"Okay, you're still human," Alex said reasonably as she got to her feet. "We'll just pretend we never saw you heal from fatal stab wounds and major blood loss in ten seconds flat."
Gabriel tried to go to Nicola, but she backed away from him, and he went still with shock a second time.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.
"Tell you what? I drink blood, I heal fast, and I can't die. There, I told you." She bent down and picked up Leary's gore-smeared knife. "Now get out of my way."
Nick didn't wait for him to move, but went around him. She went past Richard and Michael, past Korvel and Phillipe, and halted in front of one of the niches, taking the small statue of the Virgin Mary from it before moving on to stand in front of Elizabeth. Richard's wife drew back, turning her head away, but Marcella grabbed her and made her face Nick.
"You remember me," Nick said softly. She held up the statue. "And this. Don't you?"
Elizabeth looked down her nose at her. "The statue is mine, but alas, I fear that we have never met."
"Alas, you're a fucking liar." Nick tucked the knife under Elizabeth's chin, pressing it into the soft flesh of her throat. "It was in Hartfordshire, ten years ago. Little dairy farm outside Grandale. You remember. You came to visit my parents one night in June. You came to ask my stepdad about the Golden Madonna. You said it belonged to you."
Elizabeth's expression turned to boredom. "I do not trifle with dairy farmers, and I know nothing about any Madonna. That statue is of the Virgin Mary, and it has been in my possession for over sixty years. Now, would you remove the knife from my neck? I—" She gasped as the sharp blade cut deeper. "Richard, she is deranged. Stop her. Kill her."
"You already did, you bitch." Nick leaned in. "You killed me after you butchered my parents. For this." She shoved the statue in Elizabeth's face.
Gabriel came to stand beside her. "Elizabeth attacked you and your family?"
"She tortured my parents and murdered them. She made me watch while she did it. She made me dig the grave in my mother's rose garden and drag the bodies out to it." Nick smiled. "Only she took too much blood from them, and got a little drunk on it."
Gabriel felt her cold rage building into something worse, but waited, determined to know everything that had resulted in this miracle.
"What else happened, Nick?" Alex asked.
"I got away from her and grabbed my stepdad's shovel," Nick said. "I tried to take her head off with it. I hurt her, but it didn't stop her. Nothing did. She tore open my throat and took a shower in my blood. Then she threw me in the grave. Right on top of my mother's body."
Elizabeth chuckled. "Now I know you are deranged. I would never do such a barbaric thing."
Nick snapped out her arm, and the statue of the Golden Madonna went flying across the room. It shattered against one of the amber panels and rained in small pieces all over the floor.
Elizabeth's eyes bulged. "How dare you!"
Nick glanced over at Richard. "She your wife?" When he nodded, she said, "She has a scar on her ass. It's dark pink and shaped like a triangle. On the left cheek. Am I right?"
"Yes." Richard regarded Elizabeth. "How does the girl know this?"
Elizabeth shrugged. "Someone told her."
"She doesn't like getting blood on her fancy clothes," Nick told Richard. "She strips down before she does people."
"If I had killed you," Elizabeth said with exaggerated patience, "then why do you still live? My dear, if you wish to deceive us into believing that you are human, not Kyn, then you must invent a better story than this."
"I don't think it's a story, Liz," Alex said. "Nick, when she attacked you, was she wounded?"
"I hit her in the face with a goddamned shovel," Nick said. "What do you think?"
Alex nodded. "I think that, unlike your parents, she nearly drained you dry. You didn't die, Nick, because she while she was doing that, she bled on you. She infected you."
"Whatever." Nick didn't seem interested in how she had become Kyn.
"But you don't have dents acérées," Gabriel said. "I would have felt them when I kissed you. You cannot possess l'attrait, or I would know you by scent. We all would."
"Oh, I have the goods." Nick glanced at him, and the sharp-sweet scent of juniper suddenly colored the air. It was so much like Gabriel's own scent that it stunned him. She smiled, baring fangs that quickly retracted. "I just don't flaunt them. And I can make them go away whenever I want." The echoing scent abruptly vanished.
"She protects herself and lures humans by passing as one of them," Cyprien said. "An interesting talent."
"I'm not one of you," Nick insisted. "I can walk around in daylight. I don't bite people when I can get bagged blood from hospitals. I sure as hell don't butcher them."
