They both gave her a stare. "Shanna," Jack said gently, "the police would just lock us up for being crackpots, and you know it."

Shanna tripped over a tree root. She steadied herself on the stone of a tomb. A night owl shrieked.

Clouds drifted over the moon. The cemetery was darker than ever.

Renate had run ahead of them. They followed.

They reached the de Bras tomb.

A mist seemed to emanate from it.

A red mist. Illuminated by a strange glow of crimson light deep from the bowels of the earth.

Or the bowels of h.e.l.l.

The iron gate gaped open.

In the strange, shadowed moonlight, it seemed to beckon.

Jade winced with pain. She was cramped, cold, her bones aching.

Her tongue felt like sandpaper. She felt...

Wounded.

A sharpness .. .

A weakness.

Darian kept smiling at Jade. "I've enjoyed every slightest touch. So tempting. But tonight Sophia awakes, and we seize the moment together.

"Hey, me beauty!" he called to the harem girl. "Come over here. I'll scare you. I promise-I'll scare you."

The girl was coming closer and closer. Jade wrenched very hard on her wrist To her amazement, the ancient shackle cracked open. She reached for the old knight's sword.

"No, no, no, my lady!" Darian cried. He slipped his arm around her, pulling her out with such force that she wondered which would snap first-her other wrist, or the shackle.

The shackle broke. She was thrown down. She landed hard against a coffin.

Sophia's coffin.

The kids were laughing and shrieking. Darian was stroking the harem girl. Jade was dazed, and still aching from what they had done to her. "Don't you understand!" she cried desperately, trying to rise. "This is real. They're real...."

"She's good; she's really good!" the boy in the Freddy Krueger costume said. "Better than you, buddy."

Behind the Freddy were a candy striper, a guy dressed up as a nurse with big b.o.o.bs and very red lips, and two monks. There was also a Grim Reaper.

"Go, get out of here!" she cried.

"They'll never leave here alive. Not unless Lucian wants to show himself," Darian said. He came at her, catching a handful of her hair before she could begin to move away. "Call him. Call to him now. Tell him you're about to die. I will not taste and sample and savor your blood-I'll savage your veins until every last drop of your blood is gone- and your head is severed from your shoulders. Do it! Call him.

Tell him you're dying now."

He practically had her hair ripped from her scalp. She gritted her teeth against the pain, but stared up at Darian. "Call him-so that you can destroy him and then us?"

He tightened his grip on her hair. "Do it! You can die slowly as well."

"Jade!"

She was amazed to hear her name called. One of the monks threw back his cowl. To her absolute astonishment, she saw that it was Matt Durante. From beneath his brown wool garment, he pulled out a long stake.

"Matt, no, what are you doing here?"

"She's behind you! Sophia is behind you," Matt called. "Get up.

You've got to get away from Darian, and come to us. Quickly!"

Get away from Darian? They couldn't begin to imagine the power of his hands.

Jade twisted beneath Darian's merciless hold. Matt was right: Sophia had opened her eyes, and now sat up.

Dark, exotic, as astonishingly beautiful as ever, she rose, smiling at Jade. "This time you're mine!" she said softly. She looked with amus.e.m.e.nt at the others in the tomb. "Darian, how droll. The silly fellow thinks she can just get away from you. I think I'll just kill her.

Now."

"No!" Matt made a flying leap across the room with his stake.

He didn't make it.

Darian caught him with one hand, plucked the stake from him, and snapped it between his fingers.

The second monk let out a cry, racing forward. It was Danny, Jade realized with sinking horror. Of course. Danny would have never let Matt come alone on such a mission.

But Danny fared no better than Matt. Darian simply lifted his hand, striking Danny with such force that he screamed with pain and was slammed back against the dank stone walls. Sophia stepped gracefully out of her coffin and walked toward Jade.

Jade scrambled up, gripping her hair to try to prevent some of the pain as Darian dragged her to her feet to face Sophia.

He no longer held her.

But she wasn't free.

Now she was trapped.

Darian remained behind her. Sophia was before her.

It was then that she saw Jack Delaney hurrying, stumbling, into the tomb. He was followed by her sister and Renate. He waved a vial of holy water in front of him.

"Let her go. Now. Or I splash it all over your face. Your head. If your whole head evaporates, you're dead, right?"

Darian turned to smile at him.

"I dare you-test it out, big boy!" Darian taunted.

Jack threw the holy water.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all.

"But-"Jack said.

"It's water, Jackie boy. Just water," Darian said. "Renate, my sweet. How good you were, how very, very good. How well you served me. Come to me, now, though. I need to twist your head from your body. I might have taken just a bit too much blood from you, and I'm not sure I like you enough for all eternity!"

Renate started walking toward him.

"No!" Shanna shrieked, pushing past Darian. "Getaway from him, Renate; he's going to kill you. Stop her, Jack."

