Elsewhere, Lorelei stood in an empty room. It was almost a cell, bare stone and empty. There were no windows, and not even a door. The last vial was clenched tight in her hand. It was the fifth day. She hid Brohm’s name with her thumb. It’s years later and I can’t even stand to see his name. How am I supposed to drink his blood? she wondered.

What she knew of vampires wasn’t encouraging either. Brohm already had her blood. If she drank his, wouldn’t it just finish the process and finally make her a vampire? For all her sister’s prankster ways, Lorelei didn’t think Esme would deliberately deceive her like that. It might not be a trick, but what if Esme was just wrong??

The wall opened, stone by stone, to let Snape in. The wall closed behind him. No one else wanted to be near her for this last part of the ritual. Snape was looking haggard from a long night of going over the Mayhem Manual for any way this could go wrong. He was the only one willing to be there, and was grudgingly glad of the company.

“The book says it will be painful,” he said. “But it doesn’t give details.” Lorelei nodded and looked back at the metal vial. “Are you afraid?” He asked next.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve adjusted to what I am now, but it was hard and frightening and took years. After this, I’ll have to start all over again as...whatever I’ll be when this is over.”

“Fear of the unknown,” Snape said more gently.

“Fear of the only guessed at.” She pulled her eyes from the vial and looked at him over the rims of her glasses. “If it DOESN’T work... What if it makes me worse?? I...can’t believe Esme was really able to kill Brohm. Not unless he had some reason for making her think she had.... This could be some plan of his, to remove his progeny and set up stronghold in a new place where there is no vampire as powerful as he is...”

“You’re working yourself up for no reason,” he said. “The book says it can be done. That it has been done before.”

“He’s old enough to have written that book!” she cried. “How can I know for sure??”

“You can drink the vial.” He said. She glared at him, but he only looked tired. Slowly, she broke the seal on the vial with her fingernail. After another hesitation, she twisted the lid off. The fluid looked black. A smell wafted up from it and triggered the memory of the night she’d been brought to Brohm.

Her hand began to shake. She had been so helpless then, pinned like a butterfly by the red stare. In the blackness she had only been able to tell that he was tall and strong, with long black hair marked by a white streak. The big man had moved like a cat, and his velvet-smooth voice had matched that image too. There had been a paralyzed fear and a wild, anticipatory dread. He had leaned in so close that all she could see were the glowing red eyes and the white fangs.

She forced her mind away from the memory before it got to the part where he had bitten her. It was like forcing herself awake before the end of a nightmare. She was still standing there, clutching the vial in her shaking fingers. Snape was still watching in silence. She clenched her eyes shut and poured the vial down her throat.