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We (Sinclair) decided to go to the farm to check out the scene of the crime. We (Sinclair) figured it was best to see if things were as bad as Garrett intimated. And no one was in a rush to get back to the mansion.

Nostro had, once upon a time, owned this property, and I had been, once upon a time, a prisoner here. And getting here had taken no time at all... once Tina's cell got a signal, she made a call, Sinclair docked the boat at some teeny marina, and an empty, idling SUV was waiting for us.Advertisement

"It's good to be the king," Marc murmured in my ear, as we all climbed in, making me giggle.

Under no circumstances would Jessica and Marc allow themselves to be dumped somewhere safe. The argument got so heated that Sinclair pulled over on a quiet corner of Minnetonka (at this hour, every corner in Minnetonka was quiet) so we could disembark onto the sidewalk and discuss (read: shriek) it without endangering nearby traffic.

It was only when I saw Sinclair gliding behind Jessica when I realized (a) she couldn't hear him, and (b) what his plan was.

"Don't you dare knock her unconscious!"

"I wasn't going to!" Marc yelled back, flinching away from me.

"Or him, either," I added, noticing Tina sidling up to Marc.

"It would have been for their own safety," El Sneako grumbled.

"We're perfectly safe," Marc said, but then, he would. He loved all things vampire. Given that he'd been about to hurl himself from a tall building to escape his boring life when I met him, I couldn't entirely blame him. "We've got the king and queen of the vampires with us and, a, um, shell of a vampire to bring up the rear."

For Garrett had been no good at all since we got off the boat. He shivered, he shook, he tried to curl up. It was obvious that, since we weren't going to kill him, being outside made him miserable. For the first time I noticed how torn his clothing was, though his injuries had healed. Old, Sinclair had said, and that was certainly true. But not powerful. Never powerful. There had been a time after I brought him home like a stray when we thought... but no.

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Old, but not powerful. Poor guy.

As we grumpily climbed back into the SUV, I wondered again about power. What, exactly, made a vampire powerful? Not age, certainly (I was two!), or at least, not just age. I had been told that, like me, Sinclair had risen strong. Most vampires went through a ten-year phase where they'd do anything for blood and couldn't remember their own names.

Was determination a factor? Anger, hate, vanity? Hmm, that last could explain my meteoric rise to power...

"We're here," Sinclair said abruptly, braking hard enough to make my seat belt lock (force of habit; no real reason to wear the thing these days). "And you two will stay here. I mean it, Marc. Jessica. Remain in this vehicle, or I will be cross."

"Excuse me, captain my captain," Marc said, "but do you know how many horror movies start out like this?"

"We probably shouldn't split up," Jessica agreed. "Besides, if you really thought the Fiends were still here, you'd never have let us come. You'd have clocked Betsy, too, if it had come to that."

Sinclair muttered something that the chime of the "door open" light drowned out; sounded like "wretched woman." We all solemnly clambered out with him, knowing that even if Marc and Jess had won a victory, it was nothing to celebrate. pqdm.com