E I G H T

But that wasn't possible.

"Just don't lie to me," I told her. "Don't ever lie to me."

I might as well have asked the sun to keep from rising and setting every day. I suspected Tasia's evasions about Rex/Auberon, but was willing to let it go. But, it wasn't her first deceit. It sure as hell wasn't the last. In the end, that's what broke us apart.

It was just a chance remark from a visiting Blood aristo that keyed it off, "And what is the news from our old friend, Touraine? Did he ever return from the Colonies?"

"I am afraid Touraine has taken the true death," Tasia said, quietly.

"My condolences. You must be devastated, my dear. I know how close you were."

"Do tell," I said, walking into the room.

It's remarkable to see the blood drain out of one of the Blood. It doesn't happen often. She carried it off great, Tasia was a born actress. We talked about it when we were alone.

As the sun began to rise over London, I sat in our room watching her pace back and forth, running her fingers through her hair, as if she could pull persuasion out by the roots. She would have cried if she could. That look of almost-tears was very effective.

But by now, I was used to it. We had been together for five years and I had Changed long ago.

"You don't understand. There are things you don't know," Tasia said.

"So tell me already. Make me understand."

"I can't."

"You can't or you won't?"

"Can't," she insisted, pleading.

"You don't trust me."

"No. That's not it."

"Then what am I supposed to think?" I walked over to the window and looked out. She was hurting and it hurt too much to look at her. "Touraine ... he tried to kill me, Tasia. Remember? I told you all about that. Now I find out he was one of your friends. What else am I going to find out? Did you send him to the States?"

She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Yes. I sent him."

"Why?"

"To find you."

"Okay. And then what?"

Tasia started up at the sarcasm and looked away from me, guilty. I was at the window so she wandered over to her dresser.

Suddenly, we both knew the answer.

"Touraine was supposed to kill me." I said it but I couldn't believe it. "That doesn't make any sense."

Tasia shook her head, folded her arms around herself. "No," she said. "It doesn't."

"Why?"

But she wouldn't answer me. Just held onto herself and kept still.

"Why?" I screamed at her. I wanted an answer, I had to know.

Still silence — nothing. Then she said, "It would have been best if we had never met."

Just like that. I had started to charge across the room — grab her — shake her — something! But those words froze me. Well. Okay. If she could be cold, I could be frost.

"Amen to that, sweetheart," I said and stormed out of the room.

Everything kind of went downhill from there.

I had had five years with Tasia but I don't plan to write about all that here. Those years are mine. They belong to me! It's just too hard. It hurts ... because I loved her, yes, and I was happy. I just don't want to think about how much of a lie that was. Not now. What's necessary to know is, I left her. When I ran back to America, I could no longer trust her. I told myself I didn't love her. I said and did all the usual, horrible things people say and do when love's sailboat rips its guts out on hidden ground, including the traditional, "I don't care."

There were conditions imposed on my release from Tasia's circle. The most galling was that I continue with another pack. So I would be safe, she told me.

"So I can be watched," I shot back.

"You're still new to this. I don't think you understand how fragile our existence is." Her voice maintained that high-class serenity which, at the moment, I loathed. "So many things can go wrong," she said.

I took that as a threat, a promise of things to come. It had been a familiar patter in my old life and now this one, too. Now that I was one of them.

You see, the Blood don't have conversations, especially the Old Blood. Their favored form of communication is more like genteel inquisition — complete with consequence. Like, "I'll see your initial intimidation and counter with two embarrassing personal revelations and one public humiliation."

Tasia was their Queen.

As for me, I wasn't exactly bred to the crown, you know? To those ancient aristocrats, I was a mistake of lust, passion's bastard.

"The Road Kill That Refused To Die! — a Gemelo-Bianco Super-Classic. Joe Bob gives it four stars and says 'check it out'."

I flipped that one in the jaws of one trés elegant fang-face during one evening's festivities and watched him slink out of the room after. It worked better than crosses and holy water (which don't work well at all, actually).

"What did you say to Esteban?" Tasia asked later and I told her. I thought she'd laugh.

She didn't. When I kept after her to talk, to say what was eating at her, all she said was, "They must accept you" and I could tell she was real put out.

Me, too. I didn't give one sacred rat's ass if anyone accepted me or not. Not as long as I had Tasia. She was all I cared about.

