Tom flicked off the flashlight, but not before she had caught the look of shock as his gaze met Kate's. He had also recognized the man.

There was a scrape and sliding from inside the garage.

Trying to hush both the baby and the pounding of her own heart, Kate slid against the wall and slowly raised her eyes to the breezeway window. Two dark forms moved with incredible quickness outside on the small patch of yard between the breezeway and the cliff. Tom had also glimpsed them.

“Fuck this,” he whispered to them. “We need to get outside where we can get into the meadow . . . head for the road. “

Kate nodded. Anything was better than this claustrophobic corridor where anyone could come at them from any direction. In the dim light from the windows, she looked down at the pistol in her hand. Could I really shoot someone? Another part of her mind answered almost immediately, You've already shot someone. And if he comes after you or Joshua, you will shoot him again. She blinked at the clarity of the thought which cut through the swirling mists of conflicting duties, her Hippocratic imperative, and heartpounding fears like a searchlight through fog: You will do what you have to do. Kate looked at the pistol and noticed with almost clinical detachment that her hand was not shaking.

“Come on,” whispered Tom. He pulled them to their feet. “We're going out.”

The breezeway had a door that opened onto the walk leading from the garage to the front door, but before Tom could open it everything happened at once.

A shape launched itself through the kitchen door again. Tom whirled, lowered the shotgun to hip height, and fired.

The window behind them exploded into shards as two men in black clothing hurtled through the glass. Kate raised her pistol even as she tried to shelter Joshua from the spray of glass.

Someone came through the breezeway door. Tom pumped the shotgun and turned toward the man.

Julie screamed as dark arms and white hands came out of the garage and seized her by the hair, pulling her into the darkness.

The shotgun roared again. A man screamed something in a foreign language. Kate stumbled backward into the corner, still sheltering Joshua from the melee of dark forms, crunching glass, and a sudden lick of flames visible from the open kitchen door. She leaned into the garage and extended the Browning, trying to separate the dark form of the intruder there from the struggling shadow that had to be Julie.

“Julie!” screamed Kate. “Drop!”

The smaller shadow fell away. A man's white face was just visible as it turned toward the breezeway. Kate fired three times, feeling the automatic buck higher in her hand each time. Joshua let out a piercing wail in her ear and she hugged him tighter as she said, “Julie?”

The shotgun blasted again behind her and she was suddenly slammed into the breezeway comer as several forms collided with her. Tom's face loomed for an instant, she saw that at least three blackclad men were wrestling with him and that the shotgun had been wrenched from his hands, and before she could open her mouth to speak or scream or cry, he said, “Run, Kat,” and then the struggling forms swirled away through the open door.

At least three other dark shapes were pulling themselves to their feet in the breezeway, their forms silhouetted by the soft glow of flames from the kitchen. Something moved in the garage but Kate could not tell if it was Julie or not. One of the men in black reached for her pistol.

Kate fired three times, the dark shape fell away and was replaced by another hurtling form. She raised the Browning directly into a white face, made sure it was not Tom, and fired twice more. The face snapped backwards and out of sight as if it had been slapped by an invisible hand.

Two other men rose from the floor. Neither was Tom. A man's hand slid around the doorframe from the garage. Kate lifted the pistol and fired, heard the hammer click uselessly. A heavy hand fell on her ankle.

“Tom!” she gasped and then, without thinking, curled both arms around Joshua and threw herself through the shattered window. Dark shapes scrambled behind her.

Kate hit hard in the flower garden and felt the wind go out of her. The baby had breath enough to cry. Then she was up and running, loping across the yard, trying to get behind the garage and beyond, into the aspen trees near the access road.

Two men in black stepped out and blocked her way.

Kate skidded to a stop in loose loam and reversed herself, running back toward the balcony and doors to the lower level.

Three men in black stood between her and the house or the breezeway. The windows of what had been the nursery were painted orange with flame from inside the house. There was no sign of Tom or Julie.

“Oh, God, please,” whispered Kate, backing toward the cliff edge. Joshua was crying softly. She set her free hand on the back of his head.

The five forms advanced until they formed a semicircle, forcing her back until her heels were on the exposed granite at the edge of the cliff. In the sudden silence, Kate could hear the crackling of flames and the soft sound of the creek sixty feet below her.

“Tom!” she screamed. There was no answer.

One of the men stepped forward. Kate recognized the pale, cruel face of the intruder. He shook his head almost sadly and reached for Joshua.

Kate whirled and prepared to jump, her only plan to shield Joshua from the fall with her own body and hope that they hit branches. She took a step into space . . .

. . . and was pulled back, a gloved hand wrapped in her hair. Kate screamed and clawed with her free hand.

Someone jerked the baby from her grasp.

Kate let out a sound more moan than cry and twisted around to face her attacker. She kicked, clawed, gouged, and tried to bite.

The man in black held her at arm's length for a second, his face totally impassive. Then he slapped her once, very hard, took a firmer grip on her hair, spun her around, lifted her, and threw her far out over the edge of the cliff.

Kate felt an insane moment of exhilaration as she spun out over treetops illuminated by flameI can grab a limb!but the limb was too far, her fall was too fast, and she felt a surge of panic as she tumbled headfirst through branches that tore at her clothes, ripped at her shoulders.

And then she felt a great pain in her arm and side as she hit something much harder than a branch.

And then she felt nothing at all.

Dreams of Blood and Iron

My enemies have always underestimated me. And they have always paid the price.

The light coming through the small windows of my bedroom has an autumnal edge to it now as it moves across the rough white walls, across the broad boards of the floor, and onto the tumbled quilt covering my bed. My prison.

l have been dying here for years, for an eternity. The others whisper to each other, thinking that I cannot hear the urgency in their voices. I know that there is some problem with the Investiture Ceremony. They are afraid to tell me about the problem; afraid that it will upset me and hurry my final dissolution. They are afraid that I will die before the Investiture takes place.

I think not. The habit of life, however painful, is too difficult to break after all these centuries. I can no longer walk, can hardly lift my arm, but this accursed body continues to attempt to repair itself, even though I have not partaken of the Sacrament since my arrival home more than a year and a half ago now.

I may soon ask about these whispers and urgent comings and goings. It may be that my enemies are stirring again. And my enemies have always underestimated me.

I began my reign in August of 1456, staging the anointment ceremony in the cathedral at Tirgoviste, the city where my father had ruled. I devised my own title: “Prince Vlad, Son of Vlad the Great, Sovereign and Ruler of UngroWallachia and of the Duchies of Amlas and Fagaras.” After my escape from the Sultan and in recognition of the alliances I had formed with Transylvania's boyar noblemen, John Hunyadi thought it wise to orchestrate the return of a Dracula to the Dracul throne.