Terry took her arm. He started to stand. 'Let's go into the bedroom.'

Lauren pulled at his hand, firmly, and he was seated once again. The couch felt suddenly cramped. She held the full gla.s.s near his mouth. 'Drink,' she said.

Terry began to feel uneasy. The red liquid rippled beneath his eyes, the tiny waves moving in slow motion. The wine was cold; he could actually feel the chill radiating from it.

'Drink,' she whispered, pressing the wine against his lower lip. Her nails were pointed, seductively long. On one finger she wore the engagement ring he had given her, the three-carat diamond. On the other finger she wore a simple silver ring. The latter looked vaguely familiar. It had a wonderful shine.

'Where did you get that ring?' he asked.

Lauren withdrew the gla.s.s from his mouth and switched it into her other hand. She turned her attention to her ring finger. It hung limply, seemingly numb. Her entire hand, in fact, appeared heavy. 'I found it,' she said.

'Where?'

She studied him. A corner of her mouth curled up over her teeth. 'It hurts my finger. Could you take it off for me?'

He nodded and took her hand in his. Then he paused, confused, his fingers on the ring. It was not the least bit tight. 'Where did you find this?' he repeated.

'Why do you ask?'

'I just... I want to know,' he stuttered. He was no longer floating on perfumed clouds. He was sitting by a roaring fire after an icy funeral, reading about the mystery of Man's origin. A cold fear, small but spreading swiftly, entered his mind.

'Take it off and I will tell you,' she said.

Reluctantly Terry began to ease the band over her knuckle. He was trembling. He had thought his head had cleared before. Why had it been cloudy? A disturbing question. There were others. He was sitting only ten feet from where he had first read Jennifer's story. It was coming back fast. Janier had taken Chaneen's ring to Mars. Lauren had gone to Mars. Now she had a ring of her own.

'If it hurts so much, why didn't you take it off before?' he asked.

She locked his gaze with her own. It was as if her eyes became a single fathomless pupil. 'You will do as I say, Terry.'

He tried to joke. His voice cracked. 'I think the silver suits you.'

'But it's uncomfortable. It pains me.'

'Then take it off yourself.' He hastily removed her hand from his lap. The winegla.s.s in her other hand splashed. Had a drop spilled on her white dress? There was a red stain near her right breast. Yet the stain appeared dry. It...

Oh, G.o.d.

It was a bloodstain.

Michael.

Terry knew the meaning of terror.

'You seem fascinated by this silly ring,' Lauren said. 'Tell me, why is that, Terry?'

He shook his head and turned away. Please, Jesus, no. The ring was Chaneen's. Naturally Lauren couldn't remove it. She was still a vampire. He had been tricked into inviting her inside his house.

'Ahh.' Lauren nodded, reading his thoughts. 'Look at me.' He did so. He had to. It was as if he had no will of his own to resist. 'Do you find me desirable?'

Her dress had slipped back off her shoulder, off her breast. An erect nipple peeked over the material.

He knew what the situation was. But suddenly all he could think of was s.e.x. And all he had to do was give the word. Yes, Lori, let's make love. Sweat dripped from his hair, thick with salt. It stung his eyes. He shivered amidst the many dark fires that began to burn inside him.

'Yes,' he croaked.

'You want me to love you,' she said mischievously, stroking his crotch with her free hand. 'And look, you're all prepared to love me.'

'No.'

'Yes. Beautiful, so beautiful.' She sighed and began to unzip his pants. She reached inside. There wasn't a lot of room. She pinched the tip of his p.e.n.i.s, again and again. His pleasure was only outweighed by his pain. He couldn't burst. It wasn't permitted. Not until you decide, lover. That was the proposition.

'You know,' she continued. 'I've been wearing this silly ring for a long time. It can always wait. But you're thirsty. You're hot. You need a cool drink.' Again she touched the gla.s.s to his lips. Saliva collected in his mouth. The wine smelled like an ambrosia a hedonist would order before the Grim Reaper came for him. 'Go ahead,' she crooned. 'Just a little sip. And I promise I'll give you a long...' She squeezed his p.e.n.i.s and licked her lips. 'You know.'

'What is in this wine?' he panted.

She continued to caress him even as her eyes bored into his soul. 'Just a little sip and you'll see. It's such a small thing.' She leaned over and whispered in his ear. 'Then I'll be yours forever.'

'But you're a...' He could not get the word out. It didn't catch in his throat, though. It caught lower. All he could think of was down there, where the nasty kids played.

'I'm your lover,' she said. 'Drink. Now.'

'Go ahead, Janier, and I will let you go. It's such a small thing.'

'No!' he cried, shoving her hand away. It was another trick. She was a liar. She was evil.

'No?' she asked, mocking.

He turned away and zipped up his pants. 'I've got to go, Lauren,' he mumbled. He tried to stand. She held him on the couch with one finger.

