"Stop it!" a woman shrieked. "Get away from him!"

Jaus saw a tree limb swinging through the air toward his face and instinctively ducked, pushing his attacker toward the blunt club. A young blond girl smashed the wood into the side of the Asian's head, sending him to his knees.

Before Valentin could say or do anything, the girl launched a vicious attack of her own.

"Tie me up to a fucking tree?" she screamed, raising the branch to bring it down over the top of his head. "Leave me out there for the fucking bears to chew on?" The branch cracked as she struck him a third time. "I don't fucking think so."

The Asian man fell over and went limp.

The woman holding the tree branch dropped it, and Valentin saw that her hands had actually been tied to one end. He went to her and quickly released her bonds.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're fucking welcome," she snarled, and gulped in air, visibly trying to compose herself. "Sorry." She kicked the unconscious man. "I'm just really fucking pissed off at this guy."

Jaus knelt down to check the Asian. He was still breathing, but a number of large bumps were swelling on his head. He looked up at the girl, who was panting and still trembling with rage. "This man, do you know him?"

"I thought I did. By the way, I'm Melanie Wallace." She leaned over to spit on the back of the Asian man's head. "He's insane."

"Stay here, please, Melanie." Valentin lifted the man over his shoulder and carried him out of the cabin.

He looked through the back window to see the blond girl collapse into one of the kitchen chairs before he jerked the unconscious man's arm up to his mouth, sinking his fangs into his forearm.

He took the blood he needed to heal the wounds the man had inflicted, nothing more. He considered saving himself a great deal of trouble and snapping the man's neck, but three things stopped him: His attacker had the same exotic type of features and almond-shaped eyes as Liling, which made Jaus assume he was also Chinese. He had used the Brethren term for the Darkyn before he had stabbed Jaus. And while he was human, he had some Kyn-like talent over the wind and water.

He decided to keep him alive long enough to interrogate him. Then he would snap his neck.

Valentin picked up the long, limp body and carried him under his arm into the woodshed. There he used some of the cords binding the firewood to tie the man's wrists and legs. After bolting the door to the shed from the outside, he removed the hatchet from the chopping stump next to it. If the man somehow worked his way out of the ropes. Valentin didn't want him using the hatchet for a second attack.

Satisfied that the intruder was as secure as was possible under the circumstances, Valentin returned to the cabin. There he found the girl sitting at the kitchen table with a wet dish cloth pressed to her wrist.

"I owe you my life," he told the blond girl as he closed the door behind him. "I am Valentin Jaus."

"Pretty name. Nice to meet you." She gave him a tired smile. "And I apologize for dropping in on you like this, dude, but it's not like I had a choice." She glanced to the back door. "Did I crack his skull open?"

Valentin shook his head.

She lifted the dish cloth and inspected the livid red marks on her wrists. "Let me catch my breath, and I'll give it another shot."

"It is not necessary," he told her. "I tied him up and locked him in the woodshed."

"It is so necessary. That guy is crazy. He kidnapped me, you know? With a gun and everything."

Valentin knew the Brethren had no hesitation in using humans to further their cause. "Who is he?"

"He told me his name is Kyan," she said. "He didn't say much else. I thought for sure he was going to feed me to the alligators or some gross serial killer shit like that." Her voice trembled, and she buried her lace in her hands. "Oh, God."

Valentin gave her a few moments to compose herself before asking gently, "How did you come to meet this man. Melanie?"

"He doesn't speak English very well. Think, like, totally slaughtering it? Anyway, he hired me to come on his boat and translate for him." She lifted her hands, showing him her palms. "Dude, I am so sorry about this. I had no idea he was, like, a killer psycho wazoo or whatever he is. Honestly. I thought the guy was just a tourist." She shook her head slowly. "I can't believe I slept with him."

He prepared a drink for her while she told him about the trip she had taken with Kyan downriver, and how when she had tried to quit he had abducted her at gunpoint.

"Then he stopped here, and I saw the lights on in the cabin. He must have figured out that I was making noise, like, to warn you, so he tied me up to a tree and left me out there." She nodded toward the tree limb on the floor. "He didn't notice the branch was broken, so I hung from it and swung back and forth until I broke it off. Then I was like. Hey, a club, and I came after him."

