We followed your scent, little brother, Caine told him, his hand clamping against Brandon's throat and shoving him back.

Caine slammed him into the wall with enough force to crush the drywall beneath him, to rattle the wits from Brandon's skull, and make him drop the katana to the ground. The stink of your weakness clings to you-pathetic and unmistakable.

Brandon drove the heel of his hand mightily into Caine's face, smashing his nose and sending his brother floundering back in surprise. The moment Caine's hand was loose from his throat, Brandon struggled to recover. If he hesitated, he was dead, and he knew it. He swung his hand around and down, slamming his fist into the side of Caine's head, staggering him anew.

f.u.c.k you, Caine! he yelled in his mind, his brows furrowed as he threw another powerful, sweeping, diagonal punch at his brother's face, and then another, and another; a relentless volley that sent Caine retreating, backpedaling and stumbling. I'm not going back! You can tell the Grandfather that! Have him do his worst-let all of you come! I'm not going back!

The Grandfather is no longer interested in what you have to say, Caine seethed, grabbing Brandon by the arm as he swung another punch. And neither am I. He head-b.u.t.ted Brandon, seizing hold of him by the hair and jerking him forward. Their foreheads smashed together and Brandon staggered back, dazed and reeling. He crumpled to his knees, struggling to clear his head.

Caine recovered more quickly and again closed his fist in Brandon's hair. He wrenched Brandon's head back and forced him to his feet. Brandon's fists had bloodied Caine's mouth, but Brandon could see those wounds healing, the b.l.o.o.d.y fissures in his lips closing. He'd fed recently, then, and well. Nothing accelerated their already-heightened healing abilities like an overindulgent feeding, and Brandon thought of the nightmare he'd suffered, the dream in which he'd imagined tearing open the old man's throat and gorging himself on blood. Not me, he thought, horrified. Then it was Caine. It must have been. I sensed him somehow, even in my sleep!

"Did you think you could hide?" Caine said, grasping Brandon's throat again, hoisting him into the air and holding him aloft. "Did you really have such pathetic hope, Brandon? Abandon it, then. You're-"

He turned to look over his shoulder, his hand falling away from Brandon's neck, sending him crumpling to the floor. Brandon clutched at his throat, whooping momentarily for breath, and looked up, trying to see what had distracted Caine. Oh, no, he thought in dismay. Lina stood nearby in a T-shirt and nothing else beneath, her pistol clasped between her hands, aimed directly for Caine. Oh, Christ, no, no, please, no...!

Lina! he signed, his hands frantic, his palms swatting past one another. Run! Run, Lina! For the love of G.o.d, run!

Lina didn't know who in the h.e.l.l the tall young man with the waist-length fall of heavy, dark hair was, but as he walked boldly, swiftly across the room toward her, she leveled the barrel of her nine-millimeter squarely at his chest. "I said, freeze, a.s.shole!"

she shouted.

She'd awoke with a frightened start at a terrible clatter from the kitchen and living room, as if someone was chucking Buicks by catapult headlong into the cabinetry.

She's managed to jerk on a T-shirt and s.n.a.t.c.h her gun from the bedside table before darting out of the bedroom, and that's when she'd discovered the long-haired man throttling Brandon.

"You smell like s.e.x," he told her as he approached, not slowing his gait in the least, despite the gun trained at him. She shied back, uncertain all at once, unnerved by his boldness. "You were f.u.c.king him, weren't you? His stink is all over you."

"Get back!" she cried, pulling the trigger, feeling the gun buck against her hand. The man didn't have a weapon that she could see, and he hadn't raised a hand against her, but she'd felt immediately, distinctly threatened all the same. It was as if he marked the leading edge of some encroaching thunderstorm, and the air all around him literally trembled.

The bullet slammed into his chest, near the vertex of his shoulder, and he stumbled, his eyes widening as if in surprise. He halted momentarily, bringing his hand to his wound.

"Put your hands up," Lina told him, her voice quavering. "I'm a police officer. You're under arrest."

When the man drew his fingertips back, they were spotted in blood, and his brows narrowed, his dark eyes seeming to punch clear through Lina's skull. "b.i.t.c.h," he said, his voice hoa.r.s.e with sudden fury. "I will bleed you for that."

She didn't know what the f.u.c.k that meant, but it sounded bad and she decided she didn't want to find out. "Put your hands up,"

she snapped. When he ignored her completely, and began to move again, marching toward her, she shied back. "I said put your G.o.dd.a.m.n hands up!"

She shot him again, the roar from the pistol deafening in the confines of the corridor. He lurched, plowing into the wall, crying out as he clutched at his opposite shoulder. He glared at her from beneath furious brows, and then he shambled toward her again.

