Meanwhile, Joe and Lily were now so busy chasing around their daughter, who they’d named Rose, for Joe to notice much of what was happening with Lyra or Sav. Though the child was only a week and a half old, she was already the same as an eighteen month old mortal child. And, unlike a mortal child, Rose didn’t take naps. For the moment, she still nursed from her mother, but if she wasn’t nursing, she was on the go. So from sundown to sun up, the child explored every inch of the castle her parents allowed her into. And she learned EVERYTHING very quickly. Already, she was starting to speak. At a week old, she’d managed her first word, Mama. Later that night, she’d said Dada for the first time. And before sunrise, she’d started coming up with names for each of the other vampires she’d encountered. Only Lyra wasn’t spellbound by her as she toddled along with her parents right behind her.

As Cyra had finally explained to Joe and Lily, the vampire blood Rose had gotten from her parents meant that her body was trying to reach adulthood at a far faster rate than that of a mortal child. Equaling the rate of maturity for most animals. Cyra compared her to a puppy and said that, more than likely, Rose would be a full grown woman by the time she reached her first birthday. Not only physically, but mentally as well. Which scared the hell out of Joe.

Tired after a long night of chasing his daughter, Joe slumped down into a chair next to Cyra. She was studying a book, still looking for some way to track Sav down or break the spell that had him in thrall. Closing the book, she looked at Joe and said, “I just can’t get a read on this. I’ve looked up enough spells in the last two days to control most of the world’s population, but I can’t find a way to break one on a vampire. They only say that a vampire can’t be controlled indefinitely.”

“You mean sooner or later this spell will break on it’s own?” Joe asked worriedly. Though Rose took up most of his time now, he was still terrified of losing one of his best friends. And of what that loss would do to Lyra

“Yeah, basically,” Cyra sighed. “Either time will do the work for us or we’ll have to hope that these son of a bitches make a mistake…”

**********************

“You’ve got to be fucking joking!” Marcus slammed his hand down onto the counter top in the Brotherhood’s new hideout. “How can you not have everything we need for the fucking spell to work?”

Lynn looked up at him, obviously frightened, as Ivy explained, “Well, we HAD it all, until we had to ditch the old farmhouse! All the ingredients were right there, only we didn’t have time to grab everything.”

“There’s a shop in the market place that might have the stuff,” Marcus hissed. “But I can’t leave. The cops are still looking for me after that break in at the museum…”

“I’ll go,” Lynn said quickly, wanting nothing more than to get away from Marcus at the moment. “How do you get there?”

“Where this street dead ends into Eyre St., make a right,” Marcus explained, his eyes closed in frustration. “Take that out til you go around Furnival Square. Make a left onto Arundel Gate and follow that out. Once you hit Commercial St., make a right. Almost immediately, make a left on Haymarket. It turns into Waingate and the market is on the right hand side.” Lynn made to run off as soon as she finished writing down the directions, but Marcus grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Don’t take too long and DON’T FUCK THIS UP! I need this spell started tonight!”

“Marc, I’ll get everything, I promise!” Lynn whimpered as his fingers bruised her flesh. As soon as he released her, she ran out the door to hide her tears of pain.

Meanwhile, Marcus had turned on Ivy. He glanced at a closed door and said, “Make sure this son of a bitch doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Where the hell is he gonna go, Marc?” Ivy said testily. “His little girlfriend is a couple hundred miles away, the spell on him keeps either of them from feeling the other and we’re halfway to fucking Scotland. Who the hell is going to look for us here?”

“I don’t want any surprises,” Marcus answered, heading for the basement without another word. Ivy got up and opened the door Marcus had looked at a moment before. Inside, their captive sat staring wordlessly out the window. He didn’t even look up to see who had come into the room. Satisfied he was secure, Ivy went back to her seat in the living room and picked up her book. That guy wasn’t going anywhere.

Back inside the room, the man stared out over a landscape that wouldn’t stay the same. Sometimes, when he looked in one direction, he saw a road full of modern cars and buses going about their daily business. Then he would close his eyes and look again. The buses seemed more old fashioned, there were fewer cars and a building would rise up over the skyline. A building that wasn’t always there. It looked like an old factory, but he could tell what kind it was. Three letters were visible on a huge sign, “SPO”, but that wasn’t enough of a hint in his dazed condition. But what was freaking him out the worst was when he opened his eyes and saw nothing but thatched huts and animals grazing. Where was that coming from? In his state, he didn’t even know his own name. So which one of these realities was real?

