"Yakuza...?"

"No. A man."

And with that she started forward into the tunnel, brushing aside cobwebs as she went along, the lantern out in front of her like a talisman that might ward off all evil things. And those evil things must have a form, Alek thought. Only now he thought he knew what it was. What form it took. Not monstrous, but clearly human.

He'll never let me go. Not ever. Because of what he is. A man.

Robyn brushed the walls with her hand as she pa.s.sed to keep from walking into anything. The darkness must still be terrible for her, he thought. His eyes, evolved for motion rather than detail, would spot even the smallest creature lurking in the tunnel with them, with or without the lantern light. He stepped into the tunnel after Robyn, his eyes going everywhere, watching for any ambush that might come. He felt with his other senses as well, but there were no vampires in the local vicinity.

That was both good and bad. Good because it meant he didn't have to worry that Kage would materialize out of nowhere and attack them both; bad because it meant they had to go in search of the vampire before a confrontation could be initiated.

The tunnel wound along for a thousand feet, and then took a steep downward direction. Part of the tunnel had collapsed from some unknown subterranean disaster, but much of the sub track remained--a thirty-foot drop into a fatal chasm full of broken concrete, jagged bones and twisted, teethy metal that they had to be careful not to slip into it as they made their way around the heaps of debris in their path. At one point, Alek had to climb atop a mountain of fallen bricks and then pull Robyn over it by the wrists. Robyn made a nervous laugh when she landed on the other side. "Reminds me of my old college days when my friends and I used to role-play in the subway. I was never here though."

She stared white-faced at the human remains tossed into the sub line like so much garbage. "And I never saw anything like this."

"Kage's discard," Alek whispered as he watched a pair of rats wrestling over a rib bone with some dangling meat still on it. "He must feed on whatever wanders into his domain."

"How many f.u.c.king people has he killed?" she wondered. But she was really wondering the same thing he was: Will this be out final resting place too, down in this undiscovered bone yard? Alek studied the seemingly endless collection of human sc.r.a.p. A sleek fat rat scrabbled up the side of the line and tried to take a bite out of his boot. Alek kicked it back into the line.

"Jesus," said Robyn.

And right then Alek noticed boot prints in the dust, smaller than his own, but with a heavier tread, as if the owner were burdened by weight.

He almost cautioned Robyn to be quiet, then realized it was probably unnecessary. Kage was not near enough for Alek to feel him, so it made sense that the vampire couldn't hear them and know they were hot on his heels just yet. And if talking made Robyn feel better about being in this filthy pit and knowing her son was the captive of a man-eating monster, then he would not deny her that small, cold comfort.

They moved on and the tunnel began to twist and turn dangerously, following the winding path of the sub. But Alek consoled himself in that at least the dust was deep enough to indicate which forks Kage had taken, giving them a useful map to follow. After a good half hour of travel in this rank darkness with nothing but an ancient lantern to guide the way and their breathing and the skritch of unseen rats to indicate that they had not fallen into the deepest hole in the earth, Alek began to wonder if Robyn was getting worn down. She seemed all right and hadn't made any complaints, but it was probably only the fear for her son driving her on. Fear was a good source of energy, but not inexhaustible. Finally, after climbing over yet another enormous barrier of debris, she began to sound winded. Her footing became uncertain and that made him wonder about her abused ankle.

He was almost ready to suggest they take a rest period so he could check on her fracture when his nerves suddenly felt as if they had been lit from within. All at once the familiar tingle was shooting all through his body, not bad--the perpetrator of the feeling was still a ways off--but certainly noticeable. If he could trust his feelings, and he knew he could, then Kage was less than a couple thousand feet away.

Robyn frowned. "I'm beginning to believe what you said. We're just wandering around down here with no direction. Kage could be anywhere at this point..."

