"So I hear. You ready?"

"Yeah. This your car?” she asked, eyeing the big SUV. “Nice. Can I drive?"

"You got a license?” Liz shook her head. “Then the answer's no. But we'll see about fixing that real soon. Come on, it's not far."

"Are we almost there?” Liz asked thirty minutes later. “I thought you said it wasn't that far?"

Cyn didn't answer immediately. She was concentrating on crossing four lanes of congested traffic in a last minute daredevil zip between freeways, earning more than one obscene gesture and a chorus of honking horns from her fellow drivers.

A few minutes later, they passed through McLaren Tunnel and were dumped onto Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. “Anything less than an hour isn't far in this town. But it won't be long now,” Cyn assured her.

Liz stared at the tight row of expensive houses sitting next to the highway, their front doors only feet away from the rushing traffic. Beyond them was nothing but the sand and the roiling black velvet of the Pacific Ocean beneath a nearly full moon. “L.A.'s bigger than I thought,” she said in a small voice.

"It seems that way,” Cyn agreed. “The problem is there's no real center. It's sort of spread out all over the place."

"I guess."

Cyn glanced over. “Mirabelle's really excited about seeing you."

"Mmm. Me too.” She gave Cyn a sideways look. “You're sure it's okay, right? I mean, Luci said I should trust you and all, but you don't know what Jabril's like. He's really sneaky, and he gives the judges and everyone money, so they do whatever—"

"Liz."

"I love Mirabelle, and I know she tries, but he hurts her and—"

"Liz."

Elizabeth stared at her, eyes wide with trepidation.

"Elizabeth, honey, it's okay. Jabril doesn't have any power here, and you can trust Raphael. I trust him. He won't hurt Mirabelle and he won't hurt you. And even if someone tried to hurt you, I wouldn't let them, okay? I'll stay with you as long as you want, until you feel safe. And anytime you want to go back to Luci's, you say the word and we're gone."

Liz swallowed hard.

"Okay?” Cyn asked.

"Okay.” It was weak, but definite.

"Good enough,” Cyn said with a grin. “Because this is it.” She gestured ahead and to the left where Raphael's estate was nothing more than a dark forest of tall trees on the side of the road. “It looks worse than it is,” she confided. “Once we get through the gate, it's pretty nice.” She made the turn but stopped before they reached the gate. “You're sure you're okay with this, right? If not, we'll turn around right now and forget the whole thing."

Liz bobbed her head, sucking in a deep breath. “No. No, I'm good. I want to see my sister."

"Don't worry about them,” Cyn said, when they pulled up to the gate. Raphael's vampire guards closed on the Land Rover, looking it and them over very carefully. The one closest to her side acknowledged Cyn with a friendly nod, and she knew Alexandra had warned them about Elizabeth's visit, but they followed procedure anyway, which was the way it should be. She heard Liz's relieved exhale when the guards backed away and waved them through the opening gate.

"Scary,” Liz said.

"Yeah, pretty much. Raphael's security seems a lot tighter to me than Jabril's."

"You mean Dickhead."

"Yep, that's who I mean. Here we are.” She pulled the Land Rover to the side of the road near Alexandra's manor house and turned off the engine.

Liz stared out the front window. “What kind of house is that? It looks like something from an old movie."

"Uh huh. But don't say that to Alexandra, okay? She loves this house."

"Duh. Like I would. So what now?"

"Well, now, we get out of the car and...” Her peripheral vision picked up movement near the house. “Here comes Mirabelle."

Liz tensed as Mirabelle left the kitchen door open behind her and tore down the driveway toward them. “She almost looks normal,” Liz whispered.

"She is almost normal,” Cyn whispered back.

Liz laughed suddenly and threw open her door, nearly falling from the truck in her eagerness to meet Mirabelle halfway. Cyn watched the two sisters embrace, embarrassed to feel tears tugging at her eyes. “My work here is done."

* * * *

Cyn wandered away from the manor house and in among the trees, pausing as she passed the newly planted garden maze. It was amazing what enough money could do in such a short period of time. You want a maze? No need to wait for the shrubs to grow. We'll bring in fully grown specimens and carve them into whatever shape you choose. No doubt Alexandra planned for these to grow even taller, especially if Stephen King's book The Shining was her model. She walked on past, having no desire to test the shadowy pathways among the shrubs. Maybe in full daylight, but not in darkness and not surrounded by vampires, no matter how friendly.

She heard someone start on the piano upstairs and smiled, wondering if Mirabelle was showing off her newly acquired playing skills. She couldn't imagine that enthusiastic rendering coming from Alexandra's fastidious hand.