"We do not harm humans," Gabriel said.
"Really." She stared into Elizabeth's face. "Then what do you call what she does?"
"If what you say is true, and you have simply mistaken me for the Kyn who took you, you should be grateful," Elizabeth said. "The woman who attacked you compensated you with the gift of immortal life."
"Vampire King?" Nick said softly as she shifted her grip on the blade. "Say good-bye to the wife."
"Wait." Gabriel put his hand over hers so that they both held the knife.
Nick shook her head. "I'm doing it. I've been looking for this sick cunt for ten years. It'll be easier than how my parents died, but she deserves it."
"If this is what you must do," Gabriel said, "then she will die by my hand as well."
Nick didn't say anything, and the blade didn't move deeper into Elizabeth's neck.
"Miss Jefferson, before you cut off my wife's head," Richard said quietly, "I would ask a favor of you. Permit me to punish my wife for her crimes against you and your family."
"So she can live and do it again? Make more like me? Let me think." Nick looked at him. "No."
"I will see to it that Elizabeth never has contact with another human for as long as she lives. We live quite a long time, even when we can no longer feed." The high lord's voice remained low and level. "I swear this to you."
"Don't be a fool, Richard," his wife snapped. "She cannot prove any part of her ridiculous story. I've done nothing wrong. She's been sent here by your enemies; can't you see that? I would not be surprised if Cyprien had a hand in this. He turned that leech; he must have the ability to create new Kyn. Kill her and put an end to this."
Nick saw the fear in Elizabeth's wide eyes, and heard it in her sharp voice. "You can really keep her away from humans forever?"
"He can," Gabriel confirmed.
"My husband would never harm me," Elizabeth said, smiling. "He'll do nothing, and you'll be cheated of your revenge."
"You'd rather have me cut off your head than let him deal with you?" Nick didn't wait for an answer, but pulled the knife away. "She's all yours, Your Kingship." She dropped the blade and turned to Gabriel.
He wanted to take her into his arms. He was afraid to touch her. "All this time, and I never guessed."
"I'm just as good at hiding things as I am at finding them." Her eyes scanned the faces around them. "I can't be a part of this, Gabriel. I love you, but… I'm sorry." She strode out of the Amber Room.
Gabriel took a moment to disperse the last of the many before he spoke to Michael. "I must go with her."
Cyprien nodded. "Will we see you again?"
"I cannot say." Gabriel could think only of her.
Richard came to him. His eyes, once so alien, were becoming human. "They sent photographs of your body, decapitated, and your head thrust on the spikes of a church gate in Rome. Had I known you still lived, I would never have called off the search."
Doctored photographs. That was all it had taken to convince the high lord of his death.
"There is this computer program called Photoshop, my lord," Gabriel said softly. "You should become acquainted with it. Now I must take my leave of you."
"I will not compel you to live under Kyn rule, not after what has happened to you both," the high lord said. "But know that in this place, you will always have an ally." He performed a bow of deep respect.
Gabriel put his hand on Richard's shoulder for a moment, and then hurried out into the corridor.
Nick was adjusting something on the back wheel of the rental bike and cursing under her breath when Gabriel reached her. "Piece of cheap, run-down Dublin trash."
"We should have brought your bike," he said, stopping a few feet away.
She didn't look at him and said nothing.
"You are not leaving here without me," he continued. "I would have no way to get back to the farm."
"I told you, I can't be a part of this." Nicola stood and wiped her hands on a piece of her shirt. "I'm not like them. I don't want to be like them. You… you're like them. You need them. They have mansions and libraries and Mozart. I have a bike and a farm and Nickelback."
"Is Nickelback an American band?"
"Canadian." She stuck her wrench back in her tool kit. "Gabriel, don't try. You know? I'm a peasant. I'm okay with that. You're a nobleman. You need someone like that French chick in the village. I mean, she was hot."
"Marcella is like a sister to me."
She brought up her hands and let them fall. "Okay, so, there are other vampires ladies out there."
"I don't want them. I don't love them." He stepped up to her. "I love you." He took her hands in his. "You went through the change alone. That's never happened to a Kyn before you." As she opened her mouth, he touched her cheek. "It's just a word. But when you came to me, you were seeking something, weren't you?"
