"I'm a Master now. I'm a queen in my world. You can't even begin to understand what I can do. This is your last chance."

"You're too young to be a Master," Julie stated calmly. She stayed framed in the doorway. The other two slowly began to spread out even further. Holly looked angry. Trip looked scared but determined. Fingers moved onto triggers. Somebody was going to shoot at any second. I could feel it. I tried to make myself as small a target as possible. That is very difficult if you happen to look like me.

"Too young? Am I now? Poor kid. Just like your dad. Nose always in a book, thinking that you understand what's really going on. I was a Hunter once myself. I know what you know. And let me tell you, you're wrong. It isn't about time, honey, it's about the blood. The power is in the blood that makes you, and in the blood that you take. I was made by the strongest of them all, and I've taken so much blood and so many lives that you can't even begin to understand. I have swam in rivers of it. I've torn the life out of ten thousand beating hearts, and you will be next. Now give me your FATHER!" She shouted so loudly that dust shook from the ceiling and all of the humans in the room flinched.

Gretchen appeared in the hallway, short and cloaked in her burkha, armed only with what looked like a stick. She pointed at me and said a single word in a rumble almost as deep as her husbands'. "Pocket."

I reached down, cringing against the pressure on my neck, trying hard to focus and maintain consciousness, my hand touched my pants pocket. There was something inside. I reached in. My fingers felt the lumpy texture of poorly whittled wood. The Old Man's handmade toy.

It could not be there, but it was.

Without thinking, I pulled the impossible little carving out, and stuck it firmly against the hard fingers pressing into my neck. The toy disintegrated in a flash. The undead thing that used to be Susan Shackleford screamed when it touched her, an unbearable howl of burning agony. I was dropped to the ground as her hand burst into blue flames. I hit the floor and rolled away as the other three Hunters reacted and started pulling triggers.

It was the first time that I had seen more than a darkened silhouette of my midnight visitor. She really did look like Julie, but possibly even more hauntingly beautiful, ethereal, even stunning. Pale skin, dark hair, eyes that you could drown in, but then the resemblance stopped. For vampires were unnatural creatures, and right now this one was distracted by a burning hand, long fangs revealed in a frozen scream. A split-second snapshot of confusion and pain, and then the bullets hit.