Devlin grabbed me from behind, pulling me off of her. "I'd rather just get this over with," he said, taking hold of my wrists and pulling me up like a marionette.

Fiona giggled. "Coward."

He growled at her.

Fiona reached down and grabbed the hem of the skirt. "Look at the ceiling."

"You've got to be joking," he said.

"Help if you want to, but avert your eyes."

"Little girl, I am four hundred sixty-two years old. I've seen plenty of naked women."

"Not this one you haven't. Now, avert your eyes."

He snorted but must have done so for Fiona pulled the dress up and shoved it over my head.

"You have absolutely no fear of me, do you?" Devlin asked.

"No," she said with a smile as she unlaced the short corset, "but remind me later and I'll try to work some up for you." "Impudent wench."

Between the two of them they managed to get the dress, petticoat, corset and chemise off of me and slide the flannel nightgown over my head. Devlin lifted me in his arms and laid me on the bed, gently pulling the covers over me.

"Sleep, little witch," he said. "We have many problems to sort through when you wake."

I succ.u.mbed to the sucking void and slept.

Many problems. Great.

Six hours later I was sitting up in bed, propped up on pillows, staring at three vampires and four humans, a forgotten cup of tea raised halfway to my lips.

"She's a what?" I asked, slowly. Oh, this just kept getting worse and worse. Maybe I was still groggy from the drug and I'd misheard.

"A demon," Devlin said. "Montford's master is an ancient, very powerful demon."

No, I'd heard right.

Justine was pacing, my dark blue dressing gown swirling around her bare feet. Whatever her wounds last night, she seemed to be healed now. "Looked like a vampire to me," she muttered.

"Well she wasn't, not exactly. I knew it and that's why I told you to run. The next time you will obey a direct command or there will be no more hunts for you."

She stomped over to the chair next to the bed and flung herself into it with a petulant flourish.

"So, let me get this straight," I said. "Sebastian's master, the one who wants me so badly, is a woman and a demon and not exactly a vampire? Explain please."

A muscle ticked in Devlin's cheek as he regarded me for a moment and then said, "She is Kali, the Destroyer."

Mr. Pendergra.s.s stood, "She's a Hindu G.o.ddess?" he asked, breathlessly.

"No, no," Devlin said, waving a hand, "she just liked the name. Whatever her true name was it is long lost to the mortal world. She has been the Destroyer since before Jesus walked the earth."

"She's that old?" I asked.

"She's older than anything you can even imagine."

"And a demon?"

"Yes. Finding a true demon is rare. For one to exist in this reality it has to take a shape that is natural to our world. Demons find the human body too limiting. You could live five hundred years and never see one."

"So, let me get this straight. There are other... realities, other worlds, if you will, where demons reside?"

"Yes." "And they can just hop into our world at will?"

"Well, it's a bit more difficult than that and takes very powerful magic to accomplish, but essentially that is correct."

"So if demons don't like our world then why is she still here? Why hasn't she gone home? Two thousand or more years is a long time to stay in one place, especially if you don't like the packaging."

"She can't go home. She's bound here," he sighed, raking his hands through his black hair. "Let me start at the beginning. When Kali entered this world, this plane of existence, she took the body of a newly-dead East Indian princess. Her subjects, who had gathered to mourn the pa.s.sing of their young princess, worshipped her as a G.o.ddess when she rose from the dead. Being an immortal demon trapped in the mortal body of a human, she came to realize that eventually her body would age and it would die."

"Let me guess," I said, "she liked her human body and she liked being worshipped as a G.o.ddess and so she found a vampire to make her immortal."

He nodded. "She killed many of her people, bathed in their blood. The peasants worshipped her in fear but the holy men knew her for what she was. The temple priests laid a powerful spell on her, attempting to send her back to her reality and bind her there. It only partially worked. They failed to send her back but succeeded in binding her. Instead of sending her home they chained her to this world. It could be that she wants you because she thinks you can break the spell."

"It's impossible. Only the one who laid the binding spell can undo it. Surely she knows that by now."

"I don't know," Devlin said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Mr. Pendergra.s.s," I asked, "I am right about this aren't I? Only the one who laid the spell can break it, right?"

He shrugged. "That is my belief. However, if she is this determined maybe she's gained some knowledge over the centuries that we have lost."

"You mean it might be possible to break the binding? If she's got a spell that would do it and she thinks for some reason that I can work her spell?"

He nodded once, slowly. "It is possible."

"If the binding spell were broken she could again travel between worlds," I thought aloud, to no one in particular.

"Thousands would die," Devlin said softly. "Coming to this world, becoming a vampire, it wasn't a plan for the future, it was a pleasant diversion. Now she's trapped here and she is not happy about it. If she could again move between worlds, take on new bodies without the limitations of the undead, she would be unstoppable."

"You don't think she would just go home?" I asked.

"I think she would wreak b.l.o.o.d.y vengeance."

"But she is stoppable now," I said, slowly. "As a vampire bound to this realm she is, in theory, killable. Right?"

He nodded slowly. "We aren't truly immortal; we can be killed."

"So," Michael said, moving to stand next to me. "When do we kill her?"

"We don't," Devlin said grimly. "We run."

"What?" this from me, Michael and Justine in unison.

"What are you talking about?" Michael said. "We don't run from a battle; you taught me that." Devlin pointed at Justine. "She didn't run either and she got a sword through the chest for it."

