Blood Red

The instinct to survive was quiet incredible, she realized.

His basement had been turned into an elegant salon. There were comfortable sofas, and a pool table stood to one side, separated from the sitting area by support pillars. Music played softly from somewhere, and she saw a large screen television in one corner of the room. She wondered if he had a generator to provide power.

He led her to the sofa. She didn’t want to sit, but she could tell that he wasn’t going to give her a choice.

“Watch the screen.”

“No.”

“You are afraid.”

She refused to answer and looked deliberately away from the screen, so he simply caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and forced her to watch as a portrait came into focus.

It was as if she were staring at herself. “You must understand. She was mine, always mine. I watched Katya when she was a child. I watched her grow. I was the one in love with her. Then…she came here.”

The French Quarter appeared on the screen in a series of old photographs. There were no cars, no taxis. No neon lights.

The roads were dirt. Carriages were traversing them. Men and women in nineteenth century costume were walking past shops, gentlemen tipping their hats to the ladies….

And there she was.

Except that it wasn’t her. It was another woman. Katya. And there was Mark His hair was longer; he had sideburns. He was laughing, showing the woman something in a store window. They were walking, her hand, delicately encased in a white gloves, on his arm.

The scene changed. They were in a castle, a fire burning in the hearth. There was a daybed, covered in fur.

And the woman…

Katya.

Katya was on the daybed with a man who looked like Stephan. They were together, naked, making love….

Lauren gazed at the image in horror.

She was stunned when the screen suddenly went blank and a rough, angry voice said forcefully, “Actually, that’s not how it happened at all.”

She turned to the stairs, her heart leaping. Mark was there, and he wasn’t alone. Heidi and Deanna were behind him.

“See!” Stephan cried as he stood, and smiled triumphantly. “He is the evil one. I sent your friends to safety, but he has made them his creatures.”

Mark continued down the stairway, followed by the women. They still seemed to be acting like zombies, Lauren thought.

“Tell her the truth, Mark, or don’t you dare?” Stephan asked mockingly.

“The truth? Why don’t you tell the truth for once? You never intended to free her friends. You sent them off with one of your lackeys as a reward for serving you.”

Lauren hadn’t realized that Mark was holding something behind his back until he tossed it down before Stephan, and then, even after everything she’d seen, she cried out.

It was the taxi driver’s severed head.

Stephan ignored the gory trophy and looked at Mark. “She’s mine now. Just as Katya was mine.”

“Katya was yours because you used the evil power that fuels your existence to seduce her. She was never with you willingly. And you could never bear the fact that she came back to me.”

Stephan turned to Lauren. “I didn’t kill Katya.”

She was torn, unsure what to believe. She knew for a fact that Mark hadn’t told her the truth, or at least not all of it. Then the moment passed as she realized what must have happened all those years ago, at the same time wondering why Mark didn’t seem to understand that they were in grave peril, that neither Heidi nor Deanna would be any help in a fight. That in fact they would probably try to kill him.

She spoke softly when she finally responded to Stephan. “I know that Mark’s father killed Katya. Because he knew she was a vampire. He might have even known that she had, in turn, made Mark a vampire. But you caused her death. You killed her. Because you made her a vampire. It was the only way you could win her. Maybe at first you did try simply to get to her to care about you…for you. But you failed. So you tainted her, and then you murdered her, made her just like you. Except she wasn’t like you, because when she came back to life, she still despised you. And she went back to Mark. And he loved her, was willing to love her…no matter what.”

Stephan let out something like a snarl, staring at her, and she had to fight not to tremble. He was close, so close. She could be dead in seconds.

“The real truth is this—I have the power, the greatest power.”

“You don’t know what real power is, Stephan,” Mark charged him.

“The only question now is who to kill first,” Stephan said softy.

Then he lunged. Faster than light. Lauren shrieked, certain his fangs would rip into her at any second.

But just when she thought there was no hope, that no one could save her, the room seemed to explode. Darkness burst between them like the beating of a massive wing. But it wasn’t darkness, it was Mark. He struck out at Stephan, and the force of his blow sent the other man flying across the room. For a second Lauren felt a sense of