61 A.D.

18

Theron needed blood. Badly. He stumbled along behind Baella, trying to keep up, and found his face in the dirt far too often for his liking.

“Ramah will be coming for us,” Baella hissed. “Can’t you go any faster?”

“Need…blood…” Theron said. “My insides are turning to dust.”

Baella looked him up and down. “Blood? Why didn’t you say so?” She turned away from him and looked up the street. After a moment, she started walking.

“Stay here,” she said. Theron, still weak, nodded. It wasn’t like he had much choice, anyway. He sat with his back to a building, marveling at this strange new turn.

Baella. Here. In Londinium.

That certainly explained what happened to the Lost One. In the entire history of his race, only one Bachiyr had been able to destroy a Lost One without the aid of the Council. Baella. No one knew how she did it, or why, but she seemed to kill every Lost One she ran across, leaving nothing but a pile of ash in their place. She was rumored to have many other abilities not seen in other Bachiyr. The list of her supposed powers ran the gamut from being able to fly to turning people to stone. Ridiculous, of course. But she’d done something to him earlier that left him in a very weakened state-a state magnified by a night of Ramah’s attention-and damned if he could figure out what it was or how she did it.

Very few had ever even seen Baella. Theron and Ephraim had tracked her down in the Library of Alexandria many years before, back when they both worked as Enforcers for The Council. That night, Theron had caught his first glimpse of the penultimate renegade vampire. Theron had set fire to the Library while Ephraim and Baella battled inside, but she still managed to escape. Ephraim had emerged from the burning wreckage with only minor injuries, very upset with Theron for nearly killing him. He’d never been the same afterward, and eventually had betrayed his people for a human rabbi in Jerusalem.

Theron winced. The memory of his failure in Judea still stung.

He put it out of his mind and focused on his current situation, which was dire enough to require his full attention. He was a prisoner of the most hunted vampire of all. True, she’d freed him from the stocks, and she could have killed him easily if she’d wanted, which meant she needed him alive for something. But that didn’t mean much. She might simply be toying with him, ready to kill him as soon as she got bored. Weak as he was, he would not be able to do much to stop her.

Additionally, somewhere behind him Ramah would soon discover his escape. Baella had left Taras alive in the hope that he would keep Ramah busy for a while. If it worked, they might have a chance to get out of the city alive. But if the Roman told Ramah about Baella, no doubt the Councilor would come running, pausing only long enough to kill Taras before speeding out the door in pursuit.

Thinking of Taras brought the image of his unnaturally thin wrists and hands to Theron’s mind. How had he managed to alter them like that? That would be a useful thing to know. If Theron escaped Londinium alive, he vowed to learn that trick.

Movement up the street caught his eye. Baella. She had found a woman and was leading her back to him. The woman shuffled along behind, her arms at her sides and her expression blank. As they approached, Theron noted her attire. Bright colors, designed to attract the eye. The sparse outfit revealed a great deal more flesh than was generally considered appropriate. Probably a prostitute. Along with beggars, they were usually the easiest prey to find in the city, and most of the time no one missed them. This one had apparently decided the risk to the city was not worth her loss of income, although there was little enough in the way of potential customers left in the deserted city.

“Here,” Baella said when she reached him. “Feed quickly. We don’t have much time.”

Theron grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her close. She came to him with no resistance, her eyes still blank and thoughtless.

“What did you do to her?” he asked.

“Does it matter?”

No, Theron thought. It doesn’t. He tilted her head back, exposing her throat. Her blood pulsed through the artery in her neck, a tantalizing fraction of an inch beneath the surface. He could almost smell it underneath her sweat and the scent of sex, which clung to her like perfume. Definitely a prostitute.

Theron’s fangs extended, and he sank them into the woman’s neck. At that moment she regained her senses. Her sudden fear sprang through her blood like fire, and he gripped her tighter, losing himself in the sweet taste of her terror. She tried to scream as she struggled to free herself, but all she could manage was a hoarse croak, which soon turned into a whimpered plea for mercy.

Theron had never been known for mercy.

He twisted his neck, tearing the skin of the woman’s throat. As her body tensed with pain, the thrill of death coursed through him, igniting his nerves and sending his synapses into rapid motion. The blood flowed into his mouth and he sucked it down greedily, draining the woman dry as her struggles became weaker and weaker. Soon she stopped moving altogether, but still he drank. He did not stop until she was nothing more than a dry husk.

He threw the body into the street, instinctively looking around for a good place to hide it. When he saw Baella staring at him, he realized what he was doing. Protecting the secrecy of his race was the Council’s mission, not his. Still, he preferred to hide his kills from human detection whenever possible. If for no other reason than not to leave an obvious trail for the Council to follow.

“Still living by their rules, are you?” Baella asked.

Theron shrugged. “Old habits can be hard to break.”

The line, recited by old men for as long as Theron could recall, brought back a memory that stopped him cold.

Malachi stepped in, ducking his head and twisting a bit to the side in order to maneuver his broad shoulders through the doorway. He wore his shoulder-length brown hair tied back with a leather thong, leaving his craggy, olive-skinned face exposed from forehead to chin, and he didn’t look pleased. He fixed his stern features squarely on the much smaller Ephraim. “Thank ‘The Father,’ Ephraim? Why would you offer thanks to a demon? Have you learned nothing these last few weeks?”

“My apologies, my friend. Old habits can be difficult to break.”

“Indeed, they can,” Malachi said. “That you are trying at all says much about your progress.”

That was it. The beginning of the end. The first day of Theron’s long fall from the Council’s grace. Had it really been only twenty-seven years? It felt much longer. Nearly three decades of hiding and hunting, chasing Taras while running from Ramah.

“There will be time for daydreaming later,” Baella’s voice cut through his reverie. “We need to leave. Now.”

Wonderful. More running. More hiding. More skulking in filthy alleys trying to stay one step ahead of Ramah. And it wasn’t likely to end anytime soon.

Or was it?

Theron looked at Baella again, careful to keep his sudden thoughts hidden. The Council had been hunting her since the earliest days of his race. She’d made Ramah, and even Herris, look like fools many times. She was dangerous and cunning, and he’d best not forget it. But if he could somehow bring her in, would it be enough to restore his lost honor?

Maybe. Maybe not. But if anything in the world had a chance of getting him back into the Hall where he belonged, it would be this.

Theron fell into step behind her. He couldn’t take her. Not yet. He wasn’t strong enough to defeat her, and she had too many tricks for him to attack her openly. He would have to be subtle. Bide his time. Wait for the perfect opportunity. Then, when the moment came, he would strike.

If everything went as planned, he would bring Herris the ultimate present: Baella’s head in a sack.

Baella felt Theron’s eyes on her back and smiled, knowing his thoughts had gone exactly as she thought they would. So predictable, she thought.