Oh, s.h.i.t, she thought, backing away.

"You b.i.t.c.h," he hissed, and then he shook his head once, twice. She cringed at a horrible, sodden sound, the cracking of bone, and then she shrank back again as he turned to her, opening his mouth wide. His canine teeth had suddenly become enormous, long and hooked, jutting down from his upper palate like something out of a B-grade vampire movie. The snapping she'd heard had been his lower jaw wrenching out of socket, widening the circ.u.mference of his open mouth in order to accommodate those horrifying teeth.

Oh, s.h.i.t...!

She couldn't see the whites of his eyes anymore. It was dark in the hallway, and she was frightened, nearly frantic, so it might have been her imagination, but she could swear that his eyes had turned black, the dark pools of his irises spreading out, engulfing the surface of his corneas.

What the h.e.l.l is he? she thought, because those black eyes met hers and held her fast; just as Brandon's gaze had seemed to reach out and somehow physically restrain her the day before, so, too, did this man's. His dark, featureless eyes suddenly bore into her, and she could feel him inside of her head, a cold, slithering shadow creeping behind her eyes, seeping through her skull, immobilizing her.

Oh, my G.o.d, what the h.e.l.l is he?

Brandon caught the man from behind just as he came within three steps of Lina. He seized hold of the man's arm and whirled him smartly about, slamming him back against the wall, and Lina saw a wink of pale light against silver-her brother's j.a.panese sword, clenched in Brandon's hand. He rammed the blade through the longhaired man's gut, punching in one side of his torso and out the other, shoving so forcefully, the leading edge of the blade speared out of the man's lower back and into the wall, puncturing the drywall and pinning him in place.

Lina screamed in shocked horror, the gun wavering, nearly tumbling from her hand. When Brandon reached for her, holding out his hand in mute, desperate beckon, she drew back, shaking her head. "How... how did you do that?" she whimpered. He drove that sword through a man's gut-and clear through the wall. No one is strong enough to do that. "How did you do that?" she cried. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

Brandon's fingertips brushed against the front of her shirt, grabbing hold. He jerked her toward him in stumbling tow, and she shrieked as the long-haired man impaled against the wall s.n.a.t.c.hed at her, pawing at her arms, yanking at her hair. He snapped at her like a deranged, rabid hound, his horrifying mouth lolling wide on its dislocated hinges, his teeth snapping in the open air scant centimeters from her face.

"Oh, G.o.d!" she cried, as Brandon tried to shield her, swinging his fist around again and again, pummeling the man until his hands fell away. "Oh, G.o.d, let go of me! Let go of me, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

"There's no place you can hide!" the man screamed at them, thrashing against the sword, struggling to free himself as Brandon pulled her past. "We'll find you! We'll come for you!" He grasped the hilt in his hands and strained to jerk it loose. Lina watched him in horrified disbelief, even as Brandon hooked his arm around her waist and hauled her forcibly for the front door. "We'll never stop coming for you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Brandon reached the door and fumbled frantically with the deadbolts and chain. A blur of movement caught Lina's gaze, and she turned, screaming as a woman launched herself over the breakfast bar separating the kitchen and living room, leaping at Brandon. Like the man in the hallway, her mouth was flung impossibly wide, and her teeth were horrifically long. Lina only had a fleeting, split-second glimpse of her eyes, but they looked black, too, with no discernable irises. The woman screeched, her voice piercing, inhumanly shrill, and her s.h.a.g-cropped, dark brown hair splayed crazily around her face.

"Brandon-!" Lina screamed, and he pivoted, his eyes widening. The woman slammed into him, smashing him against the door.

The wood splintered on its hinges at the impact; only the deadbolts kept it from collapsing out into the corridor.

Brandon crashed to the floor, with the woman atop him, her fists flying, a furious garble of inarticulate sounds shrieking from her mouth. He managed to draw his leg up between them, to plant his foot against her belly, and heaved mightily, punting her off him.

She sailed across the room as if she were made of no more than linen; she smashed down atop Jackson's gla.s.s-and-bra.s.s coffee table, shattering it beneath her. When she sat up, her face was blood streaked from dozens of cuts. Her brows furrowed and she scrambled to her feet, rushing at Brandon again. Just as she leaped in the air, meaning to pounce at him, Lina remembered the nine-millimeter dangling heavily in her hand. She jerked her gun arm up and out, squeezing the trigger once, twice, three times, firing more from instinct than aim. Two slugs struck the woman's torso, and she jerked violently. The last punched into her forehead, sending her brains scattering out of the backside of her skull and across Jackson's polished, pine floors. She crumpled to the floor like a runaway marionette with its strings abruptly severed.

