Thierry, his eyes filled with hatred, latched his hands around her torn throat.

"Angel." He shook her like a rag doll. "Where is she?"

"Thierry... please," Alex wheezed. "I'm a... doctor... friend..." Everything dimmed around her.

Michael tackled Thierry and knocked him off Alex, and she fell to her knees, coughing and gasping for air. The two men fought like vicious animals, fangs bared, hammering at each other without mercy.

Someone making a rough, guttural sound grabbed Thierry from behind. It was Jamys.

"Jamys?" Thierry stared at him.

The boy made another garbled sound and pointed to the woman running away from Phillipe.

"I knew you would tell." The woman's long dark hair turned golden as she glared at Jamys. "You never could keep a secret, you naughty little boy."

Alex watched as the woman's body blurred and changed, as well. She grew taller and thinner, and her features sharpened to match those of the beautiful woman in Thierry's memories.

Cardinal Stoss sighed heavily. "Gelina, is this really necessary?"

John came and helped Alex to her feet. He looked pale with shock and as confused as Thierry.

Thierry released Cyprien and slowly rose to his feet. "Angel?" he asked, the madness leaving his eyes. "My Angel, not dead."

"Yes, darling, I'm quite alive. You really shouldn't believe all the things you think you see when you're being tortured." Angelica Durand turned to Cyprien. "You had your doctor fix my poor husband, didn't you? After all the trouble we went through to break him. Very annoying of you."

Cyprien edged away from Thierry. At the same time, Phillipe came to stand beside Alex.

"How did you fool everyone into thinking you had died in Dublin, Angelica?" Cyprien asked. "Do you change your form to look like one of the Brethren?" "No, Michael. I was never in the cell with Thierry. The Brethren skinned another Darkyn female, hung her up next to Thierry, and let him draw his own conclusions."

Somebody had to take this b.i.t.c.h out, Alex thought, and she'd be more than happy to do it. She took the sword from Phillipe's hand.

"Angel?" Thierry tried to take her in his arms.

She sidestepped him. "Not anymore, my dearest love. You see, they left me no choice." She spread her hands in a helpless way. "They caught me years ago, you know, when Mama and Papa sent me to Rome for a cure. I made a bargain to save my life. I've been bringing them Kyn for years. Jamys was the one who spoiled things." She gave her son a sulky look. "He overheard me talking to Rome on the phone, that day at the chateau. I had no choice but to have them come and take everyone."

"I saw you." Thierry rubbed his eyes. "I saw them hurt you."

"That was charade, darling." She patted his cheek. "All part of the torture." She sent Jamys a limpid smile. "That's why I had them tear out his tongue first. He would have talked and spoiled everything. I watched to make sure they did a clean job of it."

Now Alex understood what had shut down Jamys's mind-the knowledge that his mother was still alive, had betrayed them, and had faked her own death. Hearing her admit it made the boy jump out and launch himself at his mother, but Thierry caught him up in his arms.

Good thing, too, because she still had the copper sword in her hand.

Thierry looked down at his legs, and then met Alex's gaze. "You helped me."

"Yes." Alex saw something moving in the shadows to the side of the altar. "Let me do one more thing for you, Thierry. Johnny, hit the deck."

Her brother dropped to the floor as Alex brought up the sword and whipped it across Angelica Durand's throat. At first she didn't think she had struck hard enough-the woman only gasped, as if startled. Then a little horizontal trickle of blood appeared on her throat, widening as she bowed her head. It would have looked like she was praying, had her head stayed on her neck. Instead, it tumbled to the floor, followed by her body.

"Kill them all," Cardinal Stoss shouted.

The Brethren rushed the altar, but stopped when the floor began to sprout swords.

Alex grabbed the altar rail and watched as the swords cut holes through the church's thick carpeting, and men began to tear the holes wider and climb up out of them. Men in white tunics with red crosses, who looked like one of Cyprien's medieval paintings come to life.

A monk rushed at one of the emerging men, and was promptly pulled down under the carpeting. A scream that dwindled quickly to a gurgle drifted out of the hole.

The sound sent the monks backing away from the men in the white tunics.

Stoss shouted something in Latin at them and pounded his chest. Then in English, he said, "They are darkness. We are the light. Bring them to judgment, Brothers, or you will surely face your own." He pointed to Alexandra. "And bring me her head."

The men in the white tunics formed a wall around the altar, and one of them stepped out and gestured with his sword. "Leave or die."

Stoss's threat seemed to be worse, for the monks collectively surged toward the men in the white tunics.

"Cyprien." Alex saw him running toward the men who protected them, and tossed him the sword. "I love you.

Watch your neck."

Michael stared at her for a moment before nodding and jumping over the rail to join the battle.

Alex flinched as Cyprien and the men in white held off the attacking monks. Swords flashed in silvery arcs that soon turned red with blood. Both sides fought viciously, but it was the men in the white tunics who wielded their blades as if they were simply an extension of their bodies. They also fought silently, and no wound seemed to slow them down.

Darkyn, Alex realized as monks began to scream and fall in piles in front of the altar. That's why they're not dying. This is the jardin. Michael's jardin.

John was muttering something as he rose up from the ground and stared at the battle.

"What is it?" She grabbed him. "What?"

"Templars. They're Templars." He made a jerky gesture toward the white tunics. "Why are they fighting the monks?"

"Maybe because the head monk said to kill us all?" Alex suggested.

John stared at her. "What are you doing here? Why are you involved in this? Are you in league with these demons?"

"Yeah, I am. Deal with it." She turned back to watch the fighting.

