"All our souls are written in our eyes."
--Edmond Rostand, 'Cyrano de Bergerac'
 

Schanke had had enough.

Oh, he was used to Knight's peculiar moods by now -- they'd been
partners for seven months -- but this time...

Well, this time he just plain wasn't going to be put off.

"Okay, _give._" He reached a hand across their joined desks and
waited, but not surprisingly, his blond partner failed to respond.
He'd been sitting there like that ever since he'd come in and found
the letter waiting on his blotter. "So, what is it already?"
Schanke tried again. "A Dear John from an old girlfriend, court
summons, paternity suit... _what?_"

When Knight still didn't respond, he reached a little further and
pulled the offending paper from his partner's hand. It was a curt,
typed note that read:

LAST CHANCE, KNIGHT. DO AS I SAY OR I _WILL_ EXPOSE YOU. MEET ME
AS ARRANGED, TONIGHT, 3 A.M.

It wasn't signed.

"What the...?" Schanke really hadn't expected anything like this.

"Knight... _Nick,_ will you _talk_ to me here? What's this all
about? Helloooooo!"

Finally... _finally_ the blue eyes refocused and looked at him.
Then they took in the note in his hand and immediately darted away,
staring evasively off into the distance again. "Nothing," his
brooding partner insisted sullenly. "It's nothing."

"Uh-huh." Schanke'd heard that song before. "Well, does this
'nothing' have a name and a reason to send you threats in the mail?

What does he mean he'll expose you? And 'last chance'? How many
of these have you gotten?"

Knight was squirming now, looking like he might go tearing out of
here first chance he got. "Five," he mumbled. "That's the fifth."

"Well, who is it? And what's he got on you that he thinks--"

Knight did bolt then, straight for the door and the waiting Caddy,
but Schanke stuck right alongside and was planted in the passenger
seat before his partner could turn the key.

"Schank..." Nick's hands were gripping the steering wheel so
tightly that Schanke could have sworn the plastic was starting to
crack. "I really have to deal with this alone."

"Like hell." He crossed his arms and sat back in the upholstered
leather car seat. "You know what your problem is? You have been
alone too long, partner. You familiar with that word, 'partner'?
And with what it means?"

Knight squirmed some more and glanced nervously at his watch.
"Schank, please..."

"Yeah, I know. Two-forty-two a.m. and counting. I sure hope this
pre-arranged meeting place of yours isn't too far away. Partner."

Abruptly, Nick's hands released the wheel. When he turned, his
voice was suddenly deep, commanding, almost an echo. "Schanke...
Look at me."

"Oh, no." Schanke deliberately gazed the other way, out the window
at the precinct parking lot. "Y'know, I dunno what it is exactly
that you do with that... that _look_ that turns all those hold-out
perps into gibbering instant Jell-o, but it is _not_ gonna work on
me, okay? Get used to it, Knight. I'm not leaving."

He kept his eyes averted, just to be sure the whatever-it-was
_wouldn't_ work on him, and heard Knight thump the steering wheel
in frustration before starting the car.

A moment later, the Caddy lurched backward out of its parking space
and, tires squealing, sped off into the Toronto night.
* * *
Miklos always knew when she was out of sorts. Janette leaned on
the bar and allowed him to refill her glass for a third time, then
returned to her reverie while the Raven's throbbing activity
continued to pulsate behind her.

"You know," the Greek vampire whispered close to her ear, "I am a
very good listener. That is one of the functions of a good
bartender, is it not?"

She smiled at him, and sipped at the bloodwine. "You're very sweet
to worry so about me, Miklos. But I am quite... all right."

She slipped away before he could call her on the lie, escaping to
her private quarters at the rear of the club. There, she sat
behind the ornate French desk, rested her head on her arms and
wished for the hundredth time that Lacroix were still here.

Lacroix would have known what to do.

She'd never meant to pry into Nicola's affairs. She'd simply
dropped by his loft last week to see him, and he hadn't been home.
But that dreadful note had been left lying on the table,
threatening to expose Nicola for who and what he was...

When she'd tried to confront him later, he had stubbornly refused
to talk about it. He was a cop, he'd reminded her, and he would
'handle' it. But she knew then that her fears were not unfounded.
It meant that they were all at risk, for if _he_ had been
discovered...

She shuddered, and sat up to steel herself for what might come.
She would have to tell Miklos eventually, and then the Community would
simply have to prepare and be ready to deal with the threat.

She had to admit, if only to herself, that her concerns were more
than personal. She feared for the Community, yes, but most of all,
she feared for Nicola, who would not even admit that he was in
danger.

Janette sighed, and tried to force the worries aside as she made
ready to return to her club. But she couldn't suppress the fear,
not completely. A Hunter was after Nicola. And there was very
little -- perhaps nothing at all -- that she could do.
* * *
_"This_ is where he said he'd meet you?" Schanke squinted through
the Caddy's rain-splattered windshield at the debris-strewn yard of
what had once been Hamilton Industrial Manufacturing, Ltd. Exactly
what they'd manufactured remained a mystery, but it must have been
something big. The complex comprised a huge ring of squatty grey
bunkers and warehouses surrounding an enormous concrete silo at the
center, and it was in front of the latter that Nick had finally
parked the car. The darkened maw of a curving driveway stared back
at them, leading down, he supposed, to the silo's loading ramps.
Schanke thought it was definitely not the safest-looking spot to
meet a blackmailer, and said so.