From behind Lina, the man pinned to the wall howled shrilly, hoa.r.s.ely. "No!" he screamed. "Emily, no! No! Oh, you b.i.t.c.h, I'll kill you for that! I will bleed you dry, you b.i.t.c.h! I'll rip your G.o.dd.a.m.n heart out through your mouth and shove it up your G.o.dd.a.m.n-"

There was more, but she didn't hear it. Brandon scrambled to his feet. His hand closed viselike around Lina's wrist, and he jerked open the remaining locks, shoving the broken door out into the corridor. He stumbled over it and began to run, dragging Lina in tow, leaving the man to scream in protest behind them.

Chapter Fourteen.

Lina didn't remember much after that for a while. She had dim recollection of Brandon leading her down the street, both of them barefooted and running down the cold, deserted sidewalk. At some point, he hailed a cab, and she vaguely recalled sitting in the backseat beside him. He'd elbowed her, needing her to talk to the driver. Hotel, he'd finger-spelled at her. Lina, please, tell him to take us to a hotel.

If the driver had been disturbed by their appearance-Brandon beaten up and blood-spattered, dressed in only his blue jeans, and Lina in a T-shirt, her legs and a.s.s flapping in the breeze-he said nothing that Lina could remember. h.e.l.l, he's probably seen worse, she thought, sitting on the edge of the hotel room's full-sized bed. We were probably typical fare for this time of the night.

This time of the night was now almost six in the morning. The cabbie had delivered them to the Bluebell Inn, a musty, seedy motel in a rundown section of town. Thankfully, Brandon had his wallet in his jeans pocket, so he'd covered the cab fare and the room. Like the driver, the clerk at the hotel had said nothing to them at all. Maybe couples come in here all the time like this, Lina thought, looking down at herself. Brandon in no shirt, and me in no pants. Well, at least between the two of us, we can throw a whole outfit together.

She snickered slightly, her shoulders jerking. Her eyes swam with tears and she blinked down at her lap, struggling to compose herself. I'm in shock, she thought, trembling. That's all. I've got to pull myself together. Just a few deep breaths, that's what I need.

Brandon genuflected in front of her, offering her a paper cup filled with water. She took it from him, her hands shaking, slopping water over the rim and against her thighs. She took a few sips and then cradled the cup between her hands. "What... what the f.u.c.k happened back there?" she whispered, her voice hoa.r.s.e and tremulous. She looked up, meeting Brandon's gaze. "Who were those people?"

He drew his fist against his cheek and then brought his hands together in front of him, holding his index fingers extended outward, parallel to the ground. My sister, he said, and he finger-spelled her name. Emily. And my brother, Caine.

Lina stared at him, her stomach twisting in a horrified knot. "Sister?" she breathed. Oh, my G.o.d. I just... I just shot and killed his sister.

"But they... their faces," she said. "I saw their faces, and you... you stabbed him, Brandon. You pinned him to the wall with a sword. And their faces..."

She'd seen suspects so hyped up on methamphetamines or crack that repeated jolts from a stun gun hadn't as much as slowed them down. She'd once seen a speed freak so out of control and delusional, it had taken six cops-all strapping grown men-to subdue him. She'd seen her fair share and then some of some freaky-a.s.s s.h.i.t, but she had never in her life witnessed anything like she had that night. Their eyes turned black, she thought, a chill shivering through her at the memory. Their jaws had broken open, and their teeth...!

"They weren't human," she whimpered, her tears spilling down her cheeks. "They... oh, G.o.d, they weren't human!"

Brandon pressed his hand against her face. He shook his head, his eyes sorrowful, as if to say, No, they weren't.

Brandon left her to take a shower, and she listened to the sound of running water from the hotel room's cramped, dingy bathroom. When she was satisfied that he was occupied, she leaned across the head of the bed, reaching for the telephone.

Rene answered the line on the fifth ring, just as she was about to give up. "Hullo," he said, his voice husky and hoa.r.s.e.

"Rene?" she said, closing her eyes in abject relief. Oh, thank Christ. "Rene, are you awake? I really need to-"

"Lina, chere," he interrupted, sounding pleased... and something more. She glanced at the clock. It was six-fifteen in the morning. It wasn't even dawn yet, and Rene was already wasted. "How was the wedding? I'm awake, yes." She heard a rustling as he turned away from the phone and then groaned. "I don't think I've even been to bed yet. I've been... busy."

