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Quinn was cold

Not physically, of course That was impossible The icy March air had no effect on his like weather No, this cold was inside hi city across itBoston by starlight It had taken hie

He’d lived there once, when he’d been hu but three hills, one

beacon, and a handful of houses with thatched roofs The place where he was standing now had been

clean beach surrounded by salt meadows and dense forest

The year had been 1639

Bostonhad grown since then, but Quinn hadn’t

He was still eighteen, still the young man who’d loved the sunny pastures and the clear blue water of the

wilderness Who had lived sih food for supper on his

his own fishing schooner andpretty

Dove Redfern

That was how it had all started, with Dove Pretty Dove and her soft brown hair sweet Dove, who

had a secret a siined

Well Quinn felt his lip curl That was all in the past Dove had been dead for centuries, and if her

screaht, no one knew but hiht not be any older than he had been in the days of the colonies, but he had learned a

few tricks Like horap ice around his heart so that nothing in the world could hurt hiaze, so that whoever looked into his black eyes saw only an endless glacial dark He’d

gotten very good at that Some people actually went pale and backed ahen he turned his eyes on the him not just to survive as a vampire, but to be brilliantly

successful at it He was Quinn, pitiless as a snake, whose blood ran like ice water, whose soft voice

pronounced dooot in his way Quinn, the essence of darkness, who struck fear into

the hearts of huht People alike

And just at the moment, he was tired

Tired and cold There was a kind of bleakness inside hi

He had no idea what to do about it-although it had occurred to him that if he were to jump into the bay

and let those dark waters close over his head, and then stay down there for a few days without feeding

well, all his problems would be solved, wouldn’t they?

But that was ridiculous He was Quinn Nothing could touch hio away eventually

He pulled hi blackness of the bay Maybe he

should go to the warehouse in Mission Hill, check on its inhabitants He needed so

Quinn shten children He set off forBoston

Rashel sat by the , but not the way ordinary people sit She was kneeling in a sort of crouch,

weight resting on her left leg, right leg bent and pointing forward It was a position that allowed for swift

and unrestricted movement in any direction Her bokken was beside her; she could spring and draw at a

second’s notice

The abandoned building was quiet Steve and Vicky were outside, scouting the street Nyala seehts

Suddenly Nyala reached out and touched the bokken’s sheath "What’s this?"

"Hm? Oh, it’s a kind of Japanese sword They use wooden swords for fencing practice because steel

would be too dangerous But it can actually be lethal even to huhted and balanced just like

a steel sword" She pulled the sword out of the sheath and turned the flashlight on it so Nyala could see

the satiny green-black wood

Nyala drew in her breath and touched the graceful curve lightly "It’s beautiful"

"It’s num vitae: the Wood of Life That’s the hardest and heaviest wood there is-it’s as dense

as iron I had it carved specially, just for me"

"And you use it to kill vampires" "Yes"

"And you’ve killed a lot" "Yes" Rashel slid the sword back into its sheath "Good," Nyala said with a

throb in her voice She turned to stare at the street She had a small queenly head, with hair piled on the

back like Nef-ertiti’s crown When she turned back to Rashel, her voice was quiet "How did you get

into all this in the first place? I mean, you seehed "Bit by bit," she said briefly She didn’t like to talk about it "But I started like you I saw

one of them kill myI could about vaht them And I told the story

at every foster home I lived in, and finally I found some people who believed ht usted "I’ like that I wouldn’t even

have known about the Lancers if Elliot hadn’t called uessed itBut I’d never have found theh time"

"No I think it takes a special kind of person But now that I kno to fight theht and shaky, and Rashel glanced at her quickly There was soirl "Nobody knohich of theet as

many of them as I can I want to-"

"Quiet!" Rashel hissed the word and put a hand over Nyala’s mouth at the sa, then got up like a spring uncoiling and put her head out theShe

listened for another ht up her scarf and veiled her face with practiced movements

"Grab your ski et your wish-right now There’s a fight down there Stay behind et your mask"

Nyala didn’t need to ask about that, she noticed It was the first thing any vanized and the vaht People would

search until they found you, then strike when you least expected it

With Nyala behind her, Rashel ran lightly down the stairs and around to the street

The sounds were co from a pool of darkness beside one of the warehouses, far froht As Rashel reached the place, she could make out the forms of Steve and Vicky, their faces

with another for dead

One other for in ambush, couldn’t handle one little

vaht they must have been surprised by a whole arht-in fact, he was clearly winning Throwing his

attackers around with supernatural strength, just as if they were ordinary humans and not fearless vaot to help them!" Nyala hissed in Rashers ear

"Yeah," Rashel said joylessly She sighed "Wait here; I’ to bonk hiot behind the vampire without trouble; he was preoccupied with the

other two and arrogant enough to be careless But then she had a problem

Her bokken, the honorable sword of a warrior, had one purpose: to deliver a clean blow capable of

killing instantly She couldn’t bring herself to whack somebody unconscious with it

It wasn’t that she didn’t have other weapons She had plenty-back at home in Marblehead All the tools

of a ninja, and some the ninja had never heard of And she knew so She could break bones and crush tendons; she could peel an enemy’s trachea out of his neck

with her bare hands or drive his ribs into his lungs with her feet

But those were desperate measures, to be used as a last resort when her own life was at stake and the

opposition was overwhelle enele enemy threw Steve into a wall, where he landed with a muffled "oof" Rashel felt