Knight just scowled and said, "Uh-huh."

"Uh-huh? Don't tell me you're crazy enough to just walk in there,
'cause even ol' Donut Don here knows a trap when he sees one, and
this is one!"

"Which is why you're staying here." Knight was trying that deep-
voiced hypno-stuff on him again, and it was definitely getting his
goat.

Angrily, Schanke shoved open the door and got out of the car
at the same time his partner did. "Not on your life, Knight. If
you're dumb enough to walk into this, then I'm walking two steps
behind you." He pulled his gun from his shoulder holster, checked
the clip and held it pointed skyward. "You don't wanna tell me
what the hell this is all about, fine. I'm just your lame-brained
partner, that's all. Hey, nobody you should _trust_ or anything,
you know?"

"Schank--"

"Forget it. I'm on you, Knight, and I'm not coming unstuck no
matter what you do. So are we going in there, or what?" When his
reluctant partner gave no answer, Schanke snorted and started
toward the silo's entrance on his own.

He heard an odd sort of _whooshing_ noise, and in the next instant,
incredibly strong hands had grabbed him from behind, pulled his
left hand behind his back and wrenched the gun from his right. For
a panicked moment, he wondered how the perp could possibly have
gotten the drop on him so easily.

But it was _Knight's_ voice that said into his ear, "I'm sorry,
Schank. I really am. But this is something I've just got to do
alone."

Hands stronger than any human's had a right to be dragged him back
toward the car, and try as he might, Schanke found he could not
break the hold. "What are you, nuts? Leggo of m-- Ow! Knight!!"

Before he could protest further, he was lifted off the ground
(where the hell had Knight found time to work out enough to get
this strong?) and none-too-gently deposited inside the Caddy's open
trunk. (And when had he opened that?) "Hey! Wait just a damn
min--" But the lid slammed shut, leaving him in the dark, and he
heard Nick's footsteps move hastily away outside.

"Kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!!"

He pounded furiously on the underside of the trunk lid, shouting
four-letter curses on every ancestor hanging on Nick Knight's
family tree. All he got for his efforts was badly skinned knuckles
and a sore throat.

Damn, but it was cramped in here. How did Knight stand it when
he...? Wait a minute. When he got caught out in the daytime and
had to nap in the trunk because of that whackoid sun allergy of
his... How the heck did he get out again? There must be a latch
rigged on the inside somewhere. Under the rim here, maybe. No?
Or over here... Had to be here somewhere...

"Aha! Gotcha!"

Someone else's hand lifted the trunk lid at the same time he pushed
it up from below.

"Knight, you son of a--"

But the face staring back at him over the barrel of his own gun
(had Knight just left it lying out there on the ground?) didn't
belong to his partner. This guy was young, 25 maybe, with dirty
brown hair to the shoulders, a grease-stained windbreaker over his
shirt and blue jeans.

Schanke had to ask. "Who the hell are you?"

"No questions. Out of there. Now. Move!"

The gun jerked to punctuate every word, and Schanke scrambled out
of the trunk, holding his hands in the air. "Okay, okay, don't get
nervous, I'm moving, I'm moving!"

The kid got behind him, and he felt the gun pressed firmly to the
back of his neck. "Inside. Let's go."

"Take it easy, kid." Schanke started walking, shoes crunching on
the rain-soaked gravel. "Just don't do something you'll regret
later, huh?"

"Shut up. Move." The gun shoved him forward. Schanke shut up and
moved. Someone (Knight?) had turned on the silo's floodlights, and
they descended the concrete ramp under their bright yellow glow.
Two huge steel doors on rolling tracks stood open at the bottom of
the incline. The silo itself looked empty; Schanke could see
rusted pipes running vertically along the curved walls, a closet-
like alcove partly obscured by stacked wooden packing crates, trash
and the remains of broken crates littering the floor.

Where the hell was Knight?

They walked all the way to the back wall, where the kid gave
Schanke another hard shove with the gun. "Face to the wall, hands
behind you. Come on, come on!"

Silently, Schanke complied. The gun withdrew, and he felt
something (rope?) lashing his hands together. He was pulled
slightly to one side then, and in another minute, found himself
facing front, securely tied to one of the vertical pipes. The kid
was moving away toward the center of the circular room, and stood
there facing the partially-blocked alcove. He shifted Schanke's
gun to his left hand, pulled a .45 automatic from his belt and
tucked the first gun away.

"You can come out now," he said to the stack of crates. "Slowly.
No tricks."

A shadow moved inside the storage space, and Knight, unarmed,
stepped out into the glaring yellow light. He kept walking,
looking the kid in the eye and using _that voice_ again.

"Put the gun down," he said. "You don't really want to do this."

The kid shouted at him, thrusting the .45 straight out. "That's
far enough!"

Knight stopped where he was, never breaking the eye contact. "Come
on. Just put the gun down and we'll talk, okay?"

"You can cut the hypno-crap, Knight. It doesn't work on me. And
this clip is loaded with wood-tipped hollow points, so don't get
cute. I know exactly who and _what_ I'm dealing with."