"Do you think Jack can stop her?" Sophia asked.

"I'll d.a.m.ned well stop her!" Jade cried. But Sophia snaked out an arm, reaching for her hair. She jerked it, dragging Jade back to her. She wrenched her hair so that her head was forced to a painful angle.

"Now, now, now!" Sophia raged, but she still made no move. She started forward, dragging Jade with her, looking toward the entrance of the tomb.

"Call him. Call Lucian!" she commanded, pressing Jade forward to her knees. "You are dead, you wretched selkie, you are dead!" she said in a hiss. "I killed you once, and I will kill you again!"

It was then that the Grim Reaper, who had stood at the back of the crowd, came to full life. He was suddenly there, behind Sophia, and pulling her from Jade. Sophia, caught off guard, was swiftly seized by Lucian; she felt his grip of steel around her throat, and began to scream.

"Move, Jade, quickly, away from Darian!" he commanded.

Darian sprang into action and reached for Jade, ready to take over, but another corpse suddenly rolled from one of the slabs, pulling the linen that had shrouded him from his body. It was Rick. He came after Darian and they began to fight, fists lashing out, feet flying. It was a deadly, sickening fight. Lucian had Sophia in a fierce grip then; her arm was twisted behind her; she was forced to her knees in the middle of the room.

"A stake!" Jade cried. "I'll throw you a stake."

"He can't kill me!" Sophia cried with triumph. "The rules-"

"The rules are about to change," Lucian said. "You wanted to twist them; so shall we! I am the king of our kind, Sophia. Time and temperance have made me so. I will change the rules, as I so desire.

You are a threat to all our kind. Even among our peers, Sophia, there must now be a kind of justice."

Jade was crawling for one of the broken stakes that lay on the hard earthen floor. Sophia struggled with Lucian's grip and began to chant- strange words that sounded like a keening on the wind, strange words like none Jade had ever heard before.

And suddenly other corpses began spilling from tombs. And it was the way it had been before, battles raging, the dead coming alive, the dead attacking the living....

And at last, at long last, the girl in the harem outfit began to scream.

"Get out, get out!" Jack was shouting, trying to push the girl ahead of him. A corpse wound bony, decaying hands around Jack's throat. He struggled with the creature.

A corpse kicked the stake Jade nearly had in her grasp out of her way. She saw the sword her old knight had been holding.

His bony fingers were twitching, as if they were about to come to life.

She seized the sword and thrust the old warrior's skull from his bony frame.

Lucian had Sophia by her hair then. She was trying to let out her chants, but he was dragging her so quickly that she could barely make a noise. He was moving with a sense and purpose Jade couldn't fathom as yet.

Despite her talisman, he was in control. At the moment.

But Darian had taken Rick down and was standing over him, reaching for a knife sheathed at his calf. Lucian kept his iron grip on Sophia, but kicked Darian with an unG.o.dly strength. Darian wailed, his fingers crushed. The knife was sent flying from his hands.

Darian was down on one hand and his knees, scrambling for the knife.

The sword was in Jade's hand. She swung. Hard.

The blade sank into Darian's neck. She hadn't hit hard enough. She cried out, desperate, and swung again. He let out a scream of fury, spinning on her. She struck again.

His head bounced from his shoulders.

Jade started screaming.

And screaming . ..

Darian was gone. Dead. Decaying, turning to dust...

Sophia let out a howl unlike anything Jade had ever heard. She rose, nearly escaping Lucian's fierce grip. He jerked her back. She let out a venomous spiel of chanting.

Suddenly all the corpses in the crypt were coming after Lucian. And Jade.

"Move!" Lucian commanded, looking at Jack. "Get the others, get them the h.e.l.l out!"

Jack pushed Shanna; Shanna pushed the harem girl. Freddy Krueger was still standing there, blubbering. Matt caught hold of him, then raced to the wall, catching Danny, who was still stunned, his face bleeding.

The corpses were spilling around them, and around them....

"The torch!" Lucian cried. And then Jade saw what he had been doing all along: forcing Sophia and Darian from the entrance to the tomb, while prodding the others toward it.

She saw what he wanted: one of the torches. It burned from a notch in the wall. She bounded for it, grabbed it, and raced back to him, terrified as she thrust it into the leprous face of one of the dead called forth to fight.

It backed away.

She came to Lucian's side. He suddenly thrust Sophia from him, flinging her far against the wall and into the depths of the crypt. He grabbed Jade's hand, ready to run. "You can't!" Sophia raged. "You can't kill me, you'll be destroyed. They'll come and kill you, others of our kind-"

"It's a new time, Sophia," Lucian said. "A new justice."

"He won't kill you," Jade said. "I will."

"Jesus," Lucian yelled, "get out!" He pushed her ahead of him.