Putting his forehead against the cool window pane, he closed his eyes and sighed. For just a moment, he felt like he was going to sleep. Then he heard a voice. Or more precisely, the memory of a voice. “Welcome home, luv. Sheffield’s more than in Rick Savage’s blood. It’s in the soul of the man at the core of you. We lived here long before Sheffield ever truly came into existence. This land was all we had back then, so it became part of us both, body and soul.”

Rick Savage. Sheffield. Those words ran through his mind over and over. And her voice. God, who was she? Sheffield. Savage. Rick. That woman. He forced his eyes tightly closed, trying hard to think now. He could see her! Her long, brown hair. Her eyes. The very shape of her. Her name seemed to be just out of reach. Then he could actually see her in his mind’s eye. Pacing on the ramparts of some far away castle. Searching for something. Searching for HIM! Turning, she looked right at him and closed her eyes. “I’m here, Rick! I’ll find you, I swear. Just fight this a little longer!”

Beside her, two men rose to their feet. The blond man put a hand on her shoulder, asking her what was wrong. She just smiled and said something to him. Then a black haired man walked up and suddenly, the vision itself was gone. But he could still feel her, a pull on his heart he didn’t want to deny. He shook his head, trying to clear the effects of the drugs he’d been given. The need for that woman was greater than anything he’d ever felt before. But as long as these people managed to keep him drugged, there was no way he’d ever be able to find her.

**************

“Michael, go downstairs and let Si know what’s going on,” Lyra said excitedly. She made to take off into the air, only to feel Steve grab her and say, “Oh, no you don’t!”

“STEVE! I can feel him again!” she cried as he held her back. “I’ve got to get to him before they take it away again!”

“Just wait for a minute, baby,” Steve answered as he pulled her body against his. “Let’s get Cyra to go with us, plus some of the others.” She struggled to get away from him but it was futile. He was just too strong. “I don’t want you walking into a fucking trap, luv.” Turning in his arms, she looked at him imploringly, but he wasn’t giving in. Not on this issue. Their eyes locked for a long minute before Dovic, Leesha, Cyra and Michael burst out of the doorway.

“I was half afraid she’d try to take off without us,” Cyra sighed. “Where is he?”

“To the north,” Lyra said, pulling away from Steve. “Can you feel him, Steve?”

“A little.”

“Michael?”

Michael closed his eyes, then answered, “Just a little bit, not enough to track him.”

“Then the rest of you will just have to keep close to either me or Steve,” she said and leapt to the sky without another word.

“Keep it high up, will you?” Cyra cried into the wind. “It’s fucking daylight!” Lyra obliged by flying straight up into a cloud formation overhead. Soon they were all flying blind, trying to follow their links to Steve and Lyra.

“He’s getting stronger, Lyra!” Michael called a while later.

“Yeah, I think we’re getting close,” Steve replied.

Without a word, Lyra dipped down below the clouds and scanned the ground. Sav didn’t feel that far off. Probably in the town just ahead. Her eyes popped open as she realized where they were. Then she let out a laugh and knew that the Brotherhood had just made their last mistake in bringing Sav to Sheffield.

As they landed in a wooded park, Dovic looked around and said, “You’ve got to be fucking jokin, man! This is their brilliant idea for a hideout?”

“They made the mistake of letting Sav see where he was,” Lyra answered softly as they came out onto a walkway. “It had to have jarred his memory just enough to throw off the spell…”

Walking quickly and with Lyra fogging peoples’ memories of them, they made their way rapidly towards where Sav was hidden. But Steve could help but bark out a laugh as they walked down Bramhall Lane. “God, he could have probably seen the spoon factory if it had still been standing! What idiots!”

“They don’t know anything about him, though, Steve,” Cyra replied. “But don’t count them out just because of that. Their leader was too fucking good with the magic last time we saw him, so don’t put anything past him.”

“He’s so close, Si!” Lyra hissed, looking around as they crossed Jessop St. She took a few steps, then stopped dead. A second later, she turned down the street and took off at a jog as she said, “This way!”

A long, tall hedge grew in front of the house where Lyra suddenly stopped and said, “He’s here!”

Moving to charge up the sidewalk, Lyra felt the world spin as Michael grabbed her and said, “They’ll recognize you more than any of us, honey.” Then he motioned for Cyra and Leesha to come closer. “Feel like being friendly neighbors and getting their attention?”

“Yeah, they haven’t seen us yet,” Cyra answered, straightening her shirt up. “You try to get around the back, we’ll make sure we get in the front.” She took a deep, unneeded but calming breath and said, “Let’s do this.”