So, of course, it was a lie. I did care. More than I could admit even to myself. These were true feelings, nothing I could put in words. It was the fist squeezing the blood out of my heart. It was the wail stuck in my throat I didn't dare release. It was the burn behind my eyes because I couldn't cry. The killer-lies are the ones we tell ourselves. They eat you alive.

I returned to the States but not to New York. Another condition. Even I had to agree Tony Bianco was too well known there and my new lifestyle couldn't stand that much scrutiny. The Fae are everywhere but, for the most part, we're a low-key bunch. Remember Errol's reception on the island? That was due to some old indiscretion and the history surrounding Tasia's villa which you can probably imagine. This was history the villagers understood, not the stories they told tourists. The older the culture, the longer the memory and the more fervent their belief. It's strange how the old cultures know and accept us, their traditions giving rise to and supporting new ones. Like the Brood.

The Fae have always had their human sympathizers, the shamans and mystics who communicate with us. (Inquiring minds want to know.) Some mortals actually have power, varying grades of strength and ability. There are degrees of power and rank among Fae, too. We are all different, all unique. The Brood cruise the Noirlight hoping for a hot time like everybody else wanting to party on the weekend. They don't have Big Mojo, nothing like that. They want to give what we need to have. The lesser of us, mortal and Blood, are content with that.

Doesn't sound too different from my human life, does it? Well, it was and it wasn't. All I can say is I took to the Night like a natural but, unlike my previous existence, I enjoyed myself. Until I split from Tasia.

Back in the States, there were five in our pack prowling the east coast that summer. We ended up in a place called Virginia Beach whose billboards named it "The World's Largest Resort City." A city was what it wasn't, just parallel lines of hotels from one end of a thin strip of sand to the other, souvenir shacks, an assortment of bars and restaurants, the usual tourist traps. The vacation population was augmented with a continuing flow of transient sailors, soldiers and marines from gigantic, bordering military installations as well as students from the surrounding universities. It was perfect for us.

We hid our lifestyle under a veil of rock 'n roll madness with a band we called Shadowstep. Music, at last, was a tangible part of my life. I could make it happen when I wanted and how I wanted. Another of Tasia's many gifts. What Angelo had so longed for was mine. I tried not to think about him very much.

Byron, Roxanne, Fist and Sand were content to stay with cover music. The metal-majesty of Led Zeppelin, the Stones and others we performed at the beach clubs. Whenever we snaked into the little university areas of Norfolk, Williamsburg and the like, we fell into the Cure, Sisters of Mercy, old Roxy Music and like that. But wherever we went, whatever we played, our audience was enthusiastic and appreciative. And no one retired hungry in the morning.

It was with the college set that I first tried one of my own compositions. I didn't plan it. It just came out. Byron didn't say anything but the next time we went out, he did something of his own. None of this was rehearsed or anything but all those stories you hear about our super-mental rapport and so forth are largely true. Then there's that plus-10 charisma factor all us Lugosi-clones are endowed with. Also true. So even though our amateur efforts were little better than day-old dog turds, the audience took to them well. I was just enough of a musician at that time to know how bad those songs were.

By the end of the summer, we were better. Also, by the end of the summer, I had had enough. There are few things worse than existing like a walking-wound. It may be a hell of a spectator sport but I was a reluctant participant. It didn't help that everyone we ran into (by this I mean other Fae) seemed to know my entire history as well as all the details surrounding my break with Tasia. Most of the time, I suspected they knew more about it than I did. Paranoia ruled my nights. Every time I thought I'd made progress in forgetting, in going on, something would happen — usually some little thing — and my sutures would burst. Again. Reaction fluctuated between the Embarrassed and the Amused.

I was not amused. I wanted out, I wanted a chance to heal — alone. Byron wasn't receptive to my request. He had his orders. We butted heads and bared fangs at each other through the latter half of summer and well into fall. As plans were made to shift to Chicago, I planned my escape.

I took the battle to the stage that night, showed Mr. Mad-Bad-and-Dangerous-To-Know what I could do, what I would do if he didn't let go. He was pack master, the star, and we were supposed to follow his lead but I was pissed. Music was a joke to him and his performance frequently reflected that. What a loss. You could tell there was talent there but it was hard for me to believe he'd been such big stuff all those years back.

Byron was furious when we finished our final set. He grabbed the mike and said, "Thank you. Good night" and we all knew there wasn't going to be any encores no matter how much the crowd stomped and begged.

