“Aren’t you the clever girl?” he said, still smiling, paying her struggles no mind as he lifted her wrist to examine the map more closely. “Did you work this out all by yourself, or did the little wizard help you?”
“You are not Simon.” She reached behind her with her free hand, hoping to reach the dagger to stab him or even the purse so she could bash him in the face. But her fingers found the cross instead.
“No,” he admitted, his voice changing, growing thicker. “But I will be.”
He moved to kiss her again, and without thinking, she punched him, the chain of the cross tangled in her fist. He howled in pain out of proportion to the blow she had managed, flinching backward. She saw the shape of the cross burned into his jaw, still smoking. “Bitch,” he snarled, slapping her hard across the cheek, sending her sprawling as the real Simon burst through the door.
“Get away from her!” he roared, the sight of his own image striking his beloved making him livid and dizzy at once. The other vampire turned on him, baring his fangs, and he saw the cross-shaped wound. “You will not touch her again.” He bared his own fangs as he advanced, his sword held out before him.
“Think you not?” the other vampire rasped as his shape melted and changed to the shape of Michel, the brand still livid on his thick-lipped face. “I will touch her in ways you have not yet imagined.”
Isabel huddled against the side of the bed, the cross still clasped in one hand, the map crumpled in the other. The demon who had struck her had changed his shape to a shorter, stockier bull of a man with a thick French accent—Michel, she realized with horror. Simon advanced on him, protecting her, but he was a demon as well, she saw, a monster with the same cruel fangs.
“I killed you once already,” Simon snarled, advancing on this creature, whatever it was. Isabel was safe; that was all that mattered. “I see no reason why I cannot do it again.”
“You didn’t kill me, precious son,” Michel said with a thin, bitter smile that looked completely out of place on his coarse, drunkard’s face. “You released me.” His features shifted again, his body convulsing as he grew taller to become the duke of Lyan. “Were you glad to see my face again?” he said in the duke’s own kindly tone, but his smile was unmistakable, the leer Simon saw in his dreams. “I know how sorely you have missed me.”
“Kivar,” Simon said raggedly, the word catching in his throat.
“You have done so well, my Simon,” he said, for all the world Francis, the duke of Lyan, returned from the grave. “For centuries, I waited for you, knowing you would come.” He smiled, retreating slowly in a circle as Simon advanced. “But I never dreamed you would be such a success as this.” He turned his gaze on Isabel, his smile becoming the devil’s leer again, obscene on the face of the good man Simon had loved. “Look at the treasure you have found.”
Isabel scrambled to her feet, tripping on her skirt but determined to stand even so. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me, pet?” The demon’s face was changing again, his body reforming. Suddenly her father stood before her, looking just the way he had the morning before he died. “You know me in your blood.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, trembling all over. She wanted to run to Simon, to hide behind him from this horror, but how could she? He was a horror himself. Every detail she had ever perceived in his arms and forgotten came back to her in a rush. His skin was cool, not warm. He had no heartbeat. But he was her beloved—even now he meant to protect her. You will mourn him, Mother Bess had said. He carries a mark himself.
“What did you think I was doing all those years in the catacombs, sweet daughter?” the demon said. “Writing my memoirs?”
“He lies, Isabel,” Simon said. “You know he lies; you have seen what he is.”
“You have the evidence there in your hand,” the demon insisted. His voice was so familiar and suddenly so kind. She wanted to hear him, to stand there and listen to him speak to her forever, to give him whatever he asked if it would keep him from leaving her again.
“Why did you leave me?” she asked him, taking a step toward him. “Why did you never tell me the truth?”
“Darling, he’s entrancing you; it’s a trick,” Simon insisted, taking a step toward her. “Any vampire can do it.”
“Vampire,” she repeated, but the word meant nothing. “Papa…”
“Come to me, ’Bella,” the demon in her father’s shape entreated. “Bring me the map.”
“Yes.” Suddenly everything made sense, every doubt she had ever felt was gone, her confusion clearing like soft clouds before the wind. “You made it.” She took a step toward him. “It belongs to you.”
“No!” Simon roared, human voice becoming wolvish howl as he transformed. Isabel screamed as he lunged for Kivar, the ancient vampire melting back into the shape of Michel as the fangs of the wolf tore at his throat.
Isabel watched as the two creatures rolled as one across the tower room, Michel shifting again into the great black dog she had mistaken for the peasant’s grim, and she grabbed for Simon’s fallen sword. But where could she attack? Simon rose up, fangs bared and hackles raised, and suddenly he was a man again, her lover transformed to a monster. The dog lunged at his throat, and he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, shaking the great beast like a rat even as it tore at his arms and chest with its curving, ivory fangs. The dog changed back into a man, another stranger, tall and thin with hair the same shade of red as her own.
“You cannot kill me, Simon,” Kivar said, laughing, and Simon punched him in the face. He laughed harder as he fell back against the table, licking the trickle of borrowed blood from his lips.
“Watch me,” Simon answered, charging him with all his strength and lifting him from the floor. He flung him backward toward the open window, and Kivar’s eyes widened as he felt himself falling, but still he laughed, changing back into the dog as he fell, twisting in midair. Simon rushed forward, flinging himself toward the window as well, but something stopped him—Isabel, grabbing him from behind.
“No,” she said, falling back from him again. “Don’t.”
He turned back to the window just as the dog hit the ground at the foot of the tower, crumpled and broken, but in a moment, he was up again. Still a dog, he turned and looked back at the castle before plunging into the lake, disappearing in the dark.
“Isabel!” Brautus shouted, running in, sword drawn. “What is it?”
Simon turned again. His love was watching him in horror, tears