Alexandra had invited her to stay, of course. Mirabelle and Liz had taken off almost immediately, their heads tucked together, exchanging conspiratorial whispers. But Cyn wasn't in the mood for Alexandra's games. It was too much like work and Cyn figured she'd earned a break. After all, she'd found Elizabeth and solved several murders, all in the space of twenty-four hours. The thought of Jabril's reaction to what his advance money had bought made Cyn smile.

She made her way around the perimeter of the maze and out onto the pathway between the two houses. The grounds were carefully groomed here, the thick undergrowth cleared away to create more of a forest than a barrier. The gravel beneath her feet shone white in the moonlight which was the path's only illumination. The vampires didn't need anything more, and no one else was ever invited to walk here. Except for Cynthia, of course. She'd come this way with Raphael the first night they'd met, when she'd agreed to help him recover Alexandra. The ground beneath her feet began to slope up gently and she knew the main house was beyond the rise. But she didn't want to go there. Not yet. So, she turned off the pathway and found her way through the trees, gliding her fingers over the rough bark as she passed until she reached a clearing of sorts, a private glen created by the gardener's art.

She dropped to the ground, enjoying the pretense of being alone in the woods. It was mild, not warm, but comfortable enough in her leather jacket. She leaned back against a wide tree trunk and closed her eyes, listening to the steady murmur of the ocean.

"You found your little bird.” His voice came out of the night, honey smooth and hinting of dark things.

Chapter Forty-three

Cyn had known he was there, had felt his approach through that indefinable connection they seemed to share. She opened her eyes, but he was no more than a deeper darkness beneath the trees. “I did,” she said without moving.

Raphael shed the shadows that surrounded him and entered the clearing, selecting a tree of his own to lean against. He wore his usual elegant suit, and Cyn watched in amusement as he removed the jacket and threw it aside to slouch gracefully onto the ground. He sat opposite her, loosening his tie and stretching his long legs out, until their feet were nearly touching.

Neither of them spoke at first. Cyn could hear his slow, steady breathing and knew he could detect far more than that from her—the sudden racing of her heart at the sight of him, the blood that was rushing to flush her cheeks with nervousness and excitement, even the warmth of desire that was an almost instant reaction to his presence.

"Why?” she asked finally.

Raphael's black eyes were frosted with moonlight as his gaze found her in the night. He didn't insult her by pretending not to understand the question, but he looked away, staring into a past she couldn't see.

"My first decades as Vampire, I lived alone,” he said. “I killed, but only when I was hungry—I give myself that at least. Some young vampires, flush with their newfound power, will kill indiscriminately until they are stopped one way or the other. I was never one of those. But even so, when I killed I gave no thought to the individual, to the life I was taking. It was food, nothing more, and I needed it to live, so I took it. I never consciously considered these things at the time, of course. I was little more than an animal, a creature of cunning and instinct, knowing only the drive to survive this day and the next and the one after that.” He brushed an invisible speck off his trousers in a gesture she would have taken for nerves from anyone else.

"Time passed,” he continued. “And I began to master my new life, to regain control over who and what I was. And what I found inside myself was power. True power for the first time in my life. No more of being my father's lackey or my prince's badly used tool. I was Vampire, and not just Vampire, but a master with power to spare. My Mistress, she who made me, sensed my awakening and my growing strength and called me to her at last, intending to use me for her own purposes, even as I had been used by others all through my life."

His voice hardened. “I had no intention of being used. Not by her, not by anyone, ever again. But there were things I needed to learn, things Vampire and human, of power and of life. I might despise the princes who used me, despise my father who kept me tied to the dirt of his farm, but they saw me for what I was—an ignorant farmer, nothing more."

An owl hooted far overhead, followed by a whoosh of sound as it flew through the treetops. Raphael flicked his gaze upward, tracking the bird's movement easily while Cyn strained to see even the barest flash of a pale wing. He lowered his eyes, glanced at her quickly and then away, as if it was too difficult for him to tell her these things while meeting her gaze.

"I stayed with my Mistress for many years,” he continued. “I let her use my mind—and my body—to her own ends. And I learned. How to be a gentleman, how to rule others, or in her case, more how not to rule others, but still I learned, if only by her bad example. And I studied power. My power, which I quickly discovered was far greater than hers. I practiced in secret, testing my will on others, experimenting, expanding the bounds of what I could achieve with a simple thought. I was careful to conceal my growing strength from my Mistress. One on one, I could have taken her even then, but she would have rallied the others of her children against me, and I was not yet skilled enough to take them all.