Justine pulled herself up straight in the chair and said haughtily, "But not before I gave the same to her pet, Sebastian."

I rubbed the spot in the middle of my chest, right above my heart, where the pain had nearly eaten me alive last night. Michael saw and pulled my hand away, giving it a small squeeze.

"Devlin, what's going on?" Michael asked. "We are the protectors of the innocent. We do not run from vampires. There must be something we can-"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it!" Devlin roared, and Mrs. Mackenzie, Fiona, Archie and Mr. Pendergra.s.s moved back against the wall. "I have fought wars on four continents. I have led men to their deaths in battle. I have killed thousands who stood against me over the centuries. I have never failed in any mission I have undertaken. Do you think it pleases me to have to say that this is a fight we cannot win? Do you?"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a porcelain figurine of a shepherdess and sent it crashing into the far wall. Bracing his hands on the table, he hung his head and reined in his temper before saying slowly and calmly, "The Destroyer has not lived for millennia by being weak or stupid. Trust me, I know her. I had the misfortune of enjoying her hospitality once. She's stuck in this world and the only joy she knows is death and pain and she has perfected the art of both. We run or we all die. Take your pick."

The silence in the room stretched from seconds to minutes.

"Say I run," I said softly.

Everyone looked at me.

"I have plenty of money; I can run as far as I need to. But she'll come for me, won't she? She'll follow me. For the rest of my life I'll be running and looking over my shoulder until she finally catches me. Won't I?"

"Yes," Devlin said, his voice full of regret.

"Or, option two, I do what she wants which, as far as I can see, will result in one of two things: If I can't break the binding spell then she's going to kill me and I'm going to a.s.sume it won't be quick or easy. If I can break the binding then thousands of innocent people will die and she'll probably still kill me afterwards, anyway. I'm dead if I do and dead if I don't."

No one answered. They didn't need to. I took a deep breath, feeling a strange sense of calm wash over me.

"There's only one answer then," I said, looking at Devlin and then Justine, my gaze coming to rest on Michael's beautiful face.

"One of you is going to have to kill me."

Chapter Thirteen

"No!" Fiona cried, tears streaming down her face as she flew at Devlin, beating at him with her fists. "You were supposed to help!

You were supposed to fix this! What good are you then? What good?"

Devlin stood there like a statue and let her hit him, a look of shock and puzzlement on his face like he didn't quite know what to do with her. I got up and ran to her, grabbing her hands and enfolding her in my arms. Mrs. Mackenzie looked equally stricken. I stared at her over Fiona's head. She swallowed hard and started picking up dishes and stacking them on the tea tray. I understood.

It was something familiar to do, something to keep herself occupied so that she wouldn't have to think.

"No," Michael said. "No, I won't allow it. There has to be another way."

He crossed the room and I turned from Fiona's weeping form. He grabbed my face in both his hands.

"We'll run if that's what we need to do. I'll stay with you; I'll protect you."

"Even when I'm old and wrinkled and you still look like a G.o.d?" I laughed harshly.

He smiled. "Even when you're old and wrinkled and don't remember my name or your own. I'll keep you safe."

"You know, mes amies," Justine said. "There may be another way."

We all turned to her, hoping.

"If she must die, she does not have to stay dead, now does she?"

Michael was already shaking his head.

"Non, listen," Justine turned to Mr. Pendergra.s.s. "You say she will be a great witch one day, no?"

He nodded.

"If she were vampire she would be young and strong forever. She will have none of her human weaknesses. Mon amour says we cannot fight the Destroyer, that she is too strong. This I have seen. She has magic of her own to call. It is not like human magic; it is the power of a demon. Who is to say, though, that given enough years mademoiselle's magic will not be stronger than the Destroyer's? She could kill the demon with our help."

"But Mr. Pendergra.s.s said that I may not even keep my magic, that it might die with my human body," I said.

Devlin shrugged. "Then without your magic you are of no use to her."

I swung on Mr. Pendergra.s.s. "The magic. It's what she wants. Can you take it away? A binding spell or a ritual? Can you make it go away?"

He shook his head sadly. "I can bind you from certain acts, say from performing certain spells or from doing harm, but I cannot take the magic away. It is a gift from the G.o.ddess and only she can take it from you."

I walked to the window and put my hand on the closed shutters. I wanted to feel the sun, to feel something good and pure in all this darkness.

"I need to be alone," I said and shoved my way through the crowd, s.n.a.t.c.hing up my dressing gown as I fled.

I was kneeling in the Winter Garden, staring down at a small patch of evening primrose, rubbing the velvet petals between my fingers, when I heard the drawing room door open and close. I looked up and Michael stood in the shadows, the morning sun not yet flooding the room with light. I stood up and brushed the dirt off my nightgown. Giving the happy little flowers one last look, I walked into the drawing room.

"The sun is up. Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

He shrugged. "I don't have to sleep during the day any more than you have to sleep at night. I can even stand here and look out at the sun on the garden, as long as I don't walk outside. They shouldn't be blooming, you know," he said, nodding to the yellow flowers.

"I know; it's the magic. They'll die in a few more days I'm sure." I laughed bitterly, thinking that in a few more days I would probably be dead too. "It's so useless." "What is?"

"This magic. I can feel it inside me, filling me up, and I can't control it enough to use it."

"I don't understand that," he said.