"Shhh," he said, and immediately Robyn snapped to attention and looked at him. Motioning Robyn to remain where she was, Alek drew his sword and went on ahead, following the tunnel for a dozen yards down a steep embankment. The ground here was rougher and bad to the step and he soon learn why: they had reached the end of the line. Ahead, no more than a thousand feet, the entire tunnel had collapsed, creating a dead end s.p.a.ce and a spew of rocky debris. Luckily, there was an abandoned sub platform off to the left. From the way it made him feel, Kage the vampire was most certainly there. Hiding in the dark with his captive prey.

Hiding...and infinitely dangerous, because he was a captive by the tunnels and the killer daylight.

Alek doubled back.

"You see him?" Robyn whispered. She was huddled against a wall, the lantern on the ground beside her and her arms hugging her shoulders against the cold and the fear.

Alek moved to block her in case Kage knew they were close and had planned an ambush attack. "I feel him. He's at the end of the tunnel," he said, pointing, "just beyond the platform."

Robyn took him by the arm. "Is Danny with him?"

"I don't know. I can't feel Danny."

"Because Danny's human," she reasoned.

He nodded, then realized she could barely see him in the dark and said, "Yes."

"But you can feel Kage," Robyn said. "Is this why you became a vampire slayer?"

Instead of answering, he said, "I want you to flatten yourself against the wall and try not to let Kage see you."

"He's a vampire, Alek. He'll see me. He'll f.u.c.king smell me."

"Not if he's occupied." Alek looked around the tunnel. On the opposite side, separated by that murderous rift, was another pedestrian walkway. Over there the supports had not completely collapsed yet and there was an exit to the stairwell that led to the outside world and the sun Kage so abhorred. Well, it was worth a try, he supposed. He didn't think he would be able to get Kage above ground where the light would blind him, or bring the light down here where it could still do damage, but the door was double-gauge construction steel, capable of withstanding a hurricane wind. Maybe, if he couldn't kill Kage, he could at least lock him in the stairwell. He certainly had no better ideas.

He said, "When you see Kage cross the line, I want you to get to the platform and find Danny."

She looked at him and gnawed her lower lip. She looked scared and he felt his heart break at the sight. She and Danny shouldn't be in the middle of this nightmare. Robyn and her human kind should never have to see the things they did. "How are you going to get him to cross the line?" she whispered.

"He will," Alek said, slipping his sword under one arm and turning to face the end of the line. Kage was beholden to Edward Ashikawa, servant to his human master as many of the oldest of his kind chose to be servant to the humans, but he was also a vampire and therefore a victim of his own nature. And Alek knew from too much experience how petty and proud and often very stupid a vampire could be when the right b.u.t.tons were pushed.

He just had to figure out which b.u.t.tons were the right ones.

Motioning Robyn to shrink as far back into the shadows as she could, Alek stepped out boldly into clear view of the platform. It was dark, the only muted illumination coming from the network of cracks in the tunnel walls, but it was enough for night eyes to see by. The raised platform had a flight of stairs that took pa.s.sengers up to the substation overhead once upon a time. Alek waited a moment to see if anything would move. Nothing did, so he reached down and screeked his sword in a line across the broken bedrock at his feet.

He waited. Unless Kage had been following their progress through the subway all along, which was possible but not likely--he would have to be using some kind of surveillance equipment capable of surviving this environment, and that seemed a bit too high-tech for Kage--he shouldn't be aware of Alek's presence until now. The blessing of the dhampir. Vampires could not read their presences any more than they could read the humans they preyed upon. The dangerous tingling that existed in Alek's bones increased, proving that Kage was indeed now fully aware of his presence, was on the move, and was closing the distance between them.

Alek followed it like an open circuit. He could feel the emanation strongest from directly above him. He looked around, found a narrow fissure in the ceiling, and saw a shadow drop through and land lightly, with catlike agility, on his side of the chasm.

As with the first time they had met, Alek had the impression of indefinable power and age. Kage was so ancient and so withdrawn from human civilization he did not even attempt to appear human as most vampires did. Instead he stayed crouched down where he had landed, alien beauty shining, his arms resting on his knees, his head tipped down and eyes upturned enough to show most of the whites and only a fraction of the black slit-like pupils. Body language. It was a gesture that was wholly aggressive. Reptilian. It was a clear and easily readable message: back off or die.