Schanke had no idea what that meant, but the effect on Knight was
immediate. Eyes falling to the gun, he backed off a step, then
glanced uncomfortably at Schanke before he said, "Yeah, well...
maybe you'll do me the honor of a little information in return.
Who are you? And what exactly do you want from me?"

"I didn't think you'd remember. Well, it was twelve years ago. I
guess I've changed a lot since then. _You_ haven't."

Twelve years? This guy wanted revenge for something Nick had
supposedly done twelve years ago? "Hey, come on," Schanke tried to
reason. "Whatever it is, we can talk about it, huh?"

They both ignored him completely. The pale hand holding the .45
had begun to shake a little. "The name Anna Styles ring any bells,
Knight?"

Nick went very, very still. "You're Julian?"

"And you thought I was dead. Or at least, your girlfriend did."
Julian's left hand came up to rub at the side of his neck.
"Careless of her," he said. "I should have killed you both then.
If I'd known more about how it had to be done, I would have. I've
done my homework now."

Knight's eyes had taken on a haunted look that Schanke had seen
more than once before. "I never meant to hurt you," he said. "Or
your sister. I... cared for her, very much."

"Oh, yeah," Julian scoffed. "And she was in love with you. So
much she put a bullet through her head when she found out what you
are."

Again, Schanke got a nervous glance from his partner. What the
hell was this kid talking about?

"I had no way of knowing--" Nick started to say.

Julian cut him off. "It was your fault. She left a very detailed
suicide note, addressed to me, did you know that? That's how I
knew about you. Only when I showed it to the cops, they laughed."

Knight closed his eyes. "So you tried to take it to the press
instead."

"Yeah. Well, I was just a kid. What did I know? Anyway, your
little friend Janette had other ideas."

Schanke's mouth fell open. _Janette_ had tried to kill a kid?
Man, this was getting weirder by the minute.

"I'm sorry," Nick was saying. "But I swear to you, Julian, I
didn't know. If I had..."

"You could have stopped her?" Julian laughed. "Don't flatter
yourself. Anyway, it wasn't just you she was protecting, was it?
The others..."

Schanke couldn't stand it anymore. "Other what? Other _who?_
Nick, what the hell is he _talking_ about?"

"Schank, please..."

"Oh, why not tell him?" Julian smirked. "He'll know soon enough
anyway, one way or the other. So explain it to him, Knight. Tell
him his partner isn't _quite_ human. Better yet, ask him how he
feels about trusting _his_ life to a mass murderer, to a monster
that's killed hundreds -- maybe thousands of--"

"That's enough." Knight's voice was a deep, commanding growl.
"Give me the gun, Julian. Now."

Knight held out a hand, and for a moment, it seemed like the kid
would comply. His face went blank; the arm holding the gun out
relaxed minutely. "Sure," he muttered. "Why not?"

Then he started to smile.

Schanke saw Julian's finger tighten on the trigger and shouted a
warning -- too late. Knight had started forward, hand still out as
though to make a grab for the gun. The first shot caught him in
the shoulder, but instead of falling, he just stopped and stood
staring at the kid with an odd look of astonishment on his face.
Schanke didn't understand. There wasn't any blood. His partner
had just been shot, but he wasn't bleeding... Julian pumped five
more shots into him before Knight finally went down, pitching
forward onto his knees and gasping. There still wasn't any blood.

Julian took three steps forward, put a foot to Knight's ribs and
kicked. With the detective now flat on his back, Styles stood over
him with the gun in both hands, pointed down at his heart. "Wood-
tips work even better if you soak them first in curare. Great
stuff, curare. Like I said, I did my homework." He looked up
then, to the roof of the silo overhead. "Six bullets, six doses.
Should paralyze the motor functions for eight, maybe nine hours.
Just long enough."

Schanke stifled the urge to ask what _that_ meant, along with all
the other nagging questions, like why wasn't Knight dead or at
least losing some blood, and what the blazes was this maniac going
on about with the wooden bullets and curare and Knight not being
quite human? Crazy. It was all just plain crazy and this guy was
bonafide loony-toons. And Schanke wished to God that could have
explained everything, only it didn't.

Julian Styles had moved off to a control box of some sort mounted
next to the alcove. Knight's eyes tracked him, but just as the kid
had said, he seemed incapable of any other movement. That had to
be nuts about the curare, though, didn't it? Schanke couldn't
recall too much about his one and only toxicology course at the
Police Academy, but he knew for a fact that curare was a heck of a
lot more than a simple paralytic.

Styles had a hand over one of two palm-sized buttons on the control
box. He'd tucked the gun away somewhere and was now pushing back
the dirty sleeve of his windbreaker to consult his wristwatch.
"Your friendly weather reporter said the rain and cloud cover
should clear around four a.m.," he said, and pressed in the
oversized button with an audible _snap._ Something rumbled
overhead. "That oughta leave you a good two hours of stargazing --
before the sun comes up."

Another rumble. The wall behind Schanke vibrated and far above,
steel doors in the roof parted, rolling noisily away to expose a
cloud-grey sky.

When the last thudding echo of the doors had faded, Julian went
back to stand over Knight and deliver one last gloating remark.
"Enjoy the show," he said.

