play happy families together?”

“No.  Because it’s the right thing to do.  Nobody deserves what’s been done to her.”

“But not everybody who’s had bad things done to them acts like an asshole to other people.”  He laughs as he says this; at himself, she realises.  “Well, that was remarkably lacking in self-awareness.  I guess if I can be saved, Katya can too.”

“I hope so.”

They ride in silence for a little while.  She lets her face rest against the window, welcoming the cold hardness of the glass.  It is something solid, an anchor to keep her from drifting away on the tide of memories and regrets.  She hears Jasper’s elderly phone chiming; the factory-setting ringtone, of course.  He mutters something into it, then presses it into her slack hand.

“It’s for you.”

She straightens up in her seat, holding the phone to her ear.

“Hi Eva,” says Victor, with characteristic ebullience.

“Baron Temple.”

“Hey, don’t wear out the Sunday name.”  He pauses, the poor line crackling a little.  She realises he is trying to decide how to ask the question he needs to ask.  In the end, he just says: “So, did the, uh, thing, did it…?”

“It did.”

“Cool.”  Victor actually sounds relieved.  Normally, he tries to avoid giving the impression that anything can puncture his perpetual bonhomie.  “So, uh…this House Carna ritual you were talking about…you said it’s like a blood bond but it’s not a blood bond, and…?”

“Essentially,” she replies, emotionlessly.  She feels drained.  “Katya was already showing signs of succumbing to it when I left her tonight; excessive feelings of affection, willingness to acquiesce to my wishes.”  If her stomach functioned normally, she would feel sick.  “The bond weakens over time if not renewed, but with repeated…reinforcement…”

“And there’s no way she, uh, suspects what you were…?”

“I don’t know whether I would have left that room if she did,” she tells him, bluntly.  “No, it’s a relatively new ritual, its details closely guarded by Carna and her disciples…they only gave it to me in return for an ancient Tremere formula of equal potency.  I don’t think Katya suspects a thing.”

“Okay,” says Victor.  “So, that’s cool.  Cool, cool…”  He lapses into another awkward silence before something evidently occurs to him: “So…I’m throwing a party at the Maharani tomorrow night for our very own Baron Griffith on the occasion of her, uh, inauguration.”  She can feel his enthusiasm even over the phone.  “House DJ’s gonna be laying down some sick beats and everyone’s invited, even the Cam if they show their faces.  Hey, wild idea, but…  Do you think Katya would want to…?”

“No,” she says, her mask of cold professionalism finally shattering.  “I don’t think I’ll…  I need to…”

Victor seems not to take any offence.  “No problem, it’s all cool.  You do you, Eva.  Take some time to…  Hey, can I just talk to Jasper?”

She hands the phone over and listlessly watches as he listens intently to it for a few seconds.  He is grinning again, even more broadly than before.  “Did she…sound okay to you, Victor?”  He listens again.  “Uhh-huh.  Uhh-huhh…  Yeah.  Fuck you, Victor.”  He snaps the phone closed and stuffs it into the pocket of his hoodie.  “Fucking party…” he mutters to himself.

“Don’t be angry with him, Jasper,” she advises, letting her face loll towards the window again.  “It’s just his way of dealing with the demands of his office.  As Baron, he has to ask things of people that he might not always feel comfortable with.  When I told him about the ritual, he had to advise me to use it.  Anything else would have been irresponsible, giving away a potential advantage in the coming war.  If I can turn Katya to our side…”  She cannot complete the thought.  Her guilt and self-disgust are too great.  “The fact that he felt reluctant about it does him credit.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Victor’s…always been good at getting people to do things for him.”

She gropes around on the seat until she finds Jasper’s spidery hand, interlocking her fingers with his.  “I didn’t do it for him.”

She watches the lights and shadows flow past the window, an endless kaleidoscope pattern empty of meaning or reason.  Just like the world itself.

“And you needn’t be concerned,” she tells him after another while.  “Just as you can…feed from me without being blood-bonded, we can…do the other things we do without you being…  I have to want to bind the person I’m with.”

“I’m not concerned about that,” he replies, gently tightening his grip on her hand.  “I told you, I trust you more than I trust anyone else in this world.”

“You know our kind can’t really have friends… We are predators by nature; treachery is in our blood.”

“I love you…”

There are many kinds of bonds; not all of them are based on blood, or sex magick. She keeps watching the lights and holding Jasper’s hand, and thinking of Katya, and a kiss, and whispered words.

END?