Kage. He was lithe and pet.i.te, beautiful, irresistible. Much of his glistening blue-black hair was chopped and feathered into quills with a long narrow braid bound with a length of chain, a studded stainless steel ball tied to the end. His clothing was surprisingly current--snug black jeans, knee-boots, and a grey wife beater that revealed powerful catlike muscles in his chest and shoulders. Everything about him was sweating and revealed by the open leather greatcoat that pooled around his crouched figure. Beautiful, yes--beautiful and as dangerous as a man-eating tiger.

"Where is the boy?" Alek asked. He wanted to ask Kage if the boy was well, but he was afraid of the answer. Anything Kage said right now might drive Robyn out of her hiding place in a panic of frenzied grief.

"Where you cannot harm him, Slayer," Kage said. He did not move from his position. Did not a.s.sume any kind of fighting position at all. So Kage had no intention of fighting like a man, or even like an a.s.sa.s.sin.

Instead, this was going to be all primal power and war. Alek idly wondered if he should be flattered, if Kage adopted this method often or if he was just a special case. And then his musing was answered when Kage's eyes flared with war l.u.s.t and he said, his voice an inhuman snarl through his great catlike teeth, "You will never harm Danny. Not like you harmed Takara."

The way he said it made it sound as if his sister had died two hours ago instead of over two years. Like all great ancients, his past was yesterday. "I didn't choose to harm her, Kage. Takara made her own decision to fight me," Alek said, choosing his words carefully. "Every man and woman makes their own decision. She chose to fight me and she lost." It was important to him that Kage not regress into the past at the moment. Something like that might turn his already wildly unstable emotions the wrong way. And if that happened, it was just possible Kage would harm them all, including Danny. He might bring the whole tunnel down on them in his unforgivable, undying wrath.

"She died in a subway tunnel like this one," Kage said, looking around. His eyes gleamed dreamily. "I heard the story, though I did not see it with my own eyes. I was with the master in Tokyo at the time."

His eyes focused on some vast invisible point. "Takara...I felt her die by your hands..."

The words. .h.i.t Alek like a fist, almost staggering him: I felt her die by your hands. Kage felt her die? Felt her? He knew how Takara and Kage were related, he had the cold, impersonal facts. He knew they were siblings, but he had had no idea, none whatsoever...

"She was your twin?" Alek said, appalled.

Kage's face was a stone.

"You were mates." Jesus. All the understanding and the pity fell in on Alek at once like a hammer blow. He could almost have turned away, such was the look of anguish on Kage's face, the hopelessness, the ever- wandering loss. A lost sibling was terrible. A lost mate was terrible. But a lost sibling mate was h.e.l.l on earth. h.e.l.l inescapable. He knew that. He knew it all too f.u.c.king well.

Kage rose to his feet. When he spoke his voice was unusually calm and measured, like a mantra. "You took my honor, Slayer, and that I can live with." He drew his sword. "But you also took Takara, and that I cannot."

And then he pounced. Seamlessly. Seemingly without moving.

Only Alek's battle-trained eye caught the motion as Kage came at him. Alek sidestepped, countering the blow so the swords clanked together, hissing with sparks and heat. The blow was terrifically powerful, knocking both warriors almost to the ground with the sheer, bone-breaking force of it. Alek was on one knee, the bones and muscles of his broken wrists mending themselves with supernatural speed.

Despite the absurdity of the situation, he felt an overwhelming sense of pity.

And then a moment later he was up, meeting Kage's newest a.s.sault, sword edge to sword edge. "I had no choice, Kage," he grunted as the two warriors pushed at each other in an attempt to gain an advantage.

Kage whipped his head around and the steel ball in his hair cracked against Alek's cheek. Snarling, Alek relented and the swords unlocked.

Then the two began to circle each other, looking for an opening again.