He killed the floodlights on his way out the door.

"Knight?" Schanke tugged experimentally at his bonds, to no avail.

"Nick? You okay?" _Stupid question, Donny,_ he chided himself.
_Of course he's not..._ "Nick? Listen, just... blink twice if you
can hear me, okay? Can you do that?"

Hard to see now in the faint light, but Knight's eyes closed and
opened -- two times.

"Okay. Okay, don't worry, I'll get us out of here." Schanke
sighed, embarrassed to realize that he had absolutely no idea what
he ought to say next. So he just started talking about anything,
about everything, about his Great Uncle Merril Schanke the amateur
illusionist who'd taught him everything he knew about escape-
artistry, and he'd have these ropes off in just a minute. Only
what he figured for an hour later, the damn knots weren't any
looser, and his wrists were starting to bleed from the abrasions
his efforts were causing. For what was possibly the first time in
his life, Don Schanke had run out of things to say.

He rested for a while, and tried to think. If he couldn't get
these ropes off and the sunlight came in through the roof... well,
what exactly? Just how allergic to the sun -- or anything else --
could a guy be? So allergic that he never ate normal food,
practically fainted at the smell of garlic, and went all funny at
a crime scene with a lot of blood? Knight had always been a
strange one, yeah, but Styles had called him a mass murderer, a
monster, a thing not 'quite' human. Well, that was all just plain
crazy, wasn't it? Sunlight... garlic... blood... wooden bullets...

Now that he thought about it, there were other things about Knight
that had never made sense. The pale skin and cold handshake, his
unusual strength, a distinct aversion to churches, crosses and
other holy symbols, and that little hypnosis trick, to name just a
few. Then there were those bottles of funny-looking 'red wine' in
his refrigerator, and the really annoying way he had of always
getting to a scene first, even without a car, almost as if he
could... well... fly. And Knight would go after armed perps as
though bullets couldn't phase him at all -- and sure enough, not
one of 'em ever had. At least, not until now.

Schanke shook his head, feeling more than a little ashamed of
himself. This was adding up to either a big fat goose-egg, or one
heck of a bad Dracula flick, and he happened to know for a fact
that Knight showed up in mirrors and didn't keep any coffins in his
basement.

Angrily, he kicked at the trash littering the floor at his feet.
Wadded paper went flying and a beer bottle rolled noisily across
the concrete.

Wait a minute...

Schanke stretched out a foot and nudged the bottle back toward him.

"Hello, beautiful," he cooed to it, then raised his heel and
brought it down hard on the bottle's hollow center. It shattered
with a satisfying _pop_. He toed the largest piece closer, all the
way to the base of the pipe he was tied to and around its side to
the wall. Now he just had to slide down... until he was sitting on
the floor... and reach back... damn, his hands were numb and it was
hard to feel whether... it had to be there someplace... he was sure
he'd... There! Got it!

It was slow and clumsy going, hard to make his fingers even grip
the thing. If he was lucky he'd manage not to slice his own hand
off.

"Nick? Hey, Nick, I'm getting it. Just hang on, okay? I'm
getting it."

He looked across the floor and frowned. Knight's eyes were closed,
and he'd gone a funny color -- a sort of glistening, feverish pink.

Try as he might, Schanke couldn't see any evidence that he was
breathing. But it was at least easier to see now. It must be
getting close to--

Oh hell. He looked up at a pale, blue, cloudless sky in the
opening above. How long had the sun been up? He sawed furiously
at the bindings, swearing at them for not cooperating. Couldn't
that bastard Styles have tied him up with good old fashioned hemp
rope instead of nylon cord?

An eternity later, it finally surrendered to his frantic efforts
and came unfrayed. But the sun had climbed higher in the meantime,
and as Schanke struggled to disentangle his hands from the
unraveling cord, the sun broke over the rim and sent a brilliant
shaft of light spilling down into the silo.

The cords gave way and came apart at last. Schanke stumbled away
from the pipe, started to tug at the remains of yellow cord still
wrapped around his right wrist. Then he looked at his partner.

"What the--?"

Ugly red blisters were rapidly forming on Knight's face and hands,
and white wisps of smoke were beginning to rise from all over his
body. In a panic, Schanke charged forward, grabbed Knight under
the shoulders and dragged him out of the light, behind the stack of
crates and into the relative dark of the alcove. There he propped
his partner up in a corner, hastily pushed up one sleeve and
fumbled for a pulse.

Nothing.

He reached inside Nick's collar (oh, God, the skin was still
smoking!), found what should have been the carotid artery, pressed
down. Still nothing. But his hand came away damp with
perspiration. No, wait. Not perspiration. _Blood._ He must have
taken a bullet to the... Schanke pulled the collar down, stared.
No neck wound. But there _was_ a fine red sheen of moisture
beading on the skin, staining the white silk shirt pink. What the
hell kind of human being didn't bleed when he was shot six times,
but sweated blood later, and then started disintegrating in the
sunlight?

Schanke couldn't help it. He crossed himself and started praying.
He prayed for this insane nightmare to end and let him wake up, and
when that didn't happen, he prayed for Divine guidance in just what
in Hades he ought to do now. Every scrap of training he'd ever had
told him this man was dead. But what if--?

