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  But even with the oldest and strongest of the Elders, direct sunlight will burn them. And Michael was far from an Elder. So I had to get him where we were going in a hurry.

  “Let’s go,” I said, standing up and grabbing the crossbow again. “We’re late.”

  Chapter Five

  I parked the Charger in the alleyway beside the ruined husk of the church, behind a huge rusting dumpster. I made sure that the car was close enough to the building to stay in shadow even if the sun rose. I didn’t know why I was being so careful, especially since The Monsignor was probably going to do something fatal to Michael anyway, but I couldn’t seem to help it.

  And I couldn’t help the feeling of regret I got when I thought of his imminent demise, either.

  He’s a vamp, I reminded myself sternly as I killed the engine and pocketed the keys. Even though he doesn’t act like one, he’s still a vamp.

  “This is it? This is your office?” Michael looked around the dank alley. There was a dim grayish cast to the air—the first early stirrings of dawn although the sun wouldn’t be really up for another ten or fifteen minutes.

  “Very funny, smart guy.” I grabbed for the door handle. “I’m going out and I’ll be back for you in a minute. Whatever you do stay in the car and out of the sun.”

  “Or what?” he asked and I could see him mentally calculating the distance he could get from the crazy vampire lady in the short time I was gone.

  “Or you’ll be ash,” I said. “I mean it, Michael. You don’t want to try it. But if you do…” I shrugged. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

  I think it was my fatalistic tone that finally got through to him.

  “Okay.” He looked pale. “I’ll stay in the car—for now. But I’m not going to hang around to be staked or shot or whatever it is you do to vampires.”

  “I do all that and more,” I told him. “But I don’t want to have to do it to you.” I was surprised that I actually meant the words as I said them. I didn’t want to stake him. I hoped The Monsignor wouldn’t require it of me.

  “Why did you bring me to see your boss if you were just going to leave me in the car?” Michael asked reasonably as I opened the door. It was a good question. The Monsignor had specifically told me to bring Michael to him. Why didn’t I just follow orders? The answer came like a prickling at the back of my neck. I wasn’t bringing him in for the same reason I’d saved him in the first place instead of killing him when he’d been bitten—because something didn’t feel right.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, not answering his question. “Remember—”

  “I know.” He raised his shackled hands in a mollifying gesture. “Stay in the car or I’m fried. I got it.”

  “I hope so,” I said, and slammed the door. For good measure, I hit the lock and alarm button on my key-stub. If Michael went for a stroll, my car alarm would let me know it the minute he opened the door. I left him staring morosely out the window at the dim alley and glided around the side of the building, looking for a way in.

  There were plenty of ways to get into the abandoned church even though the fire that had gutted it had left its brick walls intact. I bypassed the small sagging side door, my usual entrance, and crept around the back of the building instead. The front of the church was devoted to the sanctuary and confessional area but the back had been mostly classrooms and an industrial sized kitchen.

  I boosted myself up onto one of the charred window sills, taking care to avoid the jagged slivers of glass that stuck up like pointed teeth from rotten gums. The interior of the kitchen had long since been stripped bare of anything remotely useful. The only thing left was a rusty, dripping sink in one corner and a stainless steel table that had been bolted to the floor.

  I dropped noiselessly to the floor and stalked silently through the shadows, heading for the front of the church and the confessional booths. I still didn’t know why I was doing this but if I was going to try and sneak up on The Monsignor, I didn’t intend to do a half-assed job of it.

  I heard his dry, whispery voice long before I saw him, mainly because it was raised in an uncharacteristically irritated tone.

  “Where is she?” he was asking someone. “And where is the fledgling?”

  “They were seen leaving her residence not more than ten minutes ago, my lord. They will be here soon,” an oily, obsequious voice answered. I couldn’t see the speaker, but he sounded like a snake. And why was he calling The Monsignor, ‘my lord’ instead of Father?

  “Have steps been taken to secure him?” I heard my boss ask. I crouched at the door that led from the back of the church into the sanctuary and put my eye to a crack. I caught a swirl of red as The Monsignor’s cloak passed through my line of vision. He turned, his features hidden as always by the blood-red cowl pulled low over his face. His hands were likewise hidden by the flowing sleeves at his sides.

  I had seen him like this many times but suddenly I felt a chill go down my spine. Why did the dark hole in his cloak where his face should have been fill me with dread? Why did the whispery voice twist my stomach in knots instead of giving me comfort?

  “Indeed, yes, all is in readiness,” the oily voice assured him. “And the bite was a good one—his blood was sweet. I knew he would turn the moment I tasted it.”

  I dragged my eyes from my boss and looked at the second man. He was tall and thin with pale skin and a lank curtain of hair that hid one of his eyes. I took a closer look and bit back a gasp. In the dim light of the burned out sanctuary, the man’s one visible eye glowed a malevolent yellow-brown. And when he parted his lips to speak, I saw the unmistakable glint of fangs. A vampire! And not just any vampire—it was the leech that had bitten Michael in the ER in the first place. Why was The Monsignor talking to him instead of staking his ass to the floor?

  “Be certain that you do not harm him,” The Monsignor said. “He is of no use to me dead.”

  “Do you really believe, my lord, that he might be the one of which the prophesy speaks?” The snake-like vamp rubbed his long, skinny hands together with a sound like dry scales rustling.

  “We shall see.” The Monsignor sounded excited, almost…greedy. It was a tone I had never expected to hear in that whispery voice. “If the blood is right, and I believe that it is, he may be. Think, Jerome, the dawn of a whole new race. Moran is the key. His blood is the key.”

  “And what of the girl?” snake-vamp asked. “She wounded me most grievously, my lord, and I am not accustomed to such indignities.” He pulled back the lank curtain of hair, exposing a mass of healing scar tissue where the other eye should have been. Apparently the holy water I’d poured down his throat had inhibited the regeneration process. Or maybe it was the silver blade I’d planted in his brain. But it wasn’t the missing eye I was most concerned with.

  On the vamp’s high, narrow forehead was a round slick spot that looked like a black bubble of oil. But I knew this bubble would never pop. It was the oculare de autorita— what the vamps call the ‘eye of power’ or the ‘eye of authority.’ And only Elders had it. Damn—I had known there was something strange about the vamp that had bitten Michael. No doubt if I had been paying more attention to the vampire instead of to Michael, I would have noticed the aura of power around him that every Elder has. It’s like getting too close to a huge generator when you’re next to one of them—all the hair on your body wants to stand up at once and you can almost feel the current of darkness and evil coursing through them like electrical energy.

  “The girl, my lord. I want her blood,” the Elder insisted.

  “The girl?” I saw the red-clad shoulders shrug as The Monsignor considered what the Elder had said. What was he doing consorting with an Elder anyway? These were the very vamps he had sent me out to kill again and again. But my boss’s next words drove everything else out of my mind.

  “She has served her purpose,” The Monsignor said. “And her blood is immune to the virus—she cannot be turned. Kill her.”

  I felt myself g