Alek licked the blood on his mouth. "She would have killed me for the Coven. I chose not to die for it." Jesus, he thought, what a very cruel Catherine Wheel was life.

For a moment Kage looked confused and seemed to sway off balance. Then he threw aside his katana and put a hand to his face, dirty jagged claws gripping. "Time pa.s.ses," Kage said, "and time changes all things."

He shook his head and looked up. He was changed. His eyes, which had been an obelisk black, had gone blood red. The teeth, already venomous hooks of ivory, seemed to descend further until they reached Kage's chin and p.r.i.c.ked streams of crimson that flowed like tears down his white throat. He was a beast, a demon. "Yet time has no bearing on sorrow or on vengeance. Those are immortal," he said, his words slaughtered by the sorrow in his throat. "And I am in h.e.l.l!"

Alek started to move in a clockwise motion. Kage mimicked the move so that they circled each other again like a pair of reptiles locked in battle. He wanted to stay moving more than anything else. Standing there, watching Kage mourn, watching it twist him...it was unnerving.

"Takara was my enemy, Kage. She challenged me and she died for that challenge. But I have no such intentions toward Danny." He took a deep breath and said in a soft, reasonable voice, "I only want to take him back to his mother."

The mention of Danny seemed to do what his reasoning could not, dampening Kage's rage. His eyes darkened and his teeth lifted. "His mother is dead in our eyes," he said. "I protect the master and you will not pa.s.s."

The master? Alek stopped and lowered his sword. "Danny is the master?"

But Danny could not be the master. Edward Ashikawa was the master. The only way Danny could be the master was if Ashikawa pa.s.sed on the gift of the vampire to him. And why would he do that?

Why would Ashikawa give that up?

And then he knew. The pieces all fell together and all at once, Alek understood. Or thought he did. Danny and his dreams, his pictures.

Danny and his gift. Danny and Kage.

Danny the master.

Danny was the master. Danny was the master and everything else was a lie, a mistake. Everything was wrong. Everything. What he was doing here was wrong. Trying to take Danny away from Kage was wrong. As wrong as wrong got.

Kage would never harm Danny. Never. Kage would give his life for the boy.

"I didn't know," Alek said. He sheathed his sword and backed away.

Kage tracked his progress but neither said nor did anything. What war had been on Kage's face was gone. He was now no longer the demon, just the watchdog. He was dedicated to one purpose, and one purpose only. The only purpose that meant anything to him anymore: protecting the master.

Danny.

Danny the master.

And as much as Robyn wanted to deny it, Danny and Kage belonged together... "Kage?"

The little, frightened voice caught Alek unaware. His turned to find the source of it and saw Danny's face in the crevice of the ceiling, dark and backlit from some spare source of lighting in the sub station beyond. Because of the light his features were indistinguishable, but the fear in his voice pulled at Alek nonetheless. So too did it pull at Kage, but with such tremendous power as to make the vampire forget his environment completely and spin in a circle as he sought to find the danger to the boy.

"Danny, what is it?" Kage demanded to know. "What's wrong?"

"It's dark here," cried the boy.

"Yes, Danny. I know. We're going home soon..."

Alek heard the warning crack in the ceiling in the same moment Kage did, but Kage's ears virtually p.r.i.c.ked in response to it. Kage said, "Get away from the hole, Danny...get away!" He pushed at thin air as if he could force the boy away from danger.

The boy did so, but it was already too late. A portion of the ceiling, weakened by the quake that had demolished the line, lurched and dropped dust and with a grinding growl began to collapse into the tunnel on top of them all. Danny screamed and grabbed at the sides of the crevice as the floor gave way beneath him, the ceiling slanting him down into the rolling slate of debris that filled the tunnel with thunder and an unbreathable cloud of dust. Helpless, he went with it.

It all happened too fast.

