"Is that the craziest thing you ever heard?"
She looked up at Grigori, hoping he would laugh and tell her she was right, it was just nonsense. But he wasn't laughing.
"What else did he tell you?"
"He said - " Her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. "He said I shouldn't go walking in the dark with you anymore."
Grigori went very still. She had the impression that he'd even stopped breathing. "Did he say why?"
"No." It was a lie, but she couldn't bring herself to repeat what Ramsey had said. She didn't believe in vampires, but she did believe in evil. Carefully, she put her glass on the coffee table. "I want to know what's going on."
"I'm sure I can't say."
"Can't, or won't?"
Grigori shrugged. "Can't. Won't. What's the difference?"
"Ramsey said he knows you. What else does he know? Why did he tell me not to see you again?"
"You have nothing to fear from me, Marisa."
"That's no answer." She stood up and moved to the other side of the room. "I think you should go."
"As you wish."
Placing his goblet on the table, he turned and walked toward the door. She had never seen anyone who moved the way he did. He moved effortlessly, as if gravity had no control over him, as if there were a cushion of air between his feet and the floor.
He stopped at the door and turned to face her. "Good night, Marisa. Lock the door after me."
"Stop it! Just stop it." She wrapped her arms around her body in an age-old gesture of self-protection. "I want a straight answer, and I want it now. Who are you? Who's Edward Ramsey? How did he know we went walking in the park? Is he a friend of yours? Why did he say I shouldn't see you again? Dammit, I want to know what's going on!"
He looked at her speculatively. "Do you?"
Not trusting herself to speak, afraid she might change her mind if she reconsidered, Marisa nodded.
"My name is Grigori Chiavari. That much is true."
"And the rest?"
"I'm not here on vacation. I'm hunting the vampyre."
She wanted desperately to laugh but she had a terrible, sinking feeling she might never laugh again. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Quite. I've been hunting Alexi for a long while."
"But he's... he's..."
"He's a vampyre, Marisa. A very old, very dangerous vampyre."
She made her way to the sofa and sat down hard. "It's impossible. There's no such thing - "
"I'm afraid there is."
"Are you working with Ramsey?"
"Not exactly. But we both want Alexi dead."
"Why?"
"I have my reasons. You'll have to ask Ramsey about his."
"Ramsey said the vampire was after me. Why? He doesn't even know who I am."
"You cut yourself at the carnival, did you not?"
"Yes, I scratched myself. How did you know?"
He shook his head, his thick black hair swirling around his shoulders like a cloud of dark silk. "It doesn't matter. It was most likely the scent of your blood that awakened him."
"But how?"
"Old vampyres often sleep for a century or two. Perhaps it wasn't your blood that awakened him at all. Perhaps he'd simply rested long enough. I don't know."
"But the man at the carnival... Silvano... said the vampire was helpless, that he couldn't escape the chains, or the crosses." She looked up at Grigori, desperate for some small measure of reassurance.
"Silvano was right, as far as he knew," Grigori replied thoughtfully. "But Alexi is far older than Silvano knew. I'm not sure anything can defeat Kristov. As for the chains, I'm guessing that Alexi mesmerized Silvano, then ordered the man to free him."
"He could do that?"
"That and more."
Grigori looked past the woman, gazing into the distance, his thoughts turned inward. Even without feeding for a century or two, it would have been a simple thing for Alexi to bend Silvano's will to his own, to compel him to remove the crosses and the chains that imprisoned him. And while Silvano was still enthralled, Alexi would have drunk from him, drunk until nothing remained of the man but a dry husk.
Even as he considered it, Grigori knew that was how it had happened. He could picture it all in his mind, the vampyre's eyes opening, his hypnotic gaze meeting Silvano's, his mind bending the mortal's will to his own, compelling Silvano to remove the holy relics, to release him from the chains that bound him. He would have climbed out of the coffin, his skeletal fingers clamping over Silvano's shoulders, tilting the man's head to the side, burying his fangs in the