ability with the minds of those around him made it an infrequent occurrence, at best. What concerned him most was that he could not throw off this feeling. It pursued him through streets, back alleys, parks, graveyards. He skipped the whorehouse from which he’d been planning to acquire another victim, moved onward, toward the townhouse. Toward Abraham. Toward safety.

There was something humorous in that concept, that he might turn to Abraham for sanctuary. The vampire had all but denounced him. Yet blood bonded them. Theroen hated his master. Despised him. Loathed him.

And yet this fear...

The presence shifted, and he realized that the feeling of being watched was more than a mere tingle at the back of the neck. It was spatial. It had depth. He felt the presence overtake him at a frightening speed. There was a short moment of paralyzing terror, and then it moved onward, in front of him now, yet still focused on him in some way.

From the shadows there was laughter like silver bells on a sheet of glass. The woman stepped out from the doorway of a cathedral. Black hair, pale white skin and oceanic green eyes. Theroen felt himself lost and drowning in those eyes, and looked away, snarling.

“Do you fear everything you don’t understand?” Her accent was French.

“I fear nothing.” A lie, perhaps. His fright was replaced with the hot flush of humiliation. Theroen was glad for this. Of the two, he preferred the latter.

“You fear me.”

“You were trying to hypnotize me.”

“I was doing nothing of the sort.”

Theroen looked back, was pulled again into the depths of those eyes. He struggled to maintain focus, coherent thought, any semblance of composure.

She laughed again, but there was no trace of mockery in the sound. Theroen’s spine knotted and he shivered. “Who are you?”

“Who I am would be a long tale indeed, my fallen priest. Your father knows me. Perhaps you could ask him.”

“Your name, at least?”

“You can call me Lisette. It is not the name I was born into, but the one I chose for myself later. After. It has a lovely sound to it, don’t you think?”

“Lisette. Madame. What do you want?” Theroen had regained some composure. His thoughts were more clear, the sense of fear not gone, but faded. The girl, and Theroen saw now that she was little more than such, laughed again.

“Ah, you are brave, child. But don’t make assumptions based on my appearance. I’ve walked this earth for far longer than you can currently conceive.”

Theroen looked again, trying to see past the facade. The eyes told him she spoke the truth. They were ancient and ageless, like Abraham’s, yet without the malice that forever darkened his. Lisette smiled at him and took a step forward. Theroen flinched, stumbled backward, immediately on the defensive. His fear seemed to leap forward, energizing his muscles. Lisette paused, shaking her head.

“Child, if I wanted to kill you, you would be very dead by now. Do you not understand this?”

Theroen shook his head, a guarded expression on his face. The woman before him was lithe, petite, nearly angelic in her beauty. A killer?

And then she was gone, and he felt the lightest touch of lips against his ear. Her voice was a whisper, heard as much in his mind as by his body. “That and more.”

Theroen jerked to the side, flailing his arms for balance, losing it, falling.

Then he was sitting. Sitting on a stone bench, vaguely aware of some sort of movement too fast even for his vampire senses to track.

“Dear God,” his voice was thick with fear and confusion. The vampire, now sitting beside him, smiled again.

“You speak to He who has forsaken you, Theroen. Is this not the case? Or perhaps you have only forsaken Him?”

Theroen searched for something to hold on to in his confusion, and found his anger. “I know not of Him. Not anymore. I know of fallen priests, and I know of their sins.”

Lisette clapped her hands together at this, laughing, merry, unperturbed. Theroen turned to her, teeth clenched, angry. She looked at him with calm eyes, and shook her head.

“I am not mocking you, my young priest. Ah, has Abraham taught you nothing? No, of course not. Your goodness disgusts him.”

“I’ve no goodness left in me, lady. You look upon a black hearted killer. A creature of evil.”

More laughter. “I look upon nothing of the sort. I look only upon a man, and a vampire, who knows nothing of his own true nature. I look upon a