Alek moved sideways, narrowly avoiding the falling mountain of rubble, and grabbed Robyn who had suddenly appeared beside him. She began to scream, her voice melding with the roar of the settling ceiling and the cries of her young son. The blindness was like the chaos all about them. Unending and nerve splitting. He pulled his coat over them both and felt the slamming weight of the ceiling as it crushed them both to the floor, he on top of her. Some of the collapse struck him across the shoulders and for a moment he saw a kaleidoscope of lights and found he was floating in a quiet, distant nothing. Then reality began to intrude, and with it the heat and the coughing dust and the remembrance of what had occurred.

He was buried alive and his ribs were on fire. He tried to rise, but he was pinned to the floor. He ran his hands over the s.p.a.ce beneath him, but Robyn was gone. Gone. He began to crawl, heading toward the only source of light directly ahead of him. By the time he managed to crawl out from under the debris some several moments later, he saw Robyn had wormed her way out ahead of him. She was on her feet, stunned and disheveled but otherwise okay. She was standing atop the fallen debris and trying to reach Danny where the boy dangled from the ceiling, wrapped like a monkey around a tangle of electrical cords. There he hung, a frightened little monkey dangling over the fifty-foot plunge into the sub line. Kage had not been so lucky. Standing directly beneath the collapse and unwilling to take his eyes off his new master, the whole brunt of the debris had buried him completely. "Alek!" Robyn made a valiant leap to reach her son, falling short by at least twenty-five feet. "Help me, Alek! Please!"

Alek shook his half-shattered sense back into his head and judged the distance. Even with the collapsed floor, he was looking at no less than a thirty-foot jump to reach the boy. And even if he managed to snag the cords that Danny clung so desperately to, he might bring the rest of the ceiling down on them all with his weight. He stared dumbly at the sight of the shocked, shuddering little body. Think, d.a.m.nit! There had to be some way. He looked at the boy, then looked at the ravine, that deadly ravine. He thought he knew the only way out of this as bad and dangerous and crazy as it was. But if he failed...

The ceiling gave another warning growl and Alek made the decision, for better or for worse.

"Robyn," he said, patiently, "tell Danny to let go on three."

"What?" Robyn turned to stare at him with gla.s.sy big-eyed horror.

"Are you crazy? That line doesn't have a bottom!" she said, pointing to the ravine.

"On three," Alek said, shucking off his coat and taking several steps back. "Do it!"

Robyn shook her head helplessly, shooting tears off in every direction.

Danny cried out and Robyn looked ready to explode from the tension.

"Trust me," Alek said.

Robyn considered that. For a moment he thought she would continue to defy him. Then she turned back to stare up at Danny's dangling figure and said, hesitantly, "Tiger...I want you to let go on three. Uncle Alek is going to catch you."

Danny wailed plaintively, filling the tunnel with his terror and his misery.

"Oh three, honey," Robyn said, keeping her voice calm. "One...two..."

Again it happened too fast, too fast.

Danny lost his grip on the wires, making Alek leap the cavity much too soon. It was all automatic: one moment Alek was standing on solid ground, the next he was sky bound. It was an awkward jump at best.

Alek saw the boy fall...felt the cords brush his cheek...caught a handful of the back of the boy's windbreaker...but the far side of the chasm looked too hopelessly far away for them to make it. So Alek wound himself like a snake around the boy, somersaulting over once--just enough to give him the spurt of distance he thought he needed, that he prayed he needed--and felt them crash down against the opposite side of the line.

He gripped something as they began to slide down the side of the chasm, hoping it would hold their collective weight...hoping...and there!...their momentum was stalled. Then he hoped the something he gripped was secure and waited to see if they would fall anyway. Nothing happened. But pain lanced all the way up both his arm and into his shoulders. His body felt like a lead weight waiting to fall into that dead place for man and train. Yet he couldn't let go of either the top of the chasm nor Danny, hanging suspended over the line the way they were. It hurt like h.e.l.l, but the alternative was too horrible to even think about.

Mustering his courage, Alek looked down. The bottom of the rift was a tangle of steel railroad shards, iron rebar and shivs of shattered bones, all of it covered with a moving coat of filthy, voracious sewer rats. If they fell...no, don't think of that. You won't fall if you believe you will not fall.