The kids surged forward as Byron stormed off stage. They grabbed at me, too, but I pushed my way past and stalked after him. Sand casually blocked my path, leaning up against the wall, and gave me a superior eye.

"Playing with matches again, little one," he says. "You're going to get your fingers burned."

I snarled showing teeth. "Piss off, Sand."

"Oo, how primal." He licked his lips, made a little kissy-face that I was tempted to smash and slithered up to the stage.

Roxanne came gliding past next, fast and sleek. I tried to get down the hall ahead of her but she brushed me aside.

"I've got to talk to Byron," I insisted.

"Not a good time, love," she said. "Later."

She disappeared after Byron and I heard the dressing room door crash shut again. Wonderful. I turned around and fell back against the bricks. A hormone-stricken, would-be groupie charged backstage dragging her date behind her. She stumbled to a halt a few feet in front of me.

"You were great! You were just great!" she babbled.

We made eye-contact before I could stop myself and her words tapered into silence. There was great pull between us. Looked like supper to me, boyfriend or no, and I was starving. Which was part of my plan. Yes. It might have been nice but I looked away and broke it off.

She looked down, too, and muttered: "Oo, gross...!" sounding a bit like Sand. Disappointment was brief.

I looked where she was staring. My fingers were bleeding but it was an accident. Pain is not really my thing and I'd quit that old nail-chewing habit the first night with Tasia. No, I'd just sliced them open on the guitar strings. Wild playing left its toll. I hadn't even noticed. Now, gazing at my own blood, all the instincts that cried out for me to feed began to riot.

"Gross" was the right word.

Her boyfriend stepped forward, took up and examined my left hand, the one with the ring. "That's nasty," he says. "Better take care of it. Nice ring, though."

His voice held the profound charm of the British scholar that can sound so lush to us folks in the colonies. It matched his pale good-looks. The scowl on my face was my only response. It was enough. He smiled, walked away and took his lady with him. I deliberately did not look at the ring as I licked the blood off my hands. Tried to dismiss the vacuum that threatened to crush my soul. It was just another "little thing" — memories' echo of sensual, foreign voices, the vision of moonlight-blond hair and a gift from Tasia — with another condition. I had to keep wearing the ring while we were separated. Out of spite, I followed through.

I mentally stitched myself back together. Strolled up to the stage where Fist was breaking down his kit. The club was deserted except for us. It had emptied out fast. Perhaps I had been drifting longer than I'd thought.

"Need any help with that?" I asked.

Fist kept working, silent as our graves. I wandered around the stage.

Summer had lingered at the beach. It was over now. Only an hour ago, the club had been packed to bursting with the last party of the season. People had struggled against each other, body to body, like making love or war or, more likely, a mixture of both. There hadn't been room for the falling-down drunks to fall down and when it was over, they had been shoveled out into the cold October night with the rest. They didn't care. For most of them it was a way of life — something they'd brag about to their friends and co-workers the next day. Something they'd brag about to their children thousands of days in the future. For those of them who had a future.

Now the club looked like the abandoned warehouse it was, a tomb for stiletto-carved, cigarette-burned formica and twisted, plastic chairs. The colored lights had been turned off and the few bare bulbs left burning exposed walls and floors of unrelieved gray. It was hard to believe a crowd had danced the night away here.

But I could still feel them. Didn't even have to work at it. I could see them — gray shadows sliding across gray walls. I could smell them ... taste them.

I looked out across the room and saw Sand. He had parked his butt at one of the tables, feet propped up on one of the chairs, arms dangling at his sides, knuckles all but scraping the floor. His eyes were closed. I knew he wasn't lost in the after-current. He was probably thinking about Byron. Byron Gordon was all Sand ever thought about and that was pretty scary. It hit too close to home.

It's easy to let go, to let things be done for you ... to you. So much less hassle to lose yourself in another's will to the point where there's no more "you" forever. Recently, I'd come to know just how long "forever" could be.

And that was scary, too.

"Sure you don't need any help?" I asked Fist again knowing he would probably say "no" if he bothered to speak at all.

Which he didn't.

"You don't like me, do you?" I said.

Fist stopped working and sat back on his heels. At that stance he was almost as tall as me, and standing, squatting, kneeling, sitting or lying down, Fist was always twice as broad.

"It don't matter if I like you or not," Fist said at last. His voice was as dark as his skin and carried the ghost of his Haitian homeland even after all this time. "It's not up to me," he says. "Byron's the man. But too many travel in one pack for too long, I think. Too many strangers together."

