The careless haste with which his protege bent to press his lips to the bishop's ring did not please August. He tried to look upon the men serving his parishes as a strict but fair parent would, but he always expected obedience and deference from his diocesan sons. John's lack of reverence was more disturbing than his letter, because it diminished the church's hold over him. Where there was no church, there was nothing for Hightower to use.

John Keller was under a terrible strain, however, and August could let it go. For now.

This meeting was worrisome, as well. The order had demanded it, against Hightower's expressed wishes. In time August knew he could have brought John around, but time did not interest the Brethren. John's sister, Alexandra, did. Her disappearance, and the circumstances around it, stank of the maledicti. The Darkyn could not obtain medical treatment through normal channels, and a talented surgeon would be an enormous boon to them.

If they can keep her alive, August thought. The Brethren were worried enough to be considering termination. They would have to find her first, however, and the only family she had left alive was her brother, John.

"Forgive me for not being here to welcome you properly," John was saying.

"I gave you little time to do anything but dress." He patted the young priest's shoulder fondly and gestured to a comfortable armchair beside his own. "Sit, my boy. It's been nearly five years since you came back from South America, hasn't it?"

Wariness entered John's eyes. "Yes, Your Grace."

Abandoned at a young age, John and his younger sister had wandered in and out of foster care, sometimes living on the street between placements, before the church took an interest and arranged their adoption by a moderately wealthy white couple.

Hightower had predicted it as a fortuitous match, although the Kellers, both good Irish Catholics, had needed some convincing. The children's mixed blood and semiferal upbringing presented sizable obstacles, but Hightower had counted on Audra Keller's long-barren womb making her desperate for children. Once Audra had seen how urgently the dear wayward lambs needed a permanent, nurturing home, she softened, and in turn persuaded her reluctant husband. The remaining details—handling the social worker, having the Kellers' adoption papers pushed through the courts—were handled through the usual channels.

It was not the first such arrangement Hightower had made, nor the last. He was very tenacious of his wayward lambs, as John Keller was about to find out.

"Your letter of resignation was forwarded to me from the head of your order," Hightower said without ceremony. "I was surprised, to say the least, upon reading the contents. What brought this on?"

"I should have called, but I know how busy you are, Your Grace." John quickly related the news about his sister's abduction. "Time is of the essence, and I would ask to be released now so that I can help search for her."

John was using his sister's disappearance as an excuse to leave the priesthood, not a reason. "Have you discussed your plans with the police?" When the young priest shook his head, August sighed. "Frankly, John, I think this is a matter for them to deal with, not you."

"The police receive hundreds of missing-person reports every month. They can't follow up on them all." He rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair and made a weary sound. "She's my sister, Your Grace. She has no one else."

The bishop knew John's desire to search for his missing sister was his way of compensating for the guilt he still carried over abandoning her after their foster parents' deaths. That had always weighed heavily on John, as did other, internal struggles he had endured over the years.

"John, when you entered the priesthood, you understood that you were giving up your worldly life in the service of Christ. As distressing as this situation is for you, your sister is part of that." When the young priest began to speak, the bishop lifted a hand. "This is not about Alexandra. This is about you, and your self-doubt. Now I would like to hear the truth. Why are you turning away from your true calling?"

For a moment August thought that he had lost the boy, until he saw the despair well up in John's dark eyes.

"I'm not fulfilling my promise to God," the younger man admitted. "I swore I would defend the faith, and I can't do that anymore."

"You told me when you were young that you wanted to be a soldier of God," August reminded him.

"I did. I do."

"You feel now that you can't defend the faith if you're pandering to addicts and whores." John's flinch of surprise pleased him. "I have not been unaware of your frustration here at St. Luke's, my son. In fact, I had hoped you would come to me for reassignment long before this."

"I can't… continue, Your Grace. I have to find my sister. After that…" He paused. "There is always something like the Peace Corps. My sister spent a year overseas working as a doctor for them."

It was obvious that John hadn't devoted a great deal of thought to the after-that portion of his plans.