She heard a woman's m.u.f.fled giggle filter through the line, and felt new, frustrated tears well in her eyes. "d.a.m.n it, Rene," she whispered, trembling.

"What?" he asked, the good humor in his voice faltering as he at last realized something was wrong. "Lina, what is it?"

"Couldn't you just be sober for once?" she asked, her tears spilling. "I... I just... G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Rene, I really needed you this time."

She hung up on him, setting the receiver back in its cradle. I really needed you. to tell me I'm not crazy, she thought, and she clapped her hands over her face, bursting into tears.

Brandon stood in the shower, his eyes closed, feeling the stinging spray of hot water pelt the crown of his head. It spilled down, following the contours of his face and neck, streaming down his body in thin, fast-moving rivulets. He felt it dripping from his lips, the tip of his nose, sliding into his ears. It helped to disguise his tears, though not the hitching of his chest, his soft, occasional, anguished gasps.

He wanted to call Tessa. He'd never wished for anything so badly in his life. He felt frightened and lonely, sc.r.a.ped suddenly raw inside, and G.o.d, he wanted to curl up against her, to tuck his head against his twin sister's shoulder, as he had when he'd been a boy, and feel her arms around him, comforting him.

Once upon a time, Brandon and Tessa had been amazingly close, and she'd always been able to sense when he was hurting, frightened, or upset. That had been before her bloodletting. After that, everything between them had been different, even though she'd tried to tell him it wasn't.

He'd known she would come on the day he'd ran away from the farm, the morning of his bloodletting. He'd been alone in his room, staring out the window at the rolling hills of the horse farm. He could feel the morning chill creeping in through the thick planes of gla.s.s. He saw Daniel and Emily playing together in the yard. Emily chased him, her hands outstretched, threatening to tickle.

You let a child go in your place because you're a coward. Caine's words had echoed in his mind as he watched Emily reach out, tagging Daniel lightly with her fingertips, her mouth open in laughter. You're weak and pathetic, a G.o.dd.a.m.n coward hiding behind Father and his pity for you.And then he had known Tessa was there, hovering in the doorway behind him like a shadow. He sensed her, a p.r.i.c.kling sensation within his mind, and turned. She regarded him cautiously, moving her fingers through her dark hair, tugging a shank off her face to tuck behind her ear.

She didn't come immediately toward him. There seemed to be something besides the silence separating them, and he realized sadly it was because she really was different now, despite all of her protests. Things had changed between them because she had changed; she looked at him through different eyes and he knew a part of her regarded him the way Caine, Emily, the Grandfather, and everyone else did-coldly, contemptuously.

Tessa held her pointe shoes in one hand by the tangled ribbon lacings. The pink satin toes had long since worn grey and split open, and the layers of moleskin carefully tacked over wore away with alarming frequency. She loved ballet. She was an extraordinarily talented dancer. Just as their father had paid for Jackson to come and tutor Brandon, he'd hired the most expensive and exclusive instructors to come and teach Tessa ballet. He'd built a large studio on the third floor of the great house just for her, and before her bloodletting, before she'd married Martin and left, Tessa had spent hours every day practicing and performing. Brandon wondered if she'd ever dreamed of fleeing the farm like he did, of making a life somewhere among the humans for herself as a dancer.

"I was hoping to get some practice in upstairs," she said, smiling awkwardly, shyly at him. "I thought maybe you'd want to help me with some lifts, like we used to, but then I..." She laughed. "I can't get my feet in the shoes. They're too tight."

Her whole angle of conversation bewildered him; he'd been sure she was going to talk to him about the bloodletting, offering him more false rea.s.surances of how she'd be there with him, help him through it. He brought his hand up to his forehead and then out in front of his chest, folding his three middle fingers inward to his palm: Why?

"My feet are swollen," she said, smiling at him mysteriously, pressing her hand lightly against her stomach. "My ankles, too. I...

I'm pregnant, Brandon."

He blinked at her, dumbfounded, and she nodded. "I'm going to be a mommy."

He forgot about the bloodletting, his plans to flee, and how she'd been a stranger to him for the past three years. In that moment, his heart softened and he rushed to her. He drew her into his arms in a warm embrace, and when her arms wrapped around his neck, he lifted her from her feet, spinning her gently, making her laugh against his ear.

Oh, Tessa, that's fantastic! he signed after setting her down. Congratulations! How are you feeling?

"I'm OK," Tessa said, still smiling. "A little sick, but only if I eat anything in the morning. Or anything really greasy. Or anything with milk in it." She laughed, then added, "Or anything other than chicken soup."

He smiled at her. What does Martin think?

