"If I control one, and the other shoots either of us, there will be blood."
He let a slow breath out as he realized what that meant. Thanks to her phobia—the one he hadn't cured—she'd faint, then neither man would be controlled, and he and Lissianna would be dead. Or maybe not.
"I'm stronger and faster than both of them, aren't I?" he asked.
"Not by much yet," she said quietly. "By the end of the month, you'll be ten times stronger and faster and it will increase even more over time, but right now you're still new and just building in your abilities and strengths," Lissianna said apologetically, then added, "And Greg, I don't want to hurt them… well, at least not Father Joseph."
"The man's planning to kill us, Lissianna," Greg pointed out.
"Yes, but not because he's evil or cruel, he just thinks he's doing God's work and giving us peace," she pointed out, then added, "Father Joe's beliefs are very strong."
"What are we going to do, then?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," she admitted, on a sigh. "I'm hoping we can talk him out of killing us. Maybe convince him he's made a mistake, and we aren't vampires."
Greg didn't look happy. After a moment, he sighed, and said, "Well, you'd better talk fast then, because I think the sun's already affecting me."
Lissianna peered at him with concern. She noted that he'd grown pale and silently kicked herself for not realizing that it would affect him so quickly. It wasn't affecting her yet, but his nanos were doing double time at the moment, still making minor but necessary changes to his body, and now also having to repair the damage the sun's rays were inflicting. Even without the sunlight he would need to feed more often than she for the next couple of months, but with it…
Any more conversation was impossible as Father Joseph hung up the phone with a mutter and moved back to Dwayne's side.
"There's an emergency at the shelter," he announced. "I have to get back, so we'd best get this done." The priest hesitated, seeming to be at a loss as to how to go about starting, then sighed and raised his gun.
"Wait," Greg said as Father Joseph pointed the weapon at her. "Father, what if you're wrong?"
"About what?" he asked warily. "She is a vampire."
"Is she?" he asked. "Are you sure?"
He nodded with firm certainty.
"What about the garlic, the crosses, the holy water, and the sun? You were pretty sure about them, too, weren't you? But they had no effect on her. Doesn't that tell you something?"
Father Joseph frowned, and for a moment Lissianna was sure Greg had saved them as she saw uncertainty flicker on his face, then he shook his head. "Yes, it tells me the movies and books are all wrong about how to deal with vampires."
"What if they aren't wrong? What if you're the one who's wrong?" he asked urgently.
The priest shook his head grimly. "Dwayne staked her, and yet she's still alive. She has to be a vampire."
"Yes, Dwayne did try to stake her," Greg said patiently. "But Father Joseph, it takes a lot of force to get through the muscle and bone of the chest and—thankfully—he didn't hit her hard enough to do much damage. The stake hit the collarbone and stopped."
"Her collarbone!" Dwayne cried with disbelief.
Lissianna managed to contain her own surprise at Greg's claim. The stake had gone nowhere near her collarbone, Dwayne's aim had been good, he'd barely missed her heart.
"It was dark," Greg pointed out to the younger man. "And fortunately that must have thrown your aim off. As I say, you pierced the skin and hit her collarbone. There was a lot of blood, but very little real damage."
"Could this be true?" The priest stared at Dwayne in amazement, but when he just stood there looking uncertain, he turned to Lissianna, and asked, "Is it?"
"It's true." Lissianna grabbed on to Greg's lie and embellished on it. "I was at emergency most of the night, but then they finally gave me a couple of Tylenol, put in two stitches, and sent me home. I'd have come to work last night, but when I woke up I had to go to the police station to fill out a report, and that took just as long as the emergency visit."
"But, I'm sure I hit—I felt it go in," Dwayne argued.
"I had a couple of blankets over me," Lissianna said, knowing it had been dark and he couldn't possibly know she'd