In clipped, economical tones, he said, "William, grab the bones.

I'll take Lilith."

Only then did Jarod realize that Lilith still lay motionless on the floor, her eyes closed. "Is she all right?"

"You're the doctor," said Lucien, pushing him toward the door.

"How the hell should I know?"

Jarod could smell his blood now, an odd, earthy reek unlike human blood. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked, hesitant.

Lucien bent to lift Lilith's limp body into his arms. "Just get the hell out of my way."

William grabbed the bag of bones, and Jarod was left with no choice but to trail after the rest as they ran for the plane. He pressed a hand against his neck. The blood there felt thick and sticky, and he could tell the wound had partially closed.

Ialdaboth's body lay crumpled not far from the plane, blood all over his face and shirt. Without thinking, Jarod reacted, stopping to check the Demon's pulse. He found none under the thick mess of blood.

"He's dead," said Lucien, "at least for the moment. We need to get the hell out of here."

Jarod, reminding himself that his Hippocratic oath had no provisions for creatures who could be dead one minute and alive the next, climbed into the plane in time to see Lucien stagger down the aisle, set Lilith gently in a seat, then collapse.

Jarod rushed to his side. "Lucien!" He couldn't see the other man's face very well through its coating of blood, but Lucien's eyes were open.

"Give me . . . a minute," he managed.

Jarod automatically felt for a pulse; it was there, but faint. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure how strong it was under normal circumstances. "Are you all right?" he ventured.

"Better than the other guy," Lucien grunted. He straightened a little in the seat. "Lucky Ialdaboth depleted himself kidnapping Lorelei and trespassing in the Underground, or I'd have gotten my ass kicked."

He touched the side of his face and looked at the blood that came back on his fingers. "I mean, worse than this. He'll be down for the count. I just need a nap. For about a year and a half." He pushed to his feet and walked unsteadily to his seat.

Wishing he could do more for him, Jarod turned his attention to Lilith. She half-lay, still limp and unconscious, in the seat where Lucien had left her. He could do nothing for her, either. So he sat down, across the aisle from Lilith, and felt helpless. His wrists and throat ached.

To think, the fate of the world rested on this bedraggled lot. This could not possibly be a good thing.

Jarod managed to stay awake for the flight from Bucharest to Paris, but the minute he took a seat on the still-waiting SST, he fell headlong into sleep. He did have time to wonder how Lilith was, but the thought lasted only a moment.

At first, his sleep was deep, dark, and bottomless. Then dreams rose out of it.

He was with Lilith, holding her close, her heart and his beating in synchrony, the sound like a separate entity between them. He bent his head to kiss her gently, but the kiss became passionate almost immediately.

She clutched at him, her mouth frantic on his.

You have to save me. The words rose from the place where her breasts pressed against his chest, from the rhythm of their joined heartbeats.

Save me from him.

I will.

She pulled back and looked at him, eyes drenched with despair.

You can't. You don't know what I am.

Then she opened her mouth and blackness poured out of it, a thick, ugly river of terror and filth. She was choking on it, dying, but she couldn't stop the flow- Jarod jerked awake to see Lucien standing over him.

"I was just about to wake you up," Lucien said.

He was still carrying the bag of bones. He'd cleaned himself up, washed off the blood, but the gashes were still there, wide parallel lines like claw marks across his right cheek, as well as the deep forehead wound. His hands were shaking. Jarod wondered if stitches would do the Demon any good.

"How's Lilith?" he asked.

Lucien shook his head. "Hard to tell right now. You'll have to check her when we get back. How are you?"

"Still breathing. You?"

Lucien snorted. "I'll live. That's a given. Come on-let's go."

Jarod followed Lucien out of the plane. It came as a shock to see that it was full morning. The others were nowhere to be seen.

"Where-" Jarod started, and Lucien pointed. Three large wooden crates were being rolled out of the plane's baggage compartment and loaded into a waiting truck by three men wearing airport security uniforms.

Jarod wondered how much the humans knew.

"They'll be fine. We had everything ready, just in case."

"Good thing we did."

Lucien nodded. "I'd planned on coming back at night. I'd hoped we would have more time. But 'expect the best, prepare for the worst,'

that's what I always say."

"You've said that for twelve thousand years?" Lucien shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe five. Ten tops." He pointed at the truck. "Let's go. The sooner we get home, the sooner we can get Lilith straightened out. Not to mention Aanu."

Jarod had no idea what he could do to "straighten out" someone who'd been reduced to a bag of bleached bones. Sighing he followed Lucien to the truck.

Six.

He worried most about Lilith, perhaps because he was certain he could help her in some way, even if he didn't know exactly how. Aanu's bones seemed hopeless, irrelevant. And his own condition, after the bloodletting on the helicopter, was more immediate than either of the others.

Still, he ignored the overwhelming exhaustion and forced himself to keep his eyes open as Lucien transported him from a warehouse near the outskirts of New York City to the hallway outside Lilith's bedroom.

"I'll be back with Lilith," Lucien said, then disappeared.

He reappeared only seconds later, kneeling next to the crate that held Lilith's sleeping body. Effortlessly, he pushed it over the threshold into the bedroom, leaving it next to the bed.

"You're going to leave her in there?" Jarod asked.

Lucien shrugged. "Doesn't make much difference. She'll get out when she wakes up."

Jarod chewed the inside of his cheek, considering. Just as Lucien was almost out the door, he said, "No. I want her out of the box and on the bed."

Lucien stopped, looking back with his eyebrows raised. Only then did Jarod realize he'd basically issued an order.

"May I ask why?" Lucien asked mildly.

"Her condition concerns me. I want to hook up an IV before she wakes up."

