"If I write you a script, do you think you can take me through it?"

"I'll do my best. I'm guessing you've been hypnotized quite a few times, so it should be fairly simple to get you where you need to go."

Gray gestured toward the briefcase. "You got paper in there?"

Dr. Greene laid the briefcase on the table. "You bet."

Gray spent a few minutes writing out a script, then handed it to the doctor. "This should do it."

"All right." Dr. Greene looked over the sheet. "Tell me when you're ready."

The chair in the small office wasn't comfortable, but it would have to do. Gray had been under hypnosis so many times he could practically do it himself, so comfort wasn't as big a factor as it might have been. And Dr. Greene seemed to know what he was doing, more or less, as he read through the script in a gentle, even voice. And Gray let himself go "I have a lead," he told Felicity. "Patrick, down at the docks, told me there's been a great deal of activity at one of the old tenement houses, one that was abandoned a few years ago after most of it burned down."

Felicity, sitting behind him on the bed, put her arms around him, setting her chin against his shoulder. "Vampires?"

"A nest. He said there've been reports of as many as twenty."

"Liam, how can you handle twenty vampires?" Her tone was worried.

"In daylight."

"Oh, of course." She slid off the bed, coming around to face him. "They'll just lie there unconscious while you stake them. Do you really think you can bring yourself to do that? Kill defenseless creatures, in cold blood?"

He set his jaw. "They're vampires. Vicious, merciless killers.

Demons. Yes, I can do it."

Then it was several hours later, and he was coming back into their room. He fell into a chair and dropped his face into his hands.

"I couldn't do it."

Felicity's forehead crinkled in concern. "They're demons, you said. Merciless killers. What stopped you?"

"They were children."

She slipped into his lap, curling against him, her breath warm against the side of his neck. "If they were trying to kill you, do you think you could do it?"

"Yes. But there were so many."

"They're only children."

"But still demons." He nodded resolutely. "We go back at sunset."

And then it was later, and the sun was dropping below the city skyline, and they were setting out together. He had a horrible sense of doom but pushed it aside. He'd been hunting vampires for a long time-he knew what he was doing. As distasteful as the task seemed, these children had to die. All of them.

Still, he swallowed bile as they neared the burned-out tenement house. Children. Six, eight, ten years old some of them. How could these innocents have become demons? Who would do such a thing to a child?

Another demon, of course. One who held no compunctions about feeding on the living, beating blood of a human being. These children would have no more mercy than the ones who had Made them. They were just as capable of taking life as the vampires who had the appearance of adults.

He readied his weapons. "Felicity, wait for me here. I don't want you involved."

"I won't let you go alone." Her jaw was set with stubbornness.

"I've killed vampires before."

"Not like this. You would kill one of these, and because it looked like a child you would hurt with the deed for the rest of your life. I won't let you. You wait for me."

The truth of his words must have reached her, because she only kissed him and said, "Be careful."

"Always."

He slipped down the narrow alleyway, the smell of soot heavy in his nostrils. He had a sickening feeling he was going to die here, overcome by a swarm of demon-children.

"Hello again."

The voice made him jump, coming as it had from what he had been certain was an unoccupied shadow. He spun to see the vampire who had saved them in the alleyway, the strange one who'd smoked cigarettes that smelled like cloves. The one called Julian.

He was smoking now, the orange glow of the cigarette eerie in the near-darkness.

Clenching the wooden stake he held, he glared at the vampire and said, "What do you want?"

Julian drew hard on the cigarette before lifting it away from his lips. "I want to talk to you."

"About what?"

"About what you're planning to do."

"I'm about to rid the world of a nest of demon-children."

"You have no idea what's going on here."

His gaze never wavering from the vampire, he set his jaw and prepared himself. He would charge this creature if he had to, bring him down and stake him right here. "You're harboring demons."

"I am a demon." The vampire gave a menacing smile. "Or I was. Do you know I haven't tasted human blood in nearly a hundred years?"

"Am I supposed to be impressed?"

Julian shrugged. "I don't know. I am. I believe I have demonstrated a great deal of restraint and courage." He sucked hard on his cigarette, as if it were a lifeline to his very existence. "Especially with regard to you, right now, at this moment."

"Why is that?"

"These Children are under my protection. I'm teaching them to feed without taking human life. If you kill them . . . well, it would interrupt my lessons, now, wouldn't it?"

"I don't believe you."

"Then believe this. If you come into this place with the intent to kill, I will kill you. I might even decide to be mean about it and torture you a little first."

