Blinking quickly, Rafael gave the doctor a dark look. "Watch it,"

he growled.

Dr. Greene only smiled.

Rafael just sat for a time, absorbing the brilliant green of the grass, the pale, clear blue of the sky. Then he stood, giving the doctor a sideways glance. "I want to walk," he said, his voice still shaky. "I want to take a walk in the sun."

Even after he'd said it he was almost afraid to do it. If his skin had still been afflicted with the vampiric sensitivity to the sun, he knew he would have been dead already. The mere shade of a large tree wouldn't have saved him. But to step out, right into the direct sunlight . . . For a few breaths, he wasn't certain he had the courage.

The doctor poked him. "Just go. Get it over with."

Rafael went. Out from under the tree's shadow, out onto the sunlit grass, where the still-thin dawn light was brightest. He felt the warmth on his hands, his hair, his face. He stopped, turning his hands over, looking at his palms, at the backs of his hands. "It's beautiful," he breathed.

"It's sunlight. Get used to it. You'll be seeing plenty of it, I can guarantee you." He clapped Rafael's shoulder gently. "We should head back. I don't want you out here too long. There's no telling how your skin will respond after so many years out of the sun."

Rafael nodded. "All right."

They made their way to the sidewalk not far from where they'd been sitting, the doctor leading the way. A few joggers joined them, out for their early morning exercise. Rafael stared at them as they went past. Humans looked so much different in the daylight.

Humans. He was one now, too. He was going to have to get used to that.

"The Underground's sealed off through the day, isn't it?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes, but I can get in through one of the back ways. The Senior gave me access several years ago. There are times when I need to be out during the day, and I needed consistent and reliable access."

"Good. I was afraid for a minute we were stuck out here."

Dr. Greene grinned. "What? You don't want to go out for breakfast?"

Rafael's brain froze around the idea for a moment. Pancakes.

Eggs. Bacon. Biscuits and muffins and syrup and jelly and toast. Oatmeal.

Milk. "Could we?"

The doctor laughed. "Not just yet. Give your system some time to adjust before you start piling things into it."

He was right, of course. "What about toast? I could have toast." "I can get you toast at home. And tea. And not much else, if you follow my advice."

Rafael really wanted pancakes. He thought about them as they headed up the sidewalk, conjuring the flavor from his memory. Sweetness, the fluffy texture, sticky syrup. "Pancakes tomorrow," he said stubbornly. "And pizza."

Dr. Greene shrugged. "Fine. Just go puke in your own toilet."

Rafael frowned. "I don't have a toilet."

"Ah. Yet another wrinkle."

"This is going to take some getting used to."

He was trying to remember what it felt like to have to go to the bathroom when frantic shouting suddenly broke the relative calm of the morning. He couldn't quite make out the words, but the man speaking them was obviously in a state of near-hysteria.

"What the hell is that?"

"Dunno," said Dr. Greene. "Shall we check it out?"

"Sure. Why not?"

A small crowd had gathered around a group of five young men- punks, Rafael thought, of the highly questionable type he'd hung out with in his previous life. One of the punks was talking while the other four nodded emphatically and occasionally chimed in to agree with his story.

"I'm tellin' ya, this bitch's got, like, smallpox or something. We gotta get outta here. That stuff's, like, contagious extreme."

A frown creased Dr. Greene's forehead. He approached the crowd at a half-trot. "Excuse me!" he called over their heads. "I'm a doctor.

Please let me through. I need to find out what's going on."

The crowd obediently split, letting him into the inner circle. Rafael followed.

"You a doctor, man?" the kid asked.

"Yes, I am. Can you tell me exactly what you saw?"

"This woman, she, like, busted out all over all of a sudden with these blisters. Man, it was nasty, like pus 'n shit."

The other four kids, who looked genuinely terrified, nodded. "I think she was gonna die," one of them chimed in.

"You say this happened very suddenly?" the doctor said, and suddenly Rafael realized where he was going. His stomach went cold.

"What did she look like?" he demanded before the kid could answer.

The kid gave Rafael an angry look. "Yeah, it was, like, all at once."

"How long ago was this?"

"Not that long. Like, ten or fifteen minutes, I guess. The sun was just coming up."

Rafael grabbed the kid by the shoulders and shook him hard. "What did she look like, you damned little punk? You were shaking her down, weren't you? Gonna mug her?"

"Jesus, get your hands off me, ya psycho."

Dr. Greene said, very quietly, "Answer his question."

"Damn, she didn't have no money, and we didn't do nothin' to her.

Whatever happened to her, we didn't do it."

"I meant the other question. What did she look like?"

"I dunno, like, some skinny bitch with black hair, I guess."

Rafael's fingers tightened on the kid's arm, until he felt the bones.

"Did this happen right at sunrise?"

"Yeah, I guess."

He wanted to know if it been just these punks after her or if vampires had been involved. His heart contracted at the thought that she might have fallen prey to Ialdaboth's assassination squad.

"Take me there. Now."

"Man, I ain't goin' back there. I ain't catchin' no smallpox." "It's not smallpox," said Dr. Greene. "Take us to the woman, please. I might be able to help her."