The battle was short and brutal and ugly, and soon there were no monks except Stoss left for the Templars to cut down. They gathered in formation behind Cyprien, and seemed to be waiting.

A short figure in a black hooded cloak limped into the church and made his way down the center aisle. The cloaked figure was also masked, Alex saw when he came closer.

Cardinal Stoss, who was surrounded by three Templars, held his sword ready. "The coward finally arrives. I may die, but I will take you with me."

"Viktor, my oldest and dearest friend," the cloaked man said in a cultured English accent. "It's been too long. How are your family members? The ones I haven't killed?"

Stoss ran forward, the copper sword in his hand raised over his head, directly at the cloaked, masked man. The man stood his ground and let the cardinal get close, and then he took off his mask.

The cardinal's sword fell from his hand, and he stared, as mesmerized as Alex was.

"Let's take off all the counterfeit faces, shall we?" The cloaked man calmly made a single stroke with his sword, and sent Stoss's head tumbling down the church aisle.

Cyprien picked up Alex and carried her out through the back of the church. Behind them she heard the clatter of swords and the sound of bodies being dragged.

"How much blood did he take?" he asked, gently touching the wound on her throat.

"About as much as you did on our first date." Alex was growing cold and numb, just as she had in the dream. "I'm sorry, Michael. Who was that guy with the extremely necessary mask?"

"Our king, I'm afraid. Alexandra." He bent down and pressed his mouth to hers. "He has come for you. He thinks your blood holds the key to creating new Darkyn."

Alex remembered the cloaked man's face. "Okay. It's better if I die now."

Torment shone from his eyes. "No, but it is better than what he has planned. He needs you to turn others."

"Only if I'm still part human, right?" She reached up and curled a hand around his neck. "Would you be willing to donate to the cause one more time?"

"What have you done to her?"

Michael looked up from Alexandra's sleeping face. His tresora and the high lord of the Darkyn stood over them. "I've finished it." He brushed a hand over her hair.

"You gave her more of your blood."

He nodded. "If I hadn't, she would be dead. Thierry nearly drained her."

Tremayne was silent for a long time. "Well done, Seigneur." He strode off.

Michael looked up at eliane. "You have been the one feeding Richard information."

She nodded. "Before I became your tresora, I was his." She looked after the limping, retreating figure. "I remain his."

"You saved our lives by doing so. Thank you."

She gave him one of her cool smiles. "Good-bye, Michael." She followed Tremayne's path around the church. Alex remained limp in Michael's arms. Phillipe came, along with John Keller, who looked battered and furious.

"The men have taken the Durands back to the house," Phillipe told him. "Thierry is gone again."

Michael thought of what Thierry had discovered tonight. If torture had not driven him completely mad, then Angelica had likely finished the job. "Let him go."

"What have you done to my sister?" Keller demanded, in a far more hostile tone than Tremayne had.

"She was dying," Michael said mildly. "I gave her my blood, and it killed her. When she rises in two days, she will be safe."

"You mean, she'll be a vampire."

"Darkyn," Phillipe murmured.

John glanced back at the church. "And the Templars? Where did they come from, and why were they fighting against their own Brethren?"

"The men you saw in the church were mine. Members of my jardin." Michael would have laughed if it were not for the horror in the young priest's eyes. "Except for three traitors, the Brethren were never Templars, Father Keller. We were."

John was shaking his head. "No. No, not you."

Michael looked at his seneschal. "Long ago, when we were human, we were priests like you. Warriors of G.o.d, pledged to fight the infidel and protect the Holy Land. We brought something back with us from the last war we fought. A curse or a disease, whatever you wish to call it, but it made us into what we are now. It is why they outlawed us, Father Keller. Why they tortured us, and burned us. Why they still hunt us."

John was backing away, still shaking his head. "You can't be. You can't." He stumbled back into the church.

Phillipe crouched down beside them. "Alexandra will live, won't she?"

The blood tie made it possible for only a Darkyn master to detect the minute signs of life in a sygkenis's body as it made the final change. The signs in Alexandra's were small, but they were there.

"Yes." Michael gathered her up and held her safely in his arms. "Let us go home now, old friend."

Everything had been a lie. Everything.

John Keller stood before the altar in the church, looking around through dull eyes. The Templars who had fought and saved them had vanished. Blood spatters covered the floor, the curtains, and the pews, but the bodies of the Brethren had been removed. He imagined in the morning the blood would be gone, too.

"Thy kingdom come," he muttered. "Thy will be done."

He looked up at the pained face of the Son of G.o.d, hanging from the nails the Romans had pounded into him. For the first time in his entire life, he understood how that pain felt.

"I always believed," he said to the figure of Jesus. "Always."

John walked out of the church. He stood by the street, unsure of his direction. There was the rental car to take back. The hotel to check out of. The plane to catch back to Chicago.

The calling he had abandoned, to officially abandon.

He reached up and ripped the collar from his shirt, and flung it to the ground. "No more of this. No more." He walked past the rental car and into the night.

Thierry Durand watched John Keller walk down the street. He waited until Cyprien and Phillipe left with Alex, and then jumped down from the roof.

He had intended to kill John Keller when he came out of the church. Only seeing him tear away the priest's collar stayed Thierry's hand.

He bent and picked up the stiff, discarded white band. Perhaps he would follow the fallen priest and see where he led him. And then there was the very interesting file of information he had stolen from Cyprien's house. All about four men who had raped and disfigured and burned a young mother. Thierry would very much like to meet that quartet. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

The collar crackled as it slowly crumpled in his fist.

Read on for a spine-tingling glimpse of

Private Demon