Jaus admired her ingenuity. She seemed quite young, and yet she had responded to the situation like a trained soldier. "Did this man Kyan tell you why he was coming here?"

She shrugged. "I got the impression he was looking for someone. And, dude, do you know you have, like, a humongous plane sitting in the bottom of your lake out there?" She jerked a thumb toward the broken window.

"Yes." Jaus realized he now had two human females to look after, and a Brethren operative who could kill them all. Was this the man whom Liling had feared so much? "Unfortunately. I landed it there."

"Maybe you should, like, retake some flying lessons." She cringed as thunder boomed outside the cabin. "Can you call the cops now and have them come out here and arrest him?"

"There is no phone here," he told her.

"Damn. I really want to see his ass hauled off to the county lockup." She rubbed at the red marks on her wrists. "And I was nice to him because I thought he was cute. What a jerk. I am so, like, never watching The Matrix movies ever again."

Jaus went to the window and checked the skies. The storm rolling in from the south looked dense, and the wind was rising. "If you are hungry, Melanie, there is some food in the pantry. I am going to wash up and dress."

She gave his chest a weary but sweetly lecherous look. "Don't do it on my account, dude."

Liling heard someone singing an old Chinese cradle song, and slowly emerged from the dream. The room she lay in was dark, but flashes of light briefly illuminated a young, smiling female face.

"You're awake. Hey." The blond girl tucked a pillow behind Liling's head. "I heard you calling for someone. You okay, sweetie?"

She spoke in a combination of Chinese and English, which Liling found as surreal as her presence. "I'm all right. I speak English. Who are you?"

"My name's Melanie," the blond girl said. "I just got here. Is that German dude, like, your boyfriend?"

"He's Austrian." Liling wondered what Valentin would think of her calling him a boyfriend. "He's simply a good friend."

"With benefits. I bet. Does he have a brother?" Dimples appeared in her cheeks. "He's, like, totally hot."

Liling couldn't help smiling back at her. "How did you get here?"

"I was kidnapped, sort of." Melanie launched into a rambling account of a Chinese man who had lured her onto his boat and taken her downriver. After she finished relating the details of her ordeal, she added. "I think Kyan was looking for you, because he kept saying 'she.' And I don't think he knew you spoke Chinese, or he wouldn't have dragged me out here."

Kyan. He had found her.

Liling looked over as Jaus entered the room. "Valentin, where is Kyan?"

"He is tied up in the woodshed." He looked down at Melanie. "Miss Wallace, would you excuse us for a moment?"

"Sure." Melanie didn't move, and then she smacked her palm into the side of her head. "You want me to leave; got it. I'll just go hang in the kitchen, then."

Liling grabbed the girl's wrist. "Where did Kyan leave the boat?"

The girl described the pier on the other side of the lake. "I know how to drive a boat, if you guys want to get out of here."

Liling saw Valentin glance at the windows as he gauged the conditions outside. She had to tell him about her and Kyan, and why they had to leave at once. At the same time, she didn't want to alarm the young girl.

"The storm is growing too strong," he said at last. "We will have to wait until it passes."

"Fine with me; I hate lightning. And you want to be alone, so let me get out of here." To Liling, Melanie said, "Are you hungry, sweetie? I can make you some soup or something."

"No, thank you." The thought of eating food made Liling's stomach turn. When the girl departed, she sat up, holding the quilt over her bare breasts. "We must take the boat and go now."

"We will, after the storm passes." He sat down beside her on the bed. "You look pale again."

"I feel strange." Talking made something inside her mouth hurt, and she touched her lips. "When we crashed, did something hit me in the mouth?"

"No." He spanned her jaw with his hand. "Open for me."

Cringing a little, she parted her lips, then closed them in embarrassment as she felt a trickle of something warm run down her chin. "Ugh. I'm drooling."

"No, you are not." His hand tightened. "Open again." As soon as she did, he put the tips of two fingers in her mouth and rubbed them against a sore place on her palate. It was so sensitive the slight pressure made her flinch.

When he drew his hand back, his fingers were stained with blood.

Why was she bleeding? "I don't remember cutting my mouth on anything."

"You didn't cut it. Your teeth did. You are growing two more now. They are your dents acérées." He got up from the bed and dragged a hand through his hair. "How can this be?"