"Even if your sister has some sway with the Peace Corps, you can't go back to Brazil. The scandal is still too fresh, and the Brazilian government would bar you from entering the country." While the younger man absorbed that shock, he continued. "The church has many different missions, John. What I want you to do is to reconsider your role in the faith. You've tried to follow the standard path set for any priest, but obviously that isn't for you." He paused for a moment. "I came here today to offer you an invitation to join my order."

"Your order, sir?" John sounded dull and defeated. "I thought you were a Franciscan like me."

"I am on paper, for official purposes. My true order is les Frères de la Lumière." August smiled. "That is the fancy French version of 'the Brethren of Light.'"

Now the young priest frowned. "I've never heard of them."

He made a negligent gesture. "Few have. We are not an order of the Catholic church, but we were created to protect it. We are prohibited from discussing our mission and our activities with anyone associated with the church or outside the order, except in cases when a candidate initiate like, you is presented to us."

"I was presented? By whom?"

"By me. I've intended you for the Brethren since I talked you into putting on that collar." The bishop sighed and selected a finger sandwich. "Your Mrs. Murphy will be the death of me." After a nibble, he added, "You do know your history of the church, I hope."

John nodded.

"Three members of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon founded the Brethren in 1312."

Confusion clouded the young priest's expression. "Your Grace, I wrote a graduate paper on the Templars. Most of them were arrested and executed for heresy in 1307. The pope disbanded the order in 1312."

"You are correct about the order. Most of the Templars were put to death, and rightly so, bloodthirsty avaricious bastards that they were." Giving into the growling demand of his distended belly, August popped the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth and selected another. "Three who were spared knew the danger that still existed, and formed the order without the pontiff's knowledge."

John shifted in his seat. "There is no mention in any of the histories I've read of a new order being formed out of the old."

"In those days, protecting the church was more important than serving it. Secrecy was paramount." He drained the last of his tea. "Ah, that woman knows how to make a proper cup, bless her." He set the cup down. "During the Middle Ages, we priests were the only light in many places. We battled plagues, petty tyrants, thief lords, and territorial wars. The pontiff himself tried to control politic elements in a dozen different countries, mainly to keep them from collapsing. Threats sprang up in the most unexpected places. The actual power of the church at the time depended heavily on the stability of sympathetic governments, and they were frantic about these maledicti. The threat of the accursed ones still exists today, so we hunt them."

"Accursed ones?" The side of John's mouth gave a bitter hitch. "Who were they? The Lutherans?"

August refilled his cup. "We hunt vrykolakes."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I see you know your Latin better than your Greek." The bishop gave him a complacent smile. "The maledicti are accursed because they are the evil undead, John. They are vampires."

Chapter Seven

Michael Cyprien knew the danger of thrall and rapture. He had never made the mistake of thinking himself immune to the dark dance between Darkyn predator and human prey. He merely avoided losing control, in the same way he avoided copper, fire, and anything that would separate his head from his neck.

His mistake was in assuming that control was wholly mental and not physical.

Not feeding before the surgery had been imperative. The only way to submerge into the recesses of his mind and stay there while the doctor operated was to abstain from all forms of nourishment. It was the same discipline that had enabled him to endure his torture at the hands of the Brethren. Yet the effort it took to remain in that semiconscious state until she finished had pushed him into a realm of need he had not experienced after the torture, or in seven centuries since he had risen from his grave.

Seeing Alexandra for the first time brought it all home. How stunned Michael had felt, to open his eyes to the sight of her standing before him in her bloodstained gown. Phillipe had told him that she was small, but he had said nothing about the proportionate perfection of her curves. Not a word about the slender column of her throat, the sweet rise of her full breasts, or the elegant lyre of her hips. Not a syllable about the grace of her hands with their clever, tapering fingers.

The hands that had given him back his face.

The top of Alexandra's head hardly reached the center of Michael's chest, and as he had looked down on her, the light coaxed a thousand glints of gold and red in the loose crown of her dark spiraling curls. Titian would have adored her hair, and her eyes, although they were so plainly brown that they should have seemed mundane. Perhaps it was seeing in them the calm dignity and dreadful experience that she possessed that so fascinated him. Even her flower of a mouth, with its petal-soft curves that brought the ache of other hungers, could not distract him from her eyes.