Another pause. Just when she was sure he wouldn't answer, he said, "I was -I wanted to marry one of his daughters. Her name was Dove."

"You wanted to marry a vampire?"

"I didn't know she was a vampire!" This time Quinn's voice was quick and i mpatient. "Hunter Redfern was accepted in Charlestown. Granted, a few peop le said his wife had been a witch, but in those days people said that if y ou smiled in church."

"So he just lived there and n.o.body knew," Rashel said.

"Most people accepted him." A faint mocking smile curved Quinn's lips. "M y own father accepted him, and he was the minister."

Despite herself, Rashel was fascinated. "And you had to be a vampire to ma rry her? Dove, I mean."

"I didn't get to marry her," Quinn said tonelessly. He seemed as surprised a s she was that he was telling her these things. But he went on, seeming to s peak almost to himself. "Hunter wanted me to marry one of his other daughter s. I said I'd rather marry a pig. Garnet-that's the oldest-was about as inte resting as a stick of wood. And Lily, the middle one, was evil. I could see that in her eyes. I only wanted Dove." "And you told him that?" "Of course.

He agreed to it finally-and then he told me his family's secret. Well." Quin n laughed bitterly. "He didn't tell me, actually. It was more of a demonstra tion. When I woke up, I was dead and a vampire. It was quite an experience."

Rashel opened her mouth and then shut it again, trying to imagine the horror of it. Finally she just said, "I bet."

They sat for a moment in silence. Rashel had never felt so ... close to a va mpire. Instead of disgust and hatred, she felt pity. "But what happened to D ove?" Quinn seemed to tense all over. "She died," he said nastily. It was cl ear that his confidences were over. "How?"

"None of your business!" Rashel tilted her head and looked at him soberly.

"How, John Quinn? You know, there are some things you really ought to tell other people. It might help."

"I don't need a d.a.m.n psychoa.n.a.lyst," he spat. He was furious now, and there was a dark light in his eyes that ought to have frightened Rashel. He looked as wild as she felt so metimes, when she didn't care who she hurt.

She wasn't frightened. She was strangely calm, the kind of calm she felt whe n her breathing exercises made her feel one with the earth and absolutely su re of her path.

"Look, Quinn-"

"I really think you'd better kill me now," he said tightly. "Unless you're t oo stupid or too scared. This wood won't hold forever, you know. And when I get out, I'm going to use that sword on you."

Startled, Rashel looked down at Vicky's handcuffs. They were bent. Not the oak, of course-it was the metal hinges that were coming apart. Soon he'd have enough room to slip them off.

He was very strong, even for a vampire.

And then, with the same odd calm, she realized what she was going to do.

"Yes, that's a good idea," she said. "Keep bending them. I can say that's how you got out."

"What are you talking about?"

Rashel got up and searched for a steel knife to cut the cords on his feet. "I'

m letting you go, John Quinn," she said.

He paused in his wrenching of the handcuffs. "You're insane," he said, as if h e'd just discovered this.

"You may be right." Rashel found the knife and slit through the bast cords.

He gave the handcuffs a twist. "If," he said deliberately, "you think that b ecause I was a human once, I have any pity on them, you are very, very wrong . I hate humans more than I hate the Redferns." "Why?"

He bared his teeth. "No, thank you. I don't have to explain anything to you.

Just take my word for it."

She believed him. He looked as angry and as dangerous as an animal in a tra p. "All right," she said, stepping back and putting her hand on the hilt of her bokken. "Take your best shot. But remember, I beat you once. I was the one who knocked you out."

He blinked. Then he shook his head in disbelief. "You little idiot," he said.

"I wasn't paying attention. I thought you were another of those jerks fallin g over their own feet. And I wasn't even fighting them seriously." He sat up in one fluid motion that showed the strength he had, and the control of his o wn body.

"You don't have a chance," he said softly, turning those dark eyes on her. N ow that he wasn't looking into the flashlight, his pupils were huge. "You're dead already."

Rashel had a sinking feeling that was telling her the same thing.

"I'm faster than any human," the soft voice went on. "I'm stronger than any human. I can see better in the dark. And I'm much, much nastier."

Panic exploded inside Rashel.

All at once, she believed him absolutely. She couldn't seem to get her breat h, and a void had opened in her stomach. She lost any vestige of her previou s calm.

He's right-you were an idiot, she told herself wildly. You had every chanc e to stop him and you blew it. And why? Because you were sorry for him? So rry for a deranged monster who's going to tear you limb from limb now? Any one as stupid as that deserves what they get.She felt as if she were falling, unable to get hold of anything. . . .

And then suddenly she did seem to catch something. Something that she clung to desperately, trying to resist the fear that wanted to suck her into darkn ess.

You couldn't have done anything else.

It was the little voice in her mind, being helpful for once. And, strangely, Rashel knew it was true. She couldn't have killed him when he was tied up and helpless, not without becoming a monster herself. And after hearing his stor y, she couldn't have ignored the pity she felt.

I'm probably going to die now, she thought. And I'm still scared. But I'd do it over again. It was right.

She hung on to that as she let the last seconds tick away, the last window of opportunity to stake him while the cuffs still held. She knew they were ticking away, and she knew Quinn knew.

"What a shame to rip your throat out," he said.

Rashel held her ground.

Quinn gave the handcuffs a final wrench, and the metal hinges squealed. Then the stocks clattered onto the concrete and he stood up, free. Rashel couldn 't see his face anymore; it was above the reach of the flashlight.

"Well," he said evenly.

Rashel whispered, "Well."

They stood facing each other.