'Of course you don't want to leave. Surely you know you can't.'

He swallowed. 'I have to.'

She shook her head. 'I'm sorry.'

'But I have decided to go,' he said, pleading.

She threw back her head and laughed, coa.r.s.e and throaty. 'You have decided. I'm afraid leaving is not one of your choices. Indeed, your choices are rapidly dwindling. Fool! With your rosary around your neck. Do you know who/am?'

Terry froze. He didn't want to get into an argument with her. He had no magical powers. He was not Chaneen. He didn't even have his gun with him. He was doomed.

Still chuckling, she reached a powerful hand under his shirt and grabbed his rosary. She twisted the beads slowly tighter until he was choking.

'You will be my lover, if only for tonight,' she said. 'Your seed is necessary - the same seed as before, alive but slipping into sweetness.' She tugged at the rosary. He was yanked forward and his air was completely cut off. 'Yes?'

In a lifetime of nightmares, Terry could not have conceived of anything more horrible than the way in which she was smothering him. His heart shrieked in his chest, threatening to rupture. Still he managed to shake his head.

Her smile crumbled as if it had been made of aged plaster. She grabbed the other winegla.s.s and shattered the crystal on the table, and held the jagged edge to his throat.

'You will love me,' she said. 'For here is your jugular, and here is your carotid.' She scratched him. Warm drops of blood trickled down his neck. Still she did not give him the chance to breathe. She dug into his skin with the gla.s.s. 'A fraction more pressure and your blood will soak this couch.'

'No,' he gasped.

Her smile returned, gloating. 'Do you love me?' She throttled him, yet gave him a little air. 'Answer me!'

Tears burned his eyes. 'I love Lauren.'

She was suddenly angry. 'Say that you love me!'

'Lauren...'

'Is dead! Is rotting! You are beaten! All of you are!'

But Terry knew it was only another lie. He was getting kind of sick of them. Didn't she know that he had already read the chronicle of the Sastra?

I won't forget you. Although I am far away, I will always watch over you... And when the threat of the enemy awakens, I will be there. It is Chaneen who promises you this: Using the last drop of his strength, Terry slipped a finger under the biting rosary and whispered in defiance, 'Chaneen will destroy you.'

The monster hissed. 'She!'

And from seemingly light-years away there came an answer to his call, an answer to the vampire's raving. It came in a soft voice, clear and kind. Yet it was a powerful voice, a voice of one capable of bringing the fire.

'Yes,' said the one.

The monster's attention whipped to the doorway. An expression of pure terror cracked her face. Her suffocating hold dropped from his throat. She scampered to her feet like a giant insect, standing poised, ready to use her stinger. Terry, momentarily stunned, tried to stand too. He wondered who was at the door. But his foe obviously did not want another player in this contest. She lashed out with a hammer-like claw. The blow smashed the side of his head, and brought a rain of stars. He hit the wall with incredible force and collapsed to the floor. Except for the yellow s.p.a.ce surrounding a solitary candle, everything went black.

A thick mist covered his eyes. But it was not so horrible.

He knew Chaneen was by his side.

EPILOGUE.

THE PRINCESS.

The spell was cunning. It was a hurricane of invisible confusion, violent at the perimeter, silent in the center. But within the eye of the storm stood the enemy itself; therein lay the true threat. The body of the enemy needed no spell. It needed only fear.

Jennifer Wagner hurried along the sh.o.r.e of the lake, following in the moonlight the footprints of the man who had recently walked before her. Jennifer was sixteen years old, taller and more fair than when she had left the known world behind, perhaps the most beautiful girl ever to walk the Earth. Her dress was long and blue. The hem brushed the cool sand beside her bare feet as she hurried. Her hair was a bright shade of sunlight. It twisted and curled in the warm night breeze. Secured over her left shoulder was Jim's canteen of water, taken from the ancient place. In her right hand was Daniel's crossbow, his wooden stake in place of an arrow. She was nearing the stream where the enemy should have been blocked.

Earlier, when the approaching enemy had veered towards the city, she had sent out Daniel. She had seen the enemy's destination clearly, for it had swept its path with terror, reckless and proud, giving no thought to concealment. But only Lauren's lingering memories had brought it into the mountains of Wyoming, even though it believed it was fulfilling an ancient desire to possess fertile lands. In , many ways the enemy was a puppet of the body it possessed. Yet it was capable of mastering any ordinary human being.

Because this one wore the ring, it was very easily marked in her own mind. Unfortunately the spell of peace the enemy had set over the forest had confused even her. Worse, the person whose steps she was retracing had arrived unexpectedly, and was therefore in grave danger. It must be Terry, she thought. He had read her story and had met the enemy. He must have recognized it.