"Forget it, man-"

"Take us there, or we call the police and you get into deep shit for that knife you got stuffed in your pants," said Dr. Greene, still quietly.

The kid stared at him.

"Yeah, punk," the doctor went on. "I ain't stupid. Now get moving."

The kid jerked himself free from Rafael's too-tight grip, gave them both hard looks, then led the way back down the sidewalk.

A "skinny bitch with black hair" could have been just about anybody, Rafael thought, but the cold, sinking feeling in his gut made him more certain with every step that the woman was Sasha. If she'd been out in the sun, Dr. Greene probably wouldn't be able to do anything for her. They might not even find anything left of her body. But if she'd somehow been able to find shelter . . . It was a long shot, but it was all he had to hold onto at the moment.

The kid led them to an alleyway not far from the park that dead- ended against the back wall of a warehouse. There was no one there.

"She was here," the punk said. "I'm tellin' you, she was right here on the ground, all screamin' and shit."

Rafael looked frantically around the alley and saw another door along the left wall. He ran for it, shoved it open.

At first, he saw no sign of Sasha. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he made out a foot, protruding from underneath haphazardly arranged pieces of plywood. She had pulled them over her, for protection.

He ran to her, dragged the wood off her, making sure she was still protected by shadow. She lay on her side, her knees drawn up to her chest, her fists clenched in front of her face. And her face was streaked with wide, blackened burns.

"Dr. Greene!" he shouted. "In here!"

The doctor appeared at the door and hurried over. "Holy shit," he muttered, crouching next to Sasha's motionless body. She was barely recognizable under the brutal burns.

"She got caught outside," Rafael said, his voice sounding strange, unreal. All the fear, all the anger, had sunk to a cold lump at the bottom of his stomach. He reached toward her face, then drew back, afraid to touch her.

The doctor, of course, had no such compunctions. He laid fingers to her throat, checking her pulse, then took one of her hands, trying to uncurl the clenched fingers.

"Is she dead?" Rafael ventured.

"I don't know. It's hard to tell in this state. She could just be in the Sleep."

Rafael swallowed. "How do we find out?"

"We have to get her out of here." He let go of Sasha's uncooperative hand. "The other door in the alley is an old entryway into the Underground. That must be where she was headed. But it's been closed off for a long time, so she wasn't able to get through."

"How do we get her home?"

"We can't. There's no way to take her out of here without carrying her through direct sunlight. If I could get through that door . . ."

"So what do we do?"

Dr. Greene put his face in his hands for a moment. "Lucien."

"What about him?"

"We have to get him out here. He can teleport or something-I'm not sure how it works."

"But how long will it take to get Underground and bring him back?"

Rafael had a scream inside him, growing huge just beneath his diaphragm. "That might not be necessary." Dr. Greene closed his eyes. "Think.

Think hard. Think, 'Lucien, get your ass here right now. We need you.'"

"And that'll work?"

"I don't know. It's an awfully long way from here to there, and he's still not back to full strength. But maybe that doesn't matter." He looked at Sasha again, peering more closely at the streaky burns on her face. Rafael could barely stand even to watch him looking.

"Go out," the doctor said suddenly. "See if there's any way to get through that door."

"But-"

"Just go. If Lucien doesn't make it, or can't, it might be her only hope."

Rafael went, trying to force from his mind the picture of Sasha lying there still as death, her face marked with angry red burns. If she was dead . . .

But when vampires died from exposure to sunlight, weren't they supposed to turn to dust or something? It occurred to him he'd never seen a vampire die that way. He'd never seen a vampire die, period.

He went to the Underground entrance and pulled at the door. It refused to give. And he'd lost his preternatural vampire strength. But Sasha still had hers yet apparently hadn't been able to open it, either.

Lucien, if you can hear me, we need you. He thought it as loudly as he could, making the words feel big and bold and black inside his head. Not that it seemed to do any good, at least not as far as he could tell.

They couldn't count on Lucien. Sasha needed to get out of that warehouse as quickly as possible, and that meant her best chance lay with Dr. Greene and himself. He stood still for a minute, thinking.

If brute strength wasn't the answer, maybe something else was.

He slid his fingers along the doorframe, questing. If there was a trigger, perhaps it was only detectable by vampires He heard a click-or thought he did. He pushed against the door, but it still wouldn't open. It did, however, move.

A sequence, then. He'd have to find one more click, or two, or ten. Whatever it took to get the door open. He tried again, fingers sliding all along the doorframe. Nothing. Okay, so it didn't really make sense for all the levers to be in the same place. He moved away from the door, questing between the seams of the wall's panels.

Another click. He turned immediately and shoved his shoulder against the door. It gave, but not all the way. Screw the third click. He shoved it again, hard, putting all his weight behind it. The door came open, slamming backwards into the room beyond.

Just a warehouse. His heart sank for a moment, then he saw the mark on the back wall. He wasn't certain what the mark's origin was- it was sort of a cross, sort of a whirligig-but he knew he'd seen it in the Underground, near exit doors. Finding the latches, he activated them, yanked the door open. Then he backed out, fast, half-running to the other building.

The doctor had found a tarp-a very dirty tarp-and had wrapped Sasha in it, covering her completely. He looked up as Rafael barreled in.