"They're out there. Wanting something. Watching. Waiting."

"Then stay inside. There is nothing else they can do."

But the next day, the church caught fire.

The blaze began at dusk, and all the desperate measures to keep it standing were useless. By nightfall, it burned still, and the people were left to huddle around the fire in fear.

Ragnor stood guard, aware now, of the proximity of something ... someone. . .

A whisper of evil on the air.

Then they came.

They came in a flock, like wings of blackness. They shrilled the night air with their cries and the sounds of something beating against the air. They were nothing but shadows, and then they were real. Darkness and sensation, then a blinding vision of light in the flames.

The monks fought them with swords, strange warriors in brown robes and tonsured heads, battling the demons from above and around. They knew to go for the heads, and the enemy fell all around them. Some fell as flesh and bone, and others decayed before their eyes, and were like so much ash from the fire.

Yet when it was over, though the enemy lay all around them, so did their own. And in the darkness of the night, fire raged again as they cremated all the remains.

By light, Ragnor had to sleep. The monks and villagers set desperately to work; they built a church again, a sad structure, and the monks prayed and begged that their church be sanctified.

Ragnor awoke to find that he was not alone. Nari had come to him.

"I heard the call," she told him and touched him gently on the cheek. She curled next to him, soothing his brow, then moving against him with an ever greater need until he came fully awake in a storm of hunger to be appeased only by the volatile pa.s.sion she offered.

Yet then, she did not remain beside him.

She moved suddenly, and he saw what she had done.

His sword lay across the earthen floor. They surrounded the foot of the pallet that was his bed. Their leader stepped forward into the room, his sword drawn, a snarl of a mocking smile curling his lips. Ragnor rose upon his elbows with amazement "By all the G.o.ds ...

you!"

"Time to die, seventh son of the seventh son."

Nari slipped around the other man. "I'm so sorry, Ragnor. But we are not meant to consume the vile blood of rats and boars. You might have been the greatest power among us, but..."

Her voice trailed away.

She had set him up for destruction; she had planned it well.

"I'm sorry, Ragnor. In Valhalla, think to forgive me."

The man with the sword stepped forward and Ragnor jumped up, naked, unarmed, but desperate to fight however long he could.

"Who wants to live forever?"

The sword made a strange silver slash against the twilight shadows haunting the room.

CHAPTER 18.

When she left the plane and cleared customs, Jordan was intent only on reaching the car rental desk.

As she walked, she tried to shake the feeling that she had been surrounded by beasts on the plane- and that anyone who glanced her way was a monster, intent on her destruction.

She had just signed her rental agreement when a woman came up to her. She was tall, lean, and attractive, with green eyes, auburn hair and a quick smile. She extended a hand.

"Miss Riley, my name is Jade DeVeau. I'm here to meet you."

Jordan took the woman's hand, but as she did so, she felt that someone was behind her again. After her.

Paranoia!

But she had come this far. She smiled at the woman, but was afraid. How would this woman have known to meet her? Who was she? The cop who had written the book was named Canady.

She was probably a friend, a co-worker, someone sent to meet her. . . She had no intention of taking such a chance.

"How do you do," Jordan murmured. She looked around. The airport was not very crowded. She felt a terrible unease. She wasn't going anywhere with this woman.

"My car is in the lot, through the parking garage-" the woman began.

"Great" Jordan interrupted. "If you'll excuse me just a moment?" Jordan indicated the ladies room.

"Of course!" the other woman said.

Jordan pretended to head for the bathroom door.

The woman had taken a chair in the waiting area. Jordan just kept walking. She raced outside the airport, breathing heavily with the weight of her laptop and overnight bag. For once in her life, her prayers were answered-there was a taxi waiting. She didn't dare look for the bus that would take her to the car rental agency.

Once in the taxi, she sat back, relieved. Then she stiffened, trying to get a look at the driver in the rearview mirror. He was a dignified-looking, middle-aged black man. She still felt a sense of fear snaking into her. Then she saw the rosaries hanging from his mirror.

Did that mean he was . .. safe? She had to hope so; she needed to reach her car.

Trust only yourself!

The driver took her to the rental agency. She was a wreck as she got into the Honda and checked the map they had given her. She had been to New Orleans before, and she loved the city. But she wasn't that familiar with the streets.

And I'm not thinking clearly! I'm exhausted, and I'm frightened, and I may, after all, be really, truly, crazy.

She forced herself to concentrate on the road. She had already taken a wrong turn somewhere. She was on the outskirts of the French Quarter, but she needed to find the road to the old plantations.

She couldn't drive and read the map; she had to pull over. She tried to find the inside light switch, but could not. She stared around, then realized that she was outside the gates of one of the city's famed old cemeteries. Looking through the wrought iron, she could see winged angels, crosses, and the glowing shapes of a half dozen mausoleums. Fog was settling around the ground. Swirling, creating strange, eerie shapes.

