She sensed, more than felt, a sudden fluttering.
A shadow in the air. Darkness…
Like wings.
Lauren realized that Stephan was frowning.
Then, suddenly, another man materialized in front of her, standing between her and Stephan.
It was Jonas, the young, dark-haired stranger who had so captivated Deanna.
“Leave her alone,” Jonas said.
Stephan paused, then almost immediately started laughing. “And just what are you going to do about it?”
Jonas turned slightly toward Lauren. “Run!” he yelled to her.
She realized that Stephan probably had the power to tear the young man apart. Young
“Don’t fight him,” she said vehemently.
“Go!” he urged.
Stephan was coming swiftly closer, floating….
He reached Jonas, lifted a hand. It was a casual movement, but his touch sent Jonas flying across the alley, slamming hard against the wall of the church.
Then Stephan was walking toward her again.
And she found she was having difficulty moving. She could see his eyes. They were dark, and they were light. They were blackness, a Stygian pit, and they gleamed with something like fire. She wanted to move, but…
She forced herself to blink, then she aimed the water pistol.
“You won’t shoot,” he said.
But she did.
His hissed grew into a bellow of fury as the spray hit him, but he didn’t stop. Jonas recovered, straightening from where he had slumped to the ground. He raced back, leaping on the older vampire’s back.
“Go, Lauren! Don’t let him into your mind!”
She nodded, backing away. Stephan was already reaching around and plucking Jonas from his back as if he were no more than a pesky mosquito.
“Let him go!” she commanded, firing her water pistol again.
When the spray hit Stephan, he once again roared in fury.
She squeezed the plastic trigger again. Nothing happened.
The gun was empty.
“Go!” Jonas told her.
Stephan said something she couldn’t understand, but it felt as if she was hit by a cold and paralyzing blast of air. Her feet seemed leaden. She opened her mouth to scream as Stephan pounded Jonas to the pavement. Then he kicked him aside like trash and started toward Lauren again with determined strides.
But justbefore he reached her, before his fetid breath could was over her, there was a whirlwind of energy in the street. Suddenly Stephan was hit by an enormous streak of energy and power.
Lauren couldn’t begin to imagine the source, and then she saw that it was a man.
Mark.
He threw himself at Stephan in an attack so violent that he seemed to be the very wrath of God himself. His onslaught caught the vampire off balance. For a second Stephan teetered, and then the two of them became a melee of flying limbs and went down, rolling across the stone pavement of the alleyway together, a black mass of fury and rage.
At that moment the sky came to life again, wings appearing from the darkness, then fading back into it again.
Something swept down toward Lauren, and she heard a shout. Mark’s voice. He was talking to Jonas.
“Get her out of here! Get her the hell out of here!”
Jonas moved like a flash of lightning. She felt his arms around her. “Run! Help me, Lauren, damn it. Run!”
They ran.
Shadows took form in their wake, as if wings and darkness combined to become tremendous hands, reaching out….
They ran….
And ran.
And burst out onto the Square and joined the sea of humanity once again. People were strolling around, talking, laughing. A guitarist played a country song, a respectable imitation of Johnny Cash.
In the light, in the throng, in the music and chatter and