Jennifer reached the stream. She was too late. The enemy had been stopped by the running water, but had somehow tricked Terry into carrying it across. A cunning spell, indeed. Terry would have been wary, but alas, greatly overmatched. Jennifer studied the footprints. They led into the forest toward the cabin, rather than back along the sh.o.r.e. Turning, she hurried down the beach; it was faster that way. Within minutes she reached the clearing where the cabin stood, the place she had lived for the last year and a half. In all that time, Terry had never come once.

Fortunately.

Her apparent death had been vital to the world. She knew it would give the enemy a false sense of security. They would attack savagely, openly, without employing the more subtle powers at their command. They would be easy to find and destroy. They would be ignorant of their danger.

The illusion of her death had been difficult to cast. Terry knew of the young girl who had drowned in the lake two years ago. Although she had attempted to persuade him otherwise, he had remained confident in his information. Fortunately, however, he did not closely examine the body that she and Daniel had dug up out of the local cemetery, the body they had burned. The ring on the dead girl's finger, the coloring and curling of her hair, and Daniel's acting - all these elements had worked to create the deception. Throughout the ordeal, Daniel was the only one she had entrusted with the complete truth. Daniel, who now lay in a hospital, broken beneath the blow of the enemy.

Jennifer moved to the stump where she used to read. There she found a single white rose. She had a good view of the inside of the cabin. Terry sat on the couch with the enemy. The age-old temptation was being reenacted. The enemy had finally realized that a spark of life was necessary to create life, to complete the ultimate goal of the curse, to bring Kratine fully back to life, in a new physical form that would take nine months to develop, deep under the ground. Jennifer knew the gestation would consume Lauren's body entirely. The process would transform the flesh into something immortal that stank constantly of decay. Yet the final product would be able to look and smell as it wished. It would have the full power of illusion. It would have complete power over mankind. It would be the Master of its offspring, and their offspring, and so on, until the Garden was forever ruined.

So the enemy needed Terry, his seed, alive but crossing over into death. But false affection had failed to win the seed. So had l.u.s.t. Now it was employing the threat of death, the fear that filled its own heart, the threat that had caused Janier to weaken.

Jennifer crept soundlessly to the porch. The wind had put out her candle. She relit it without a match. The candle in her left hand, the crossbow in her right, she crouched at the door and peered through the screen. The situation was desperate. The enemy now had a jagged blade at Terry's throat. He was bleeding. She could not destroy it without, risking him. If only all her old powers had returned!

Time was short. Soon there would be two. Brave though Terry was, he was weakening. The fear went back to the beginning of time for her children. To die and fade into oblivion.

Yet Jennifer hesitated. She listened.

'Do you love me? Answer me!'

'I love Lauren.'

'Say you love me!'

'Lauren...' *

'Is dead! Is rotting! You are beaten! All of you are!'

I won't forget you. I will be there.'

'Chaneen will destroy you.'

'She!'

Hearing her ancient name spoken aloud, and moved by Terry's trust and devotion, Jennifer rose to the challenge. She stepped inside the cabin.

'Yes,' she said.

The enemy's reaction was instantaneous. Its reflexes were tremendous, at least the match of her own. It sprang to its feet and in a cutting motion hit Terry in the head and knocked him against the wall. It skirted the couch and coiled to descend upon her. But Jennifer had not been idle. She was now pointing the suspended stake directly at its cold heart. She held her candle aloft. The enemy halted and eyed the crossbow, the tiny flame, and most of all her.

I see you brought the fire.

Jennifer went completely still. It seemed so like Lauren, the way she used to stand, the way her eyes blinked beneath her long bangs. Jennifer realized she should have released the arrow already, that there was no other choice. Yet she hesitated again. She could sense a remnant of her sister existing deep inside, cold and smothering, praying for release. Yet this part of Lauren was also afraid. It trembled before the wooden stake that would destroy the body that had once been hers alone. What was left of Lauren was afraid to forsake the thin thread of her life that remained. But it was with this thread that the curse was ironically woven. It was this that blocked her release.

The enemy interpreted her hesitation as her ancient weakness, newly exposed, ready to be taken advantage of.

'Jenny,' it said. The smile, the voice, the warmth - it was all Lauren. 'Jenny, you're alive! They said you were dead. Oh, let me hold you!'

It took a step closer. Jennifer shook the crossbow. It halted. Jennifer realized it was using Lauren, letting her surface briefly. The joy on Lauren's face was genuine, and if Jennifer loosed the stake that joy would die and Lauren would die again. Of course, that was the eternal paradox -how to preserve the joy of one without killing the joy of another. The natural order was seemingly without purpose at times. The price now asked was beyond measure. If only to see Lauren again ... As indeed she saw her now.

'No, Jenny!' Lauren cried when she saw Jennifer's finger reach the crossbow's trigger. Her eyes flooded with tears. 'I'm your sister. I'm not one of them. I need you. I need to touch you.'