“The headless woman?” That thought scared the hell out of her.
“Yes.”
“Let me get this straight. Lieutenant Canady, a police officer, took you in with him to see the corpse of a crime victim?”
“He did. You can ask him.”
There was a note of absolute truth in his tone. She knew that Canady really had taken him in to see the corpse.
He lifted a hand. “Please, hear me out. The cops aren’t insane any more than I am. But this is New Orleans. Voodoo central. They’re aware of all kinds of cultists and weird practices going on here.”
“Sure,” she murmured.
She needed to get out of here. He had sworn he wouldn’t stop her. All she had to do was stand up and leave.
But she didn’t.
“And when you saw the body?”
“Even though she had been beheaded, you could still see the marks.”
“The marks? From a vampire?”
“Yes.”
She inhaled, wary, feeling as if she needed to run as fast as she could, but fascinated by the conversation despite herself.
Wishing desperately that…
That they weren’t having this conversation at all.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go back to what went on tonight at the bar. Deanna considers that man, Jonas, a friend. Why were you trying to beat him to a pulp?”
“Because he’s a vampire.”
“I thought Stephan was the vampire?”
“Stephan is one vampire, a very old one. Very powerful. He can influence people around him, command respect.” He let out a sound of derision. “Just like a cult leader,” he said quietly. “I think Stephan has come here with an army of vampires. And I’m convinced he knows you’re here.”
“And he’s after me because I look like Katie?”
“I don’t know if he’d been in love with her, after her, for years, or if having her simply became a matter of pride, an obsession, for him. But, yes, if I saw you and thought—even for a split second—that you were Katie, I can promise you that Stephan would have reacted exactly the same way.”
She moistened her lips and spoke softly, reasonably. “All right, so…so if Stephan wants me, why is Jonas after Deanna?”
“I had hoped to find that out tonight. Deanna is beautiful. Any man would notice her in a crowd. Maybe that’s all it is. Perhaps Jonas, having seen her, just wants her for himself. Or maybe Stephan has decided to pick off your friends one by one to get to you, so he’s ordered Jonas to go after Deanna. And of course Stephan knows
“How does he know that?”
Mark looked grim. “Trust me. He knows. And he’s been here—on the grounds. I know that, too.”
“You’ve seen him?”
A chill shot through Lauren. She should be laughing.
No, she should leave. Should have left ten minutes ago.
But once again, she simply watched him, amazed. There was something in his words, a calm sincerity, that was disturbing. He spoke with such an element of truth…or true belief, at least.
She sat still for a moment, then leaned forward and said, “Mark. I know what it’s like to lose someone. I was engaged myself. My fiance was in the military, and he was killed overseas. I knew he was in danger over there, but somehow you don’t believe anything terrible will happen to someone you love. He was a pilot, and his plane went down. I tried for months to believe it was a lie, a mistake, that it was someone else…but then his body came home and I had to face the truth. There are stages of grief, you know. Denial, fury, guilt…I’m sure it hurt terribly to lose Katie. I know there were days when I thought I’d lost my mind. Seriously, I’m a pacifist, but I wanted to nuke half the world.”
He shook his head, dark lashes shielding his eyes. Then he offered her his rueful grin, the one that made her long to get closer to him.
“I have no desire to hurt anyone other than Stephan—and his kind.”
“As in vampires.”
He hesitated. “As in his kind,” he repeated.
She lifted her hands. “What do you want