Her face clouded for a moment, nearly imperceptible. A stranger, or someone else in the family even, might not have caught the dark look, but Brandon still knew his sister, despite the differences and distance that had come between them, and didn't miss it.

"He's excited, of course," she said at last, smiling brightly, a forced and strained effort.

How far along? Brandon asked. He took her by the elbow and led her toward the bed.

"Not much. Three months, maybe a little more." She drew to a halt and laughed. "Brandon, what are you doing?"

Shouldn't you be sitting down or something? he asked.

She laughed again, flapping her arm to shake him loose. "I'm fine, Brandon, really." She reached up and touched his face briefly, fondly. "Do you want to feel it? It's tiny, but it moves sometimes and I can sense it, its little heartbeat. It's like this bright, wonderful little patch of warmth in my belly. And it's growing every day."She reached for his hand but he shied back, shaking his head. I can't, Tessa, he thought. I don't know how, and my telepathy is- "I'll help you," she said. She pulled her shirt up, pressing his palm against her stomach. "Open your mind, Brandon." He did, and was immediately aware of the baby somewhere inside of her; it was as if he could feel the fluttering, persistent rhythm of its heartbeat from deep within her uterus against his hand, and see it within his mind, a pinpoint of light, something golden and glowing.

He blinked at Tessa in stupefied fascination and she laughed, grinning. "Pretty cool, huh?"

It's amazing, he thought. She sat down on his bed, lying back, letting her long legs dangle over the side. He stretched out beside her, and they rolled over, facing each other, as they'd always done as children.

"I'm sorry about Gallaudet... and your hands," she whispered, nearly nose to nose with him. Her dark eyes, so much like his own, were round and sorrowful. "Are you better now?"

He drew his hand between them, waggling his fingers demonstratively, making her smile. In that moment, in his room, on his last day at the farm, she had been the old Tessa again, his Tessa, but now she was gone. He'd never see her again, and if he did, it would be because she'd come for him, to bring him back to Kentucky, to deliver him to the Beneath.

Oh, G.o.d, I couldn't fight her, he thought, anguished. I... I could never hurt Tessa.

He thought about Emily, and his heart ached. She was too young for the bloodletting. Caine's right. She went too soon, and it was my rightful place.

Like Tessa, Emily had changed after her bloodletting, but her transition had been even more noticeable. In childhood, Emily had played often with Brandon and Tessa. It was though a part of her had broken when she'd killed for the first time. Something in her mind had changed, turning spiteful and feral, and she'd never recovered.

It was because she was too young, he thought. It's my fault, what happened to her. All my fault that she's dead.

As he stood in the shower in the dingy hotel bathroom, Brandon clapped his hand over his eyes and shuddered with silent sobs.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, swatting at his dark hair with a towel, he realized Lina was asleep, curled on her side on the bed. She'd been waiting for her turn in the shower, and slept with a towel wrapped around her torso. Her T-shirt lay in a rumpled pile on the floor beside the bed. Brandon went to her and knelt, lifting the shirt in one hand and brushing the cuff of his knuckles against her cheek with the other. I love you, Lina, he thought, wishing desperately he could have one moment of voice, no matter how fleeting, so that he could wrap his mouth around those precious, wonderful, poignant sounds and let her know.

He drew the T-shirt over his head and slipped on his jeans. He went to the bedside table and wrote her a quick note on a small notepad embossed with the Bluebell Inn logo, in case she woke in his absence. Gone to buy clothes. Be right back.

He pocketed the key and left the room. He'd noticed a Dollar-A-Rama store just up the street from the motel last night from the cab. He hoped like h.e.l.l that they'd be open that early in the morning, and tried not to pay attention to the fact that the pavement beneath his bare feet was cold and damp. He walked briskly, his hands shoved in his hip pockets, his shoulders hunched against the chill.

He caught sight of a pair of young men watching him from beneath the motel's entrance awning as he cut across the street. A couple of quick glances over his shoulder revealed they followed his progress with undisguised interest, and he could sense their attention in his mind, feel their dark eyes trailing in his footsteps. He found himself suddenly growing anxious, his throat and chest tightening to think of Lina, alone and asleep in the room.

She'll be fine, he told himself, his brows narrowing. She's still got her pistol, and at least one bullet left. She knows how to take care of herself.

The Dollar-A-Rama had just opened when he arrived, and he found himself the solitary customer inside. He didn't bother with a basket or cart, because he didn't plan on browsing. He draped two pairs of sweat pants and two oversized, zipper-front hoodies over his arm. He grabbed a package of plain white T-shirts, and two pairs of plastic flip-flips.