"You think it'll help?"

"If I can figure out what the hell I'm doing and what the hell's wrong with her, yes, I think it'll help."

Lucien nodded. "Fair enough."

He peeled the top off the crate, popping the nails as easily as if they were thumbtacks. Then, gently, he lifted Lilith, settled her onto the bed.

"Thank you," Jarod said.

Lucien nodded. "I'm going to get Sasha and William." He pointed at the makeshift blanket-bag on the floor-Aanu's bones. He was trem bling again, but he drew his hand back quickly, making it clear he wanted to hide his state. "Take care of Aanu," he said.

He disappeared before Jarod could ask what the hell he was supposed to do with "Aanu." Sighing, he knelt next to the bag and opened the sagging mouth to look inside "Oh, my God."

As quickly as possible, he hauled the bag down the hallway to one of his better-equipped hospital rooms. There, he emptied the contents onto the bed. It came out in a clump. Connective tissue had begun to regenerate between the bones, attaching them to each other again.

Unfortunately, they'd been piled together in a mish-mash in the makeshift bag.

Carefully, Jarod began to separate the jumbled remains. Small, square bones-he couldn't tell if they were metatarsals or metacar- pals-had fused to one arm's ulna. The other end of the ulna was connected to the mandible, protruding from the chin. Vertebrae studded a clavicle like a necklace, glued to it with fresh, pink tissue. "What a mess," he muttered, and grabbed a scalpel.

A few minutes later, when Lucien found him, he had separated about half of the incorrectly reconnected bones and set them aside, careful to keep them a few inches away from each other.

"So you figured it out?" Lucien said.

Jarod glanced at the proto-vampire. He was leaning in the doorway, his expression uncomfortably smug. "More or less," Jarod muttered.

He gently separated a collection of phalanges-which actually seemed to be in the right order-and set them down next to the other hand bones he'd already sorted. He hadn't yet separated them into left and right hands. "Was this regeneration triggered by the exposure to air?"

"Yes. That's why there was no air in the cave. I should have realized there wouldn't be before I dragged you in there."

Jarod barely registered the almost-apology. "At a guess, I'd say the more oxygen the better, to regenerate the cells."

"Probably."

He slipped a tibia free from a mass of bones and tissue at the bottom of the bag, where the bones had settled and become severely confused. "I need a hyperbaric chamber. Can you get me one?"

"How much?"

"Fifty grand, at least."

"Buy it. I'll make sure the funds are there."

Two hours later, the bones were arranged in careful order on the bed. The entire time he'd been working, Jarod had been thinking about what might happen over the next few days, as Aanu's healing progressed.

Would he regrow his brain, with all the knowledge it had previously held? How could a sophisticated consciousness possibly regenerate from bones that had been bleached dry for countless hundreds- even thousands-of years?

It boggled Jarod's mind. Gave him a headache, even. And he couldn't afford to waste time on speculation. There was still Lilith to think of.

He left Aanu to his own devices and went to tend to his other patient. The hyperbaric chamber wouldn't arrive until sunset tomorrow, by which time he figured he could rustle up enough vampire help to get it set up and running.

Lilith seemed well enough, as far as he could judge while she was still in her daytime Sleep. He looked at his watch. Still a few hours until dusk. Time enough to do what he wanted to do.

He'd given her IVs before, to assuage her hunger, blood ready to pump into her veins as soon as the sun set. He set up equipment to do the same thing tonight, with one small change.

He had plenty of blood in storage-part of a supply he kept current by channeling several pints a week from a half-dozen local blood banks-but as one of a very few humans living in a colony of vampires, Jarod considered it prudent to keep a supply of his own blood fresh and ready, in case one of the natives got overenthusiastic. He checked his supplies, and set two pints of it aside for Lilith's morning meal.

Whatever was wrong with Lilith, whatever Ialdaboth had done to her to keep her loyal, his own blood seemed to alleviate the effect.

Perhaps it would need to be fresh to work, but this was definitely worth trying. Maybe his stored blood could counter her symptoms long enough for him to rest and for his hemoglobin levels to return to normal. In the meantime, he still had enough left to give himself a transfusion if necessary.

With his work finished, exhaustion finally caught up with him. He could barely keep his eyes open as he made a few, final notes in Lilith's file. He scribbled his initials under them and laid the file aside, then sat next to Lilith on the bed. Gently, he ran a strand of her pale hair through his fingers.

"We'll get this to work," he said. "Don't worry."

Her still, waxy face remained unmoving. He smiled and kissed her lips, surprised to find they held a vague warmth. Then, with no energy left to carry him down the hallway to his own room, he stretched out next to her and fell asleep.

Night came, but Lilith did not awaken. Her sleep rose from the depths to tremble on the verge of wakefulness, but she couldn't swim those last few inches to the surface. She was vaguely aware of the presence of night, of blood flowing into her veins from the needle in the bend of her elbow, and of a warm weight next to her on the bed. But she couldn't open her eyes, couldn't move. Couldn't wake up. Not quite.

Who was in bed with her? Who did she know who was stupid enough to lie next to a vampire at dusk? The answer came to her immediately-Jarod.

And it was his blood moving into her veins. She recognized the difference, a flavor of sorts, as it began to pump through her. Then she lost the thread that had drawn her nearly to consciousness, and sank once more into Sleep.

To her surprise, she could feel him there, too. A vague sense of his presence that became gradually clearer. He slept, as well, and their minds seemed to call to each other on that plane, bound by shared blood.

Lilith.

You shouldn't have brought me back. She couldn't help the despair-it bubbled up unbidden from some deep place within.

Why?

You don't know what I am.

Show me.

If I do . . . If I do you'll never love me.