The 'corpse' moved suddenly, moaned and drew in a sharp breath.
Schanke started, then reached back out and grabbed a wrist, trying
again to find a pulse. But there wasn't... Oh. There! One
strong pulsebeat throbbed under his fingers and then, nothing
again. But... But Knight was _breathing_ now, damn it. He could
_see_ him breathing. He wasn't dead. But then, he wasn't exactly
alive, either.

"What do I do now?" he asked, and shook his unresponsive partner by
the shoulders. "Come on, Nick. Talk to me!

No luck.

Schanke started searching his own pockets for the cell phone, then
thought better of the idea. Who could he call? Stonetree?

_Yeah, right Cap'n, I dunno how to explain this, exactly, but you
know all those jokes in the precinct about Knight looking like the
walking dead...?_

Maybe Natalie. She and Knight were pretty close, maybe close
enough that she knew about this. She _had_ to know. Hadn't Knight
said that Natalie was helping him with his 'allergies'? Schanke
went searching again, found the phone, and hastily punched in
Natalie's lab number.

He got Grace, and the unwelcome news that Nat was out of town for
the week, visiting family in Vancouver.

Great. He was running out of ideas here. There was only one other
person Nick ever got 'close' to, but Schanke didn't know her phone
number. He searched Knight's pockets, came up with another phone
and silently thanked the saints for autodial buttons. One of them
was marked with a "J." He punched it and waited, but no one at the
Raven was answering the phone. Well, maybe if he... On a hunch,
he fished Knight's keys out of his pocket, tucking the phone back
in at the same time, and got to his feet.
"Hang tight, partner," he said, and tossed the keys once. "I'll be
back. Promise."

He'd better call Myra from the car, he thought as he hurried from
the silo, and tell her he wouldn't be home for a while yet.
* * *
From her lair in the Raven's vast wine cellar, Janette heard the
key turn in the back door above, sensed a single human heartbeat,
and wondered for a fleeting moment what mortal would dare intrude
on her realm in the closed daylight hours. Instantly, her flock
gathered round her, having heard the sounds as well, and in the
same moment she knew full well who the intruder must be. Of those
not present, only Nicola had a key. And if a mortal now possessed
that key, it meant that he had killed Nicola, and was coming now
for her. For all of them.

"The Hunter!" Alma whispered near her left ear.

"He comes alone?" Miklos clearly wondered at the folly of this.
In the old country, no doubt, a Hunter would have brought along the
obligatory mob of torch-bearing peasants.

"Shhh!" Janette motioned them away to their hiding places, then
listened and waited as the foolish mortal's heartbeat descended the
stairs.

"Janette? Hello, Janette? Anybody home?"

She knew that voice. Where had she heard it before? Before
Janette could place it, the door swung open and the mortal,
flashlight in hand, stepped into their lair.

Her nervous charges swooped on him from every side, sending the
flashlight sailing. Over his terrified shrieks, they bore him to
the floor, their eyes burning red, their fangs bared.

"Stop!"

Janette's shout stayed them, barely. The man they held pinned to
the floor was still pleadingly calling her name. "Janette!
Please! I only came to get help for Nick, listen to me, please,
_please_ don't let them, oh God, please..."

Recognition finally dawning, Janette moved to stand over him.
"Officer Schanke," she said, as though the name had a vile taste to
it. "What are you doing with a key to my club?"

The mortal was sweating, casting terrified glances at each of the
hungry fledglings looming over him. "It's... it's Nick's," he
stammered. "He needs your help."

"Nicola is alive?"

"He's... hurt. Wood-tipped bullets soaked in curare, the guy
said."

"Hunter," Janette hissed, and the word had no sooner passed her
lips than they all heard another mortal heartbeat quietly entering
the club overhead. She made a single, commanding gesture and the
flock instantly dispersed, leaving the mortified police detective
alone on the floor. Janette clutched the collar of his shirt,
hauled him easily to his feet and pushed him to the wall. "You
fool. You have led him to us!"

"No! I mean, I didn't know he'd... I just wanted to help Nick,
that's all, and I thought you'd know what to do! Please, Janette!"

The mortal began choking, and distractedly, she released her grip
on his throat.

"Very well, Mr. Schanke. I believe you. But now you must forget
what you know about Nicola, about us."

"No, don't," he begged. "I can't help him if I can't remember, and
you can't go to him now. Just tell me what to do. I swear, I only
want to help Nick. Please -- he could be dying out there."

She looked up, listening for the sounds of her flock above,
preparing to descend on the Hunter. "Nicola will not die," she
told the mortal. "And if the wood had struck his
heart, he would have died soon after." She moved to one side and
began pulling bottles of her best vintage from the wine racks,
packing them quickly into a nearby cardboard box. "He will need
nourishment," she said. "And I do not stock that cow's swill that
he drinks. You may tell him, if he asks, that my suppliers are
beyond reproach, and that none of his precious mortals died to
provide this." Schanke blanched as she pressed the carton into his
hands. "Go now. Quickly."

He followed her anxious gaze to the ceiling. "But what about--?"

"We will deal with him. Go."

"Yeah." Schanke swallowed. "His name is Styles, by the way.
Julian Styles. He knew your name."