"We're rock 'n roll. We're supposed to be strange." I swept my hair back from my face. It was short and shaggy now. Still red. "Besides, you saw that crowd tonight. They loved us."

"And they'll love you in the morning, too, if they see you in the paper. If they see you taken in for the questions because somebody's killed some man or raped some woman. They always go for the strangers first. Can't believe one of their own would do such a thing. You want to party-down with the sheriff, boy? Watch the sun come up with men in blue? Huh — these party people don't count. They like the singing and the exciting. That's all."

Fist stood up and stretched. His grin was a sickle-slash in a midnight face. His eyes were so black, they only showed stars.

"The manager here loves us so much he left us behind to close the place down," he said. "Anybody else, he be standing over — watching like a dog to be sure they don't run off with the plastic forks. But maybe, I think, he don't want to stay too late with us. In the dark. Alone.... Shadowstep got a bigger following than any band at the beach. We bring in more money for the clubs than anyone. I wonder why they don't have us back more often. Do you wonder?"

"No."

"It's time to move on. Byron is right. He know the signs."

"But it was good tonight. It was the best it's ever been."

Fist paused to savor memory with me. Then he said, "Yeah, it was."

Dark fingers caressed the steel rim around the big drum. Fist loved music as much as me. So did Roxanne, and it had all worked tonight. Until he realized he'd been out-maneuvered and thought badly of it, Byron couldn't keep from joining in. Together, we all brought the thunder down, mixed it with lightning. The mob roared its approval and I screamed back at them, a whiskey-velvet voice laced with fire. They shook from the force of that vocal back-lash. For an instant, there was the most incredible silence. Like some sentient beast, the building actually trembled. No one expected it, least of all me. Then we were off and raging again. Down we charged into the ruby-red heart of the abyss and back. That's when I must have sliced my fingers, bone deep. There's no protective callous for young vampire skin. Undead flesh is newborn fine, marble smooth but heals like the magic it is.

It was a wild night with wilder music. We were magick! I coaxed them, teased them, dared them — played them like a new lover. When they howled for more, I gave them what they asked for. At least, I tried.

"You made the paint peel off the walls tonight," Fist said. "Maybe Byron don't like that."

Exactly. I had tried every other way I could think of to get him to take me seriously and achieved nothing but frustration. He would have to talk to me now. Wouldn't he?

A quick-clicking noise interrupted my thoughts. On the floor, a big, black waterbug, a king-roach, scurried across the stage and disappeared into the darkness at the apron. I tracked its frenzied escape. My eyes blazed.

"You're riding the Hunger," Fist said. It wasn't a question.

I didn't answer right off. Waited to see what he would say next.

"You're going to do it tonight?" he asked. "What do you want from me?"

"Promise you won't help Byron if he tries to make me stay."

"Byron promised Tasia he would take care of you. I think he cares more about what the Lady thinks than what you want."

"I don't belong to Tasia."

"Right. Why don't you go back and tell her that?"

"I can't see her. Not now. She changed me into this. She —"

"You knew what was happening. You wanted the Change."

There were a thousand answers to that, a million protests. Only one truth. I couldn't look at him. Fist went back to his drums.

"You take it past Byron and I won't stop you," Fist says. "But if Byron tells me to help him, I will."

"I've got to get away. I've got to be alone for a while. Got to think. I can take care of myself."

Fist shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "You were crazy when you got here. You still crazy, I think."

"Yeah." I grinned. "But I got a great sense of humor."

"You going to need it," Fist said. Then yelled out, "Sand — move your ass! Get up here."

I turned to go, sparing one last look in Sand's direction. I wasn't worried about that one.

A flash of movement told me the roach had made it down from the stage. As it hurtled past Sand's boots, fingers closed —quicksilver fast — on the shell-like back. Sand caught up the insect and gazed at waving antennae, razored legs pawing the air. His long-lashed eyes were the color of crushed violets and just as dead. Sand considered a moment. Then pulled the wings from the back of the roach, popped it in his mouth and swallowed.

I could feel that bug kicking at the back of Sand's throat as it disappeared down his gullet. I was familiar with struggle. There had never been a time when someone bigger, smarter or more powerful hadn't controlled me in some way.

Sand got up to help Fist carry equipment out of the room. I headed back towards the dressing room. I promised myself, this would change.

I meant it.

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