Liam could feel sweat breaking out on his face. He outweighed the vampire, and he had no doubt what the outcome of a fight between them would be, if the creature were human. But vampires were strong, quick, and without mercy. He should turn around and go, now. But he could think only of the vampires he'd seen earlier that day, piled around the inside of the building in small, comatose bundles. He should have killed them then. He should have steeled himself to the apparent horror of slaughtering children and just done it.

"How can I believe you?" he said.

Julian smiled. "I'm an honorable homicidal demon. I wouldn't lie to you."

"I-" He broke off. A figure had appeared behind Julian, a boy of about ten.

Without turning, Julian said, "Daniel, go."

The boy took a few steps forward. "What's going on?"

Julian lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he was smoking, stubbed out the old one and put the butt in his coat pocket.

"This is Liam. He wants to kill us all."

"Bastard," said the young demon, and suddenly flung him self forward.

He saw the attack coming but stood unmoving while the boy grabbed at his coat, small white fangs gleaming. Then, regaining his composure, he wrapped his arms around Daniel, turned, and ran with him.

"Daniel!" He heard Julian's shout behind him as he raced full-tilt down the alleyway, the boy pounding him with his fists, sinking teeth into his chest, ripping. Ignoring the pain, he ran, then suddenly stopped, tore the boy from his chest and slammed him to the ground.

Daniel looked up at him with hatred on his face, his fangs and face bloody.

Just a demon. Not a child at all. A merciless, sadistic killer.

He raised the stake over his head, ready to bring it down into Daniel's chest.

And hands closed on his head . . . and wrenched Gray jolted back to the present, gagging, hands at his throat. Dr.

Greene reached out to catch him as he collapsed out of the chair.

"Are you all right?" the doctor asked.

Gray couldn't gather enough breath to speak. He sat there on the floor for a minute, an echo of Liam's pain still flashing through his throat. Finally he managed to look up at Tara, who sat on the floor in the corner, a notebook balanced on her drawn-up knees, her eyes wide.

"Felicity saw you die," she said.

"I know."

"You would have killed him. Daniel."

"I know."

She just looked at him, her face stricken, as if he were someone she didn't know and didn't want to know. But she had never really known him, had she? The man she'd known was that self-righteous, would-be child killer. He couldn't bear it.

"I'd like to go," Tara said. "Would it be possible for me to just go?"

Dr. Greene gave her a sympathetic look. "Can you find your way out?"

She nodded. Her lips were pressed firmly together, her eyes brimming.

"I'll be fine. Gray-"

He shook his head. He couldn't say anything to her. Not with her looking at him with such condemnation, as if she were holding him responsible for the actions of his former self. But then, how far was he, really, from Liam's self-righteous, comprehensive denunciation of vampires?

The whole thing was too fresh in his mind, as if it had just happened.

Everything seemed surreal. He should be dead-he'd felt the crunching of the bones in his neck. He'd come out of the hypnosis only a breath before the actual moment of death.

"Gray . . ." she began again.

"Later," he managed. "Just . . . later." He let the doctor lead him from the room, noting the sympathetic look Dr. Greene cast Tara as they passed.

They had walked a few yards when the doctor cleared his throat.

"I'll have to take you to Julian," he said. "The final decision is his."

"About what?"

"About whether we can let you go."

Gray stopped, stood stock still in the middle of the corridor. Dr.

Greene slowed to a halt and looked back at him questioningly.

"Damn," Gray muttered, then caught up with Dr. Greene. There didn't seem to be anything else he could do.

"You saw?" Julian asked when they arrived in his office.

"I saw."

"Are we good?"

Gray nodded. "We're good. You had good reason to kill Liam."

And Liam might also have had good reason to do what he'd done.

Gray wasn't sure about that yet. The larger part of him still said vampires were evil, but maybe that was just Liam inside him, doing the talking. And years of Dracula movies. Reality, in the form of Julian and Daniel, told him vampires were just like people-some good, some bad. And fate had led him to the former variety. That much, he was sure of. Vampire or not, Julian Cavanaugh was a good man. Gray couldn't fault him for protecting a nest of children-then or now.

Julian studied him for a long time, and when he smiled, Gray knew the vampire was satisfied with whatever he saw.

"Go home," Julian said, gesturing with a nod toward the door.

So Dr. Greene took him home. But even there, he didn't know what to do. Could he return to his life, burdened with the knowledge of the existence of the ancient caverns, filled with vampires, far below his feet? Could he walk away from all that had happened in the past week, knowing Tara existed in this city? Both questions seemed unanswerable.

He needed time. Time to get used to what he knew and what he should do with that knowledge. Not that he would tell anyone about the enclave of vampires. He just needed to figure out how to assimilate their existence into his view of the world. To make it make sense.

A big job, he thought. Especially for a psychiatrist.