She swore softly in French and gave the box in his hands a gentle
push. "Leave now, Officer Schanke. For your own sake."

She left him there, nodding his agreement, and swept up the stairs.

So the Hunter was Julian Styles. That unbearable child who had
tried to expose them all twelve years ago! She'd thought him
'dealt with' then; had even disposed of the body in the river, or
so she'd thought. Obviously, the little beast had come back from
the 'dead.' Well, they would just have to see that he remained
deceased this time, wouldn't they?

She reached the upper door and stepped out into the Raven's
darkened back hallway. She'd been carelessly lost in thought, and
the mortal's heartbeat alerted her a split second too late to
prevent the gun being pressed to her back. Swiftly, he looped some
sort of strap around her throat. What was he--?

"If you don't want a wooden bullet through the heart," a voice
purred just behind her, "you'll do as I tell you. Clear?" The
strap was yanked mercilessly tight, nearly choking her. "Clear?!"
She managed a small nod, and the gun jabbed her in the back. "All
right," he said. "Move."

Cursing her own stupidity, Janette obeyed.
* * *
Having no particular desire to meet up with Janette's little
'friends' again, Schanke had taken another set of stairs up to the
street, and worked his way around the building to the corner where
he'd parked Nick's car. He opened the trunk to deposit the box of
'wine,' and secured it safely against the back wall beside the
black metal footlocker stencilled "T.O.P.D." He stood staring at
the locker for a prolonged moment, reached a decision, then used
Nick's keys to open it. From the small arsenal it contained, he
chose another .38 revolver similar to the one Styles had
appropriated. He loaded it, tucked it under his coat, then slammed
the Caddy's trunk shut and headed for the Raven's front door.

He'd expected to need the keys again, but one of the pair of doors
was standing open already, pouring a shaft of bright sunlight onto
the unlit club's main floor. Schanke pulled the .38 back out, and
holding it pointed upward, quietly slipped inside and out of the
light, to the left of the door. What he found in there looked like
the climax of a very bad melodrama.

Styles had Janette by the throat and was forcing her at gunpoint
toward the sunlight that splashed across the dance floor. All
around them, Janette's red-eyed friends hovered like a pack of
hungry wolves, waiting for Styles to make just one mistake.

"You either keep walking," Julian threatened her, "or I'll put a
bullet in your heart and throw you in. Either way, you're going to
burn."

The entourage growled their displeasure at that. Janette's calm
reply was blood-chillingly cold. "And when I am dead," she told
him, "they will cheerfully tear you to pieces."

"Not in the sunlight. And not before I've taken most of them down
with this." He shoved the gun at her, trying to push her forward,
but Janette balked at the edge of the bright patch. The others
prowled its perimeter, still growling.

Schanke, as yet unnoticed, had been entertaining thoughts of
curtailing Julian's threat by pulling the door shut. Deciding that
might be a mistake (they probably _would_ tear Styles apart then),
he stepped into the light himself instead, and leveled the .38 at
Styles. They were side-on to him: he had a clear shot.

"I've got a better idea," he said in a loud voice. "Put the gun
down, your hands up, and walk into the sunshine yourself. We'll
take a little ride uptown and book you for assault on a police
officer."

Janette looked up at him, her eyes now flaming red as well. "No,"
she said. That took Schanke aback for a moment: he hadn't expected
an argument from that quarter. "He will die for this." She hissed
the words, an inhuman, bestial snarl that made Schanke's blood run
cold. Was this how they dealt with everyone who discovered their
secret? If so, he realized with a horrible surety, he'd probably
just signed his own death warrant.

"Come on, Janette." He tried to make his voice strong, but he knew
it was quaking more than he was. "No one will believe him. Not
any more than they did twelve years ago. Let me take him in."

"No," she repeated, and turned her head to address Styles over her
shoulder. "You will die, Julian. Here. Tonight."

"Shut up!" Styles released the neck strap and shoved her hard,
sending her stumbling with a cry into the light. At the same time,
he turned the gun and fired toward the door. Instinctively,
Schanke dropped and returned fire. He saw three rounds hit home,
but before Styles could fall, several blurred shapes _flew_ at him,
lifted him off the ground and bore him to the nearest wall.
Schanke could hear the hideous crack of his skull against the
plaster. Still flat on the floor in the sunlight, he stayed where
he was and watched in horrified fascination as the 'flock' drew
back, surrendering their prize to the woman who sheltered them.

Janette, faint traces of smoke curling from her black lace dress,
took Julian by the shoulders, snarled something in French about
revenge, and then...

Sickened, Schanke looked away. He ought to get out of here, run
while he still could, before they remembered he was there and
decided that he should be next on the menu...

Something made a scraping noise behind him, and abruptly, the door
swung shut, plunging the huge room into darkness. _Too late,_ he
thought morbidly. Someone turned on a few of the overhead lights
(for his benefit?), and as Schanke pulled himself to his feet,
heart pounding, he saw Janette coming toward him. Her lips were
red with something that was absolutely not lipstick, and beyond her
on the floor, several of her charges surrounded Style's body in
what could only be called a feeding frenzy. Schanke's stomach
twisted sideways. He shoved the .38 into his holster, dragging his
eyes deliberately back to Janette. _Better to look your own death
in the face, isn't that what you always said, Donny?_

She stopped a few feet away from him. Schanke had to fight the
urge to back up and make a run for the door. He knew he'd never
make it.