She had to get out of here.

She opened the driver's door just a hair, and the lights popped on. As she looked at the map, she was startled and then panicked by a knock at her window.

"Hey, lady, you got a dollar? Maybe you got a twenty? A five?"

The man holding on to her door was filthy. He was a white man with a thick beard, a horrendous scent, and so much dirt on him that he was the color of an islander. "Hey, lady, I know I smell. Hey, just cause there's whiskey on my breath now, doesn't mean I'm going to go buy more booze. Okay, you got some change?"

She saw his teeth. Or what he had of them. They were green and slimy. She had a vision of him changing into something else, with salivating fangs, right before her.

She screamed. Her scream startled him.

He screamed and stepped back. She gunned the car. The automobile burst out on to the road with a shriek of tires.

She didn't know which direction she was going in. She just drove.

Rudy Trenton stood on the street, watching the little red Honda drive off into the night.

He shook his head, then removed his baseball cap, and scratched his head.

"Okay, lady, so I do want to buy more whiskey!" he muttered. He shook his head.

"Crazy. What the h.e.l.l is this world coming to? Maybe I shouldn't have asked for the twenty. Some folks just don't know about inflation."

He stretched, thinking it was time to hop the fence and find himself a nice little nook in one of the mausoleums. Lots of them were locked, but some of them were really old, and the decaying corpses inside had no living relatives left in the vicinity, so it was easy enough to crawl in and get some shelter from the night.

He grinned. Folks were scared of cemeteries. Dumb. Weren't no people less dangerous than dead folk. h.e.l.l, no, dead folks couldn't hurt you any.

Rudy turned. To his amazement, there was a man coming out of the cemetery. Or was he a man? How could he have come out of the cemetery? The gates were still locked; he hadn't jumped over the fence, as Rudy intended to do.

"Hey, buddy, you got a twenty, a five, a one, a quarter? I need some food, man."

"All right, so I need a drink."

The man smiled, as if amused by Rudy's request. Rudy smiled back. He was going to get lucky. This fellow looked as if he understood a fellow's need for a drink now and then.

"Yeah, I really need a drink," Rudy said.

The fellow laughed out loud.

"So do I," he told Rudy.

Rudy started to grin.

He was still grinning when the man gripped his shoulders. He didn't stop grinning until he felt something ... pain. Agony. The bones in his shoulders breaking . ..

He started to scream, but the sound was broken off almost immediately as his jugular was slit and the sound was drowned out by the flow of his own blood.

Jordan reached the house at last. At least she thought it was the house. It was a mansion, a beautiful old plantation, kept in top-notch shape. The porch was expansive with traditional columns, and a welcoming, white-painted swing. She glanced at the address she had written down, and at the number on the house again.

Yes, this was it.

She got out of the car, fingering the cross at her neck, patting her purse to a.s.sure herself she had her vial of holy water handy.

If this cop is legit, he's going to think I'm crazy!

Still, she had come this far.

Resolutely, she slammed the door of the Honda, strode across the lawn and up the steps, and knocked on the door.

It was immediately opened by the woman who had been at the airport. "Thank G.o.d!" she said earnestly.

Jordan felt herself blush as she stood there awkwardly. "I'm sorry; I've just had so many strange things occurring lately-" "Yes, of course, I understand. We were still worried. Come in, come in."

Even then, Jordan hesitated. But she heard the rea.s.suring cry of a young child in the background and she stepped over the threshold of the house. A tall, dark-haired man shook her hand as she came in.

"Mr. Canady?" she murmured.

"No, I'm Lucian DeVeau," he told her. "Jade's husband." He turned, indicating a woman behind him who was holding the toddler. "This is Maggie Canady, and Sean is right through there in the office. I was about to go out and try to find you. Jade has been very upset since she lost you at the airport."

"Again, I'm very sorry."

"You're here-it's all completely understandable. Come on in, we can all talk."

As she stepped through the foyer, she noted the historic beauty of the house. A grand stairway rose from the entry, and at the landing, there was an exquisite painting of a beautiful woman in mid-nineteenth-century dress.

"Lovely house," she murmured.

"Thank you," Maggie said. "I'm just going to put this one to bed; I'll be right with you all. You must be exhausted ... tired, hungry, thirsty. But Jade can get you anything you need."

"Thank you."

This was very strange. All these people seemed to have been expecting her, and they all seemed to think it was quite normal that she should be here; in fact, they seemed more than relieved that she had come.

"This way," Lucian said.

"This is very rude, of course," Jordan murmured. "But..."

"I'm the publisher of Sean's book," Jade said. "And Lucian . .."