Cyra and Leesha walked boldly up the front steps of the house, while Michael motioned for Lyra and Steve to move off to one side of the house. He and Dovic took the other side alone. Lyra and Steve flattened themselves against the house behind another large bush just as Lynn pulled the car into the drive. For a second, Steve hesitated about grabbing the girl. But in that same second, Lyra had shot out from the bushes and grabbed the young woman. Her neck was broken before Lyra’s fangs pierced her throat. As she finished draining the girl’s corpse, Lyra tossed her body into the bushes and said, “One down, now how many to go?”

“You were way to good at that,” Steve murmured as he glanced up at the window behind him. Then he jumped back in shock. There sat Sav, watching them impassively. There wasn’t even a bit of interest in his eyes at the scene he’d just witnessed. Until Lyra turned and found herself looking right into his blank eyes. Then he squinted, looking at her as hard as he could. She saw him mouth her name uncertainly. Putting her finger to her lips, she told him silently to be quiet while they came in after him. Then Lyra and Steve flattened themselves back against the house and moved slowly to the rear, hoping there was another entrance in the back. As they came around the corner, a man looked up and said, “Hey, what the fuck…”

He never got to finish that sentence. Michael jumped out from the bushes behind him and grabbed him. Fangs flashed as Michael made his first kill as a vampire, then he threw the body off to the side. “Wow, that’s a little different,” he murmured as he wiped a spot of blood from his lip. “First time I’ve ever not used my fists first.”

“Whatever works, luv,” Lyra answered softly, moving toward the door. She opened it quietly, then stopped to listen. She could hear Cyra and Leesha talking to a man and a woman by the front door, insistently trying to get them to come outside to see something amazing. But neither of them was buying it. The woman, Ivy, left the man to deal with them as she walk back to the room where Sav was hidden. As soon as she was out of sight, Cyra struck. Unfortunately, the man got off one yell before she snapped his neck and tossed him aside. Footsteps pounded up and down the stairs in the house as members of the Brotherhood raced to see what was happening. Cyra and Leesha hid themselves in the living room, waiting for another chance to get to the unaware members of the clan. A second later, Ivy came out of the room where Sav was, holding tight to a dagger. Before Dovic, Steve or Michael could grab her, Lyra bolted out in the open and held out her hands in a peaceful gesture.

“YOU!” Marcus hissed, getting ready to blast her with his own powers.

“Wait a minute!” Lyra said quickly, taking a step back. “I just want to know where Rick is, that’s all. As long as he isn’t hurt, this doesn’t have to happen, okay?”

“I’m not done with him yet,” Marcus growled, “so I guess this is going to happened now, huh?”

“What do you want with him?” she pleaded, though she already knew the answer.

“I want what he has!” Marcus yelled, his hands up in an attack posture. “Immortality!”

“WHAT?” Lyra said, forcing a laugh. She paused for thought just a moment, then said, “That’s what this is about? You want to be a vampire? You’re joking, right?”

“I don’t joke about living forever.” He drew his hands back to strike.

“Damn, why didn’t you just say so?” Lyra was chuckling. “I’ll do that for you, without all this bullshit.”

Marcus paused in his spell casting to look at her. Cocking his head sideways, he looked at her out of slitted eyes and said, “You’d do it, if I just ask you too?”

“Sure, what’s all the fuss about?” Lyra said, motioning to Steve and Michael to come up. “All of you want this?”

“I won’t leave any of my people behind as mere mortals,” Marcus answered, looking around in surprise as Cyra and Leesha revealed themselves in the living room.

“Okay, how many of you are there?” she asked. Then she said, “Sorry, minus the three that we had to kill because you didn’t just ask us. That’s not our fault.”

“Minus three?” Marcus asked as Cyra moved closer to him.

“The guy in the living room that Cyra killed, the one I kill at the side of the house and the one Michael took out in the back garden.”

“You’ve already killed three of my people?” he asked in disbelief. His hands rose again, but Lyra tutted him back. “Now, if you hurt any of us, you’re just going to have to deal with pissed off vampires and who wants that? How many of you are there left?”

“Enough,” he answered evasively.

“Well, line ‘em up and let’s get started!” Lyra said with a smile. Cyra opened her mouth to speak, only to spot a small wink from Steve. She shut her mouth, then said, “Yeah, the sooner the better, right? We can always make room for more vampires.” Leesha started to say something, but a nudge of Cyra’s foot shut her mouth as well.

“Just bring out Rick and we’ll start right now,” Lyra said casually.