"It would appear, Officer Schanke," she said huskily, "that I am
somewhat in your debt."

He swallowed, feeling his pulse continuing to race, his adrenalin
level still soaring off the scale. This wasn't exactly what he'd
expected her to say, but then, he'd half-expected to be dead by
now. "I just thought..." he started to say.

"That you could save him?" She shook her head. "He did not wish
to be saved. If he had, he would not have come here."

"It's not that I haven't had to shoot guys before, but... I guess
I just never thought I'd end up killing a suspect like..." He
glanced uncomfortably at the still-feeding cluster of Janette's
basement 'tenants.' "...well, like this. I mean, I can't really
put it in the police report that I--"

He knew he'd said the wrong thing when her head came up, eyes that
had gone blue again now glowing faintly gold. "You will not file
a report of this, Detective."

Because he'd be as dead as Styles? Schanke couldn't repress a
shudder, and this time he did back up a step. As if sensing his
fear, she reached out a hand, gently took his, and led him toward
the bar. "Come. Let me explain something to you."

When he hesitated, she gave him a reassuring smile and said, "It's
all right. You are quite safe." God, but she was beautiful. No
wonder she and Knight had been an item once. He wondered why they
still weren't...

As they moved past the still figure on the floor, Schanke couldn't
help staring. (Where had all the denizens disappeared to?)
Styles' eyes were open, gazing at the ceiling in mute horror, and
his face was ashen-white. Schanke's three bullets had left red-
stained holes in his shirt, but he wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Will he become..." He couldn't say the word. "...like you?"

"No." She led him past the corpse, to stop at the bar.

"But what do you do about the... uh...?" He couldn't believe he
was asking her this, as if they were discussing her weekly garbage
pick-up or something.

"We will... 'take care' of it," she assured him. "Do not concern
yourself with such things. He was my mistake, my responsibility."
She swept one lace-covered hand toward the wall behind the bar.
"Do you see the mirror, Mr. Schanke?" He blinked at it, confused
at the abrupt change of subject. The thing was huge, gilt-framed
like the mirror in those Alice-in-Wonderland illustrations, and it
reflected both of them in the club's dim, surreal lighting. "You
mortals live your lives on one side of the looking glass, in the
world of the light. We are the other world, the one you see but
never recognize for what it truly is. We are the darkness, Mr.
Schanke. But for you to know of us is a danger to us both. It
means that you can never see your world in quite the same way
again. Once you have tasted the darkness..." One slender finger
came up to touch his lips. "...you must either embrace it, or be
made to forget that it exists."

He took hold of the beautiful fingers and kissed them just once,
watching her coy smile reflected in the mirror. Here, in the
darkness she talked about, that other life of his, the one with the
mortgage and Myra and Jenny's college tuition fund, seemed a
lifetime away, as though they had belonged, long ago, to someone
else.

"Go to Nicola," she said, slipping her hand free and smiling again.
"And when you have healed him with the blood, allow him to make you
forget. Then both our worlds will be safer, hm?"

Her eyes were so blue, so deep and lovely that you could lose
yourself in them. Schanke didn't want to think about how many men
had done precisely that, and lost... well... everything. So he
nodded and said absently, "I will."

"Good."

The single word was a dismissal, and with an internal sigh of
relief, Schanke turned to go. He had to suppress twenty years of
policeman's instinct not to look back at the body on the floor.
With a tinge of regret, he wondered if there would even be anyone
to file a missing persons report on Julian Styles...
* * *
It was after one by the time he pulled the Caddy back into
Hamilton's abandoned yard and carried his box into the silo. It
wasn't the same box Janette had given him, but then, he'd put a few
things together in the past hour or so, and a lot more of his
partner's little 'eccentricities' were beginning to make a bizarre
sort of sense to him.

He stopped just inside the door and hesitated. Knight wasn't on
the floor of the alcove where he'd left him. And why hadn't he
thought to close the damn roof before he'd gone? He elbowed the
control and waited until the noise of its closing had abated.

"Knight?" He knew his voice sounded nervous. He couldn't help it.
"Hello, Nick, you there?"

Just as he'd done earlier, when Styles had been here, Knight
appeared from behind the packing crates. Only this time, he seemed
to barely be holding his feet under him. He looked drawn, sick and
sunburned and... well... just plain terrible. Schanke hurried
forward with the box and set it on the ground.

"Geez, I'm sorry I took so long. I had to--"

"Schank--" Nick grabbed him by the arms and held on so tightly he
thought his bones would snap. "Styles will be after Janette. She
isn't answering her phone -- you've got to warn her that he's--"

"It's okay!" Schanke pried the too-strong fingers from his arms.
"She's all right, Nick, I just came from there." Both relief and
confusion played across Knight's face at that. He sat down again
-- collapsed would be more like it -- and Schanke sat beside him,
pulling a green bottle out of the box. "Styles is... uh... well,
Janette 'took care of it,' I think was how she put it. I tried to
talk him into coming with me to the precinct, but he had other
ideas. So did _they._" He handed the bottle across and Knight
took it, though he'd looked distinctly reluctant to do so. "I
guess that sort of makes me an accessory. Sort of."