Rashel was waiting for the tiny involuntary body movements that would give away which direction he was going to lunge. But he was more still than an y enemy she'd ever seen. He kept his tension inside, ready to explode only when he directed it. His control seemed to be complete.

He's got zanshin, she thought.

"You're very good," she said softly.

"Thanks. So are you."

"Thanks."

"But it isn't going to matter in the end."

Rashel started to say, "We'll see"-and he lunged.

She had an instant's warning. A barely perceptible movement of his leg told h er he was going to spring to his right, her left. Her body reacted without he r direction, moving smoothly . . . and she didn't realize until she was doing it that she wasn't using the sword.

She had stepped forward, inside his attack, and deflected it with a mirror pa lm block, striking the inner side of his arm with her left arm. Hitting the n erves to try and numb the limb.

But not cutting him. She realized with a dizzy sense of horror that she didn'

t want to use the sword on him.

"You are going to die, idiot," he told her, and for an instant she wasn't sure if it was him saying it or the voice in her head.

She tried to push him away. All she could think was that she needed time, ti me to get her survival reflexes back. She shoved at him- -and then her bare hand brushed his, and something happened that was comp letely beyond her experience.

CHAPTER 6.

What she felt was a shivering jolt that began in her palm and ran up her arm li ke electricity. It left tingling in its wake. But the real shock was in her hea d.

Her mind exploded. That was the only way she could describe it. A noiseless , heatless explosion that shattered her completely. All at once, Rashel cou ldn't support her own weight anymore. She could feel Quinn's arms supportin g her.

She had no sense of the room around her. She was floating in a white light and the only solid thing to hang on to was Quinn. It was something like the terro r she'd felt before . . . but it wasn't just terror. Impossibly, what she felt was more like wild elation.

She realized that Quinn was holding her so tightly that it hurt. But even str onger than the sensation of his arms was the sense she had of his mind.

A direct conduit seemed to have opened between them. She could feel his as tonishment, his shock, his wonder. And she knew he could feel hers.

It's telepathy, some distant part of herself said, trying desperately to get co ntrol again. It's some new vampire trick.

But she knew it wasn't a trick. Quinn was as astounded as she was-she coul d feel that. Maybe he was even worse off. He was breathing rapidly and sha llowly and a fine trembling seemed to have taken over his body.

Rashel held on to him, thinking crazy things. She wanted to comfort him. Sh e could sense, probably better than he could himself, how frighteningly vul nerable he was under that frozen exterior.

Like me, I suppose, Rashel thought giddily. And then she suddenly realized th at he was feeling her vulnerability just as she had felt his. Fear welled up in her so sharply that she panicked.

She tried to find a way to shut him out, to resist the way she resisted mind control-but she knew it was useless. He had gotten past her guard already. He was inside.

"It's all right," Quinn said, and she realized that he had stopped trembling.

His voice was almost dispa.s.sionate, and at the same time madly gentle. Rashe l had the feeling that he'd decided that since he couldn't fight this thing, he might as well be as insane as possible.

Strangest of all, she found his words rea.s.suring.

And there was fire under the ice that seemed to encase him. She could feel that now, and she had the dizzy sense that she was the first one to discover it .

They had fallen to the floor somehow, and they were sitting just at the edge of the light. Quinn was holding her by the shoulders, precisely, and Rashel w as astonished at her own response to the clinical grip. It stopped her breath , held her absolutely motionless.

Then, just as precisely, every movement deliberate, Quinn found the end of her scarf and began to unwind it.

He was still filled with that mad gentleness, that lunatic calm. And she was n't stopping him. He was going to expose her face, and she wasn't doing a th ing about it.

She wanted him to. In spite of her terror, she wanted him to see her, to kno w who she was. She wanted to be face to face with him in that strange light that had enveloped both their minds. It didn't seem to matter what happened afterward.

She said, "John."

He unwound another length of the scarf, preoccupied and intent as if he we re making some archaeological discovery. "You didn't tell me your name." I t was a statement. He wasn't pushing her.

She might as well write it out on a death warrant and hand it to him. Qui nn could reveal himself to humans-but then Quinn could disappear complete ly if he wanted, hole up in some hidden vampire enclave where no human co uld search him out.

Rashel couldn't. He knew she was a vampire hunter. If he knew her name and her face, he'd have every power to destroy her.

And the scariest thing of all was that some part of her didn't care.

He was down to the last turn of the scarf. In a moment her face would be expo sed to the air ... and to vampire eyes that could see in this darkness.

I'm Rashel, Rashel thought. She couldn't quite get the words to her lips. She took a deep breath.

And at the same instant a light blazed into her eyes.

Not the ghostly light that had been in her mind. Real light, the beams from several high-power flashlights, harsh and horribly bright. They cut through the dark cellar and threw Rashel and Quinn into stark illumination.

Rashel gasped. One hand instinctively flew to her scarf to keep it over her f ace. She felt as if she had been caught naked.

And she was horrified to realize that she hadn't heard anyone come into th e cellar. She had been completely absorbed, oblivious to her surroundings.

What had happened to all her training? What was wrong with her?

She couldn't see anything beyond the light. Her first thought was that it wa s Quinn's vampire Mends come to save him. He seemed to think it might be, to o; at least he was standing shoulder to shoulder with her, even trying to push her back a little.

With an odd pang, Rashel realized she could only guess what he was think ing now. The connection between them had been cleanly severed.

Then a voice came from beyond the terrible brightness, a sharp voice fille d with outrage. "How did he get loose? What are you two doing?"

Vicky. I'm going insane, Rashel thought. I completely forgot about her and t he others coming back. No, I forgot about their existence.

But there were more than three flashlights on the stairs.