“NO, I don’t think so,” Marcus said with a sly look in his eye. “You’ll not be getting him back until I cross over. Ivy, make sure he’s covered while we do this.” He stepped toward Lyra. “Bring me over and I’ll take care of the rest of my people…”

“That’ll take a while,” Lyra said with a rueful shake of her head. “A newborn couldn’t make another for at least a few days, plus you’d be lucky to manage one every couple of days. Hmm…” She paused, acting like she was trying to think of a solution. “How’s about this? We’ll bring three of you over, say, you, him and him.” She pointed at two of the cult members who she remembered from their previous encounter. “Then you can take care of the rest of your group? Sound like a plan?”

“I’ll accept your proposal,” he answered cautiously. Then he turned to the other three who she hadn’t named. “If they try anything, kill the one in the other room in front of her before she dies.” The three men nodded. Marcus stepped up to Lyra and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

“Okay,” she answered, motioning to Dovic and Steve to come to her side. Each of the three mortals walked up to a vampire carefully, watching for any signs of treachery. Following Lyra’s lead, Dovic and Steve each bit into the throats of their victims. After a while, they pulled back and fed them from their own wrists. That done, they all three stood back and Lyra whispered, “Okay, almost time for the fireworks…”

Cyra moved to her side, hissing, “What the hell are you doing? You just made them fucking vampires, Lyra? Are you out of your mind?”

“Just wait and see,” Lyra said with a smile. Long minutes passed and the three remaining cult members started to fidget.

“You sure you didn’t just kill them?” one asked.

“If I was just going to kill them, wouldn’t I have tried to kill you, too, by now?” Lyra answered with a smile. “They’ll be back any moment…”

The first of the newborns gasped his first breath, then looked around. A second later, he flew across the room and pinned one of the mortal cult members to the wall. The man let out a blood curdling scream, then simply gurgled. His throat had been ripped open, so he couldn’t make another sound as he died.

The other two men backed away hurriedly. They couldn’t actually blame Lyra for this, but here was their friend killing them. Had they been betrayed by him? The bigger of the two remaining men grabbed a stake and ran it through the new vampire’s heart before he’d finished feeding.

“Two down,” Lyra murmured with satisfaction.

The second vampire rose and the scenario repeated itself again. Only this time, the stake entered the vampire’s heart just as he’d finished ripping apart the throat of the man who held it. They both went down in a crumpled heap, the mortal man still clawing desperately at his neck as he died. The last remaining mortal froze as he heard a piercing female scream from the room where they’d hidden Sav. He moved toward the door, forgetting the danger of Marcus still to come, and found himself faced with Sav. Swaying in the doorway covered in blood, too weak from the drugs and the aftermath of Marcus’s broken spell to actually fight, he fell to the ground at the man’s feet. The guy pushed past Sav and saw Ivy’s bloodied body laying across the bed. As he turned to strike out at Sav, his eyes went wide in horror. In the middle of the living room, rising slowly to his feet, was Marcus. And his eyes were glued to the sole remaining mortal in the building.

“Marc, no, don’t do this!” the man cried, backing away. “WE’VE HAD THIS PLANNED FOR SO LONG! NO, MARC!!!” Then his voice was lost to the vampire’s kiss.

Lyra rushed to Sav’s side, pulling him away from the room where Marcus lay with his victim. “Cyra, think you can take care of him?” Lyra asked, jerking her head towards Marcus. “You know, when he wants to…”

“I think I can manage it,” Cyra said, sliding past her and into the room. “You and Leesha just get out of the way, then he’ll have no choice but to go for it.”

Pulling Sav’s limp form along behind her, Lyra motioned for the others to follow her out to the back garden of the house. The last thing she heard from Cyra, and she had to laugh, was, “Come to mama, big boy.”

It sounded like someone was trying to rip the house apart. Someone was banging into furniture, slamming into walls. Then the back door flew open and two forms fell on the grass. Almost immediately, they broke apart. Cyra shot across the lawn, putting as much space between them as she could. As Marcus looked around, disoriented, his body began to smolder. He tried to lurch back to the safety of the shadows, but his legs didn’t want to move right. There was something wrong with his body. His fingers just reached the shade of the house when open flames burst from his torso and legs all at once. A moment later, his entire body was engulfed in fire.

Giving the burning body a wide berth, Cyra went back into the house and drug the vampire corpses out into the open. Soon they were consumed by the same flames as their leader.

After looking at each other for a long moment, the remaining vampires silently took to the air. Lyra made sure that no one looked their way as they flew, while Steve carried Sav. After the short flight back to the castle, he settled Sav into his bed and looked up at Lyra.