"I'm sorry, Schank." Knight's voice carried the weight of
centuries. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way."

"Yeah, well, it's not like you didn't _try_ to warn me off, is it?"

Schanke nodded at the bottle in Nick's hand. "That's yours, by the
way. Janette sent a carton of her 'private stock,' but I got to
thinking on the way back here and I figured... well, I stopped off
at the loft and picked these up instead. She said it was cow, so
I kinda got the impression hers... uh... wasn't...?" He trailed
off, feeling suddenly awkward. The look on Knight's face now was
an odd mixture of embarrassment and incredulity. "What?" Schanke
asked. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No... No, of course not." The embarrassment turning to overt
disgust, Knight uncorked the bottle and drank. Schanke prided
himself on not wincing even once.

"I'm not exactly a slouch at putting two and two together, y'know,"
he said. "It all just started to make a weird sort of sense,
that's all. And when I remembered those godawful-looking
milkshakes Nat's been cooking up for you, and her saying she was
looking to cure your 'condition,' I realized something. I mean I
got a good look tonight at what Janette and her friends can do,
and..." He looked his partner in the eyes. "You're not like them,
Nick."

The pain filled Knight's gaze again. He bowed his head beside the
drained bottle and closed his eyes. "But I _am,_ Schanke," he
lamented. "We're the same creature. The same... killer."

Schanke pulled a second bottle from the box and exchanged it for
the empty one in Nick's hands. "If that were true, I don't think
you'd be drinking this. Or looking for a cure with Natalie."

Knight's head came up, and his eyes were glowing yellow-gold, the
way Janette's had. "Do you see what I am?" he rasped.

Schanke didn't flinch. "Yeah," he said. "But then, I've seen what
you are from the first day we met. You're honest, caring,
trustworthy, reliable. Everything a guy could want in a partner.
In fact, I gotta tell ya... Nick Knight's one of the most _human_
guys I know."

The gold faded to blue, but the pain never left Knight's eyes.
Leaving the unopened bottle on the ground, he pushed to his feet
and turned angrily away to press both hands against the concrete
wall. "I'm _not_ human," he said. "I haven't _been_ human in
nearly eight hundred years."

"Eight hundred...?" Schanke barely managed to suppress his
astonishment at that. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder how old
his partner might really be. Sighing, he leaned back against the
wall and folded his arms. "Come to think of it, I dunno why I
didn't put all together before now. But then, I wasn't supposed
to, was I? And if I had, you just would've made me forget it
again, wouldn't you?"

Knight turned to look at him. "Some knowledge can get you killed,
Schanke," he said darkly.

"Uh-huh. And so can the lack of it. And if I'm gonna be out here
risking my butt 'to protect and serve' and all that altruistic
stuff, it might be kinda nice to know who I'm working with. Who
I'm _really_ working with, _kapisch?_ Besides which, after all
this brilliantly deductive brainwork I've done, I think I'd like to
keep my head intact, if it's all the same to you."

Regret and fear tinged Knight's voice now. "It isn't that easy,
Schanke. They... _we_ have policemen, too. Enforcers. Mortals
aren't permitted to know about us. If the Enforcers find out that
you do, and that I didn't 'deal with it," they'll kill us both.
That's part of the Code."

Oh. Schanke paled. These guys didn't fool around, did they?
"Yeah, well..." He cleared his throat. "Who says they have to
know then, huh? Hey, I can play dumb just as brilliantly as the
next guy. Better."

"You'd be living your life under the constant threat of that
discovery, that death. Are you sure that's a risk you want to
take?"

Schanke met the sadness in his partner's eyes with determination in
his own. "Other side of the glass," he said.

"Yeah." Knight nodded, obviously recognizing the reference. "The
dark side. And once you've touched it, chosen to become a part of
it, however small a part, there's no going back. It's a world of
deceptions, secrets, lies... and worse. It will demand that you
compromise your principles, your integrity, everything you ever
valued. Is that _really_ what you want?"

Well, when he put it that way... Schanke almost reconsidered. But
the thought of anyone -- even Nick -- tampering with what he knew
somehow frightened him even more. "I guess what I really want," he
said, "is to understand. You, them... all of it. Just so I know
exactly what it is I'm getting into."

A faint smile played around the edges of Nick's mouth. "That's a
very long story, Schanke."

With a glance at his watch, Schanke shrugged, picked up the
unopened bottle and held it out to his partner. "Looks like we're
stuck here for at least another four hours. So we've got plenty of
time."

Knight still looked amazed. Funny, Schanke thought, how he'd never
really noticed how much of what Knight felt, what he _was_, was
reflected in his eyes. "You could go on working with me, knowing
what I am..." Knight gestured with an open hand at the bottle
Schanke held. "...and not be afraid?"

"What's to be afraid of? You've done a damn fine job covering my
back so far."

In a moment, the bottle was lifted from his hand, and his partner
sat down again beside him. Schanke quelled the complaints of his
own growling stomach (man, what he wouldn't give for a souvlaki and
a couple of chocolate donuts right now), and settled in to listen.

"So talk to me, Nick. Tell me what I need to know..."

He had a lot to learn.

* End *