halt to the killings. And what do I get for it? A medal? No, the entire police force comes after me."
"You killed two dozen of those officers."
"Because they were trying to kill me! I am not the villain here. You and the scum you are associated with are." I pause, settle down. "Why are you with these people?"
"I can help them. They can help me. We have vested interests. Isn't that the reason for most partnerships?"
"It is among people who have selfish goals. But I never remember you as selfish. Why are you working for the U.S. military machine?"
"Surely you must understand by now. I need to complete my experiments."
I laugh. "Are you stilt searching for the blood of Christ?"
"You say it as if it were a fool's errand."
"It's a blasphemous errand. You saw what hap?pened last time."
"I made an, error--that's all. I will not make the same error again."
"That's all? Just some error? What about Ralphe? I loved that boy. You loved him. And you turned him into a monster. You forced me to kill him. Do you know what that did to me?"
Arturo's voice goes cold. "It made you want to testify against me?"
"You had to be stopped. I didn't have the strength or the will to do it myself." I pause. "You had a chance to talk to me in the inquisitor's dungeon. You chose not to."
"I had nothing to say."
"Well, then, I have nothing to say to you now. Come, get your fresh supply of vampire blood. Send plenty of scientists and soldiers. Not all of them will be coming back to you."
"You present no danger to us as long as you are in your cell. And you will remain in there for the remainder of your life."
"We will see," I whisper faintly.
"Sita, I'm surprised at you. Aren't you curious how I'm still alive?"
I draw in a weary breath. "I have an idea as to how you survived. Even when you swore to me you weren't experimenting on yourself, you were. That's why you began to have visions of DNA. You were seeing it through the eyes of your blessed hybrid state."
"I did experiment on myself. That is true. But I never reached the full hybrid status. That must be obvious to you,"
I nod. "Because you have aged. Does it hurt, Arturo, that you're not the dashing young priest anymore?"
"I may yet achieve immortality."
"Hmm. And I always thought you wanted to die and go to heaven." He is right, of course; I am curious about those days. "What happened after the trial? How did you escape? I heard they burned you at the stake."
"The inquisitor granted me a private audience. He couldn't let me go, he said, but in exchange for my confession of witchcraft, he agreed to hang instead of burn me."
"And you recovered?"
"Yes."
"Were you not surprised?"
"Yes. It was a calculated risk. I didn't have many options."
I hesitate. "What did you do to Ralphe?"
For once, Arturo looks ashamed. "I exposed him to the vial of your blood--with the midday sun pouring through it."
I was aghast. "But you said you'd never consider that. The vibration would destroy a man or woman."
"You saw how the word was spreading about me. I had only a limited time to complete my experiments. Ralphe had been spying on us all along. Neither of us knew. He saw what we were up to. He wanted to try it."
Fury possesses me. "That's a ridiculous rationaliza?tion! He was a child! He didn't know what would happen to him! You did!"
"Sita."
"You were a coward! If your experiment was so precious to you, why didn't you perform it on your?self, with the midday sun pouring through my bloody vial?"
My words wound him, but he is still full of sur?prises. "But I did subject myself to the blood in the sunlight. That morning, when the mob approached the church, I heard them coming. I hurried down to the basement and let the full power of the vampire vibration wash over me. I believe that is why I have been able to live as long as I have. If the mob had not stopped me, maybe the transformation would have been complete, and I would have achieved the perfect state. I was never to know. The first thing the mob did was break the vial."
His words sober me. "Then what went wrong with Ralphe? Why did he turn into a monster?"
"There could be many factors that influenced his outcome. One was that I laid him on the