“I think I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” Steve said before she could speak. “You’ve got issues that really don’t include me…”

“Thanks, luv,” she whispered, standing on tip toe to kiss his cheek. As he moved for the door, Lyra climbed into bed and curled up next to Sav. As if he’d been waiting for her, his eyes opened slightly and he whispered, “I love you, Lyra.”

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, baby,” she said softly. “I don’t know how to make it up to you…”

“Just hold me and don’t let go,” he answered, tugging on her arm. “That’s all I need right now.”

So that’s exactly what she did for the rest of that night and through the next day. Meanwhile, in the upper stories of the castle and unknown to Lyra or Sav, Cyra and Leesha sat talking in the early morning hours as everyone else slept.

“I can’t believe she doesn’t know who he is, that’s all,” Leesha said with a shake of her head.

Cyra put her hand on Leesha’s leg as she said, “Maybe it’s just something too painful for her to remember. Losing a mortal lover can cause a lot of problems that even I don’t understand. I mean, who can really say they understand how a brain, human or otherwise, works?”

“Should I tell her, though?” Leesha got up and looked out at the rising sun. Running her fingers though her hair, she turned back to Cyra and said, “Would it help with the problems she’s having with Sav, or make them worse?”

“Oh, now I understand why you’ve talking to me about this instead of her!” Cyra exclaimed, starting to rise to her feet. Then she slumped back down into her seat with a long sigh. Her index fingers formed a steeple over her nose as she considered the problem. “Maybe you need to tell her and let her decide if she tells Sav. Or him, for that matter. It’s not as if the past was a dangerous thing between them. She just can’t remember somewhat painful. But if you’ve known all along and she finds that out, you know she’ll be upset about it.”

Leesha leaned hard against the window frame and it was obvious she hadn’t thought of that problem. Cocking her head, Cyra asked, “How long was she with him?”

“Twenty three years.”

“And how did he die?” Cyra probed.

“A vampire attacked his house, trying to steal a manuscript Andrew had uncovered,” Leesha answered, her eyes going distant as she tried to remember the details. “Lyra had come back here to check something out when it happened. She was enraged when she returned and he was laying there dead. Tracked the bastard that killed him down and staked him with a chair leg. That’s the only thing she would tell me. After that, she refused to ever talk about Andrew again…”

“And maybe that’s why she hasn’t figured out that Andrew’s been reborn,” Cyra said as the light came on. “If she refused to talk about him, I’m guessing that subconsciously she’s buried his existence. Only now, he’s back and she can’t remember him. I wonder if there’s some way to just slip it into a conversation with her, see if that jars things for her?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Leesha said quietly. “I mean, if she remembers and blurts it out or something? That could get ugly.”

“Yeah, especially since she just got Sav back,” Cyra sighed. “Wait for a while and talk to her about it later, okay?” Then a thought occurred to her. “Did she ever talk about wanting to bring Andrew over?”

“Sure she talked about it,” Leesha said, her brow furrowed in confusion. “But she couldn’t because of the promise that we’d made.” Now Cyra looked baffled. “When all the men died back in 1711, we swore we wouldn’t make another vampire until we’d found them reincarnated. Lyra talked about Andrew, but she couldn’t break that promise she’d made over Ronan’s ashes.”

“That’s probably why he found Lyra then,” Cyra said finally. “He should have been made a vampire two hundred years ago, but she couldn’t. You know as well as I do that most people who become vampires were destined for it in the end. Apparently, he had a destiny that Lyra couldn’t help him fulfill that time, so his soul came back to her again.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with their affair then?” Leesha said with a smile.

“I don’t think so,” Cyra answered.

“That’s a good thing then, right?”

“Sav will think so,” Cyra answered with a grin of her own. “Hopefully, I’m around when Lyra realizes all this. Maybe I can help her understand it all. I mean, they’re not exactly the hot item around here, right? She’s still with Sav more than anything. So it’s not the affair. It’s the vampirism.”

“Okay, think I should tell her yet?”

“Not yet,” Cyra said thoughtfully. “Give her and Sav time to get their heads together before you hit her with it.” She glanced out at the sun going higher over the horizon. “And now, I’m tired and you’re exhausted, so let’s hit the beds, okay?”

“Yeah,” Leesha said quietly. But as she walked slowly down the stairs, she wondered how long it was going to be before she had to finally spell out just who Michael was to her old friend. When she climbed into bed next to Phil, she prayed it was soon.