Toret agreed. "Stay back."

Once again, Toret became Ratboy the street urchin, who knew how to survive, disappear, and remain forgotten. He'd always despised this part of himself, and yet now slipped effortlessly into his old ways. Pulling off his cap, cloak, and purse, he messed up his hair. Chane faded back into the alley shadows. As the sailors passed, Toret stepped out and dropped the purse behind them.

"Sirs," he called, drooping shoulders and bent knees making him look even smaller. "One of you dropped a purse."

Both turned at once, instantly on guard. Upon spotting the thin, dusty-brown beggar boy, they relaxed.

Toret picked up the fallen purse and stepped toward them, but only as far as the alley's near corner. He held out the purse.

"I think you dropped this."

"Not me, lad," answered the one with the sword. "It's not mine."

"Are you sure? I saw it fall as you passed."

Curiosity crossed their features. They stepped closer, and Toret settled back slightly, as if wary of their approach, forcing them to move in front of the alley's mouth. The leader approached without fear and looked down.

"No, lad, you're an honest fellow, but that isn't-"

Toret sprang at him, clamping down with one strong hand over the man's mouth and wrapping his other arm about his throat. Before the sailor could reach for his sword, Toret wrenched him sideways into the alley and dragged him farther into the darkness.

The instant Toret had moved, Chane lunged from the shadows and lifted the second one off his feet, the sailor's mouth equally stilled by an iron grip. A quick spin into the alley, and the second sailor, struck the brick wall and slumped.

"Chane!" Toret called, holding his struggling victim.

In a flash, Chane swung hard with one fist, catching Toret's sailor in the jaw with a sharp crack. The sailor slumped unconscious.

"Not so hard," Toret snapped. "You'll kill him."

The sailor moaned, and Chane shook his head. "He is still alive."

Toret knelt atop the sailor, hesitating for a moment. He was starving but couldn't allow himself to fail, no matter what it cost him. His actions were all based on what he'd heard from his old master and maker, Lord Corische. He'd never actually seen Corische raise an undead, but he'd heard enough over the years to piece the process together.

Gripping the back of the sailor's head, he bit into the man's throat and drank without caution, feeling life and strength slam into his body like an overwhelming wave. He had fasted in order to take in more life than usual, and he took in as much as he could hold. This was the gluttonous gorging of the starved, with no pleasure in it as his body seemed to tear inside under the pressure of so much filling him up all at once.

He slowed immediately as he heard the sailor's heartbeat falter. His victim had to die so fast and hard, with a full leaching of his life energies, that it pushed him beyond the point of death before it actually occurred. He was guessing at what came next, but it had worked with Sapphire and Chane.

Toret pulled his teeth out of the sailor's flesh, slashed open his own wrist with his nails, and forced the dripping wound into his victim's mouth. Trying to keep from choking with his last breath, the sailor swallowed down Toret's dark fluids.

The man's heart stopped beating.

Toret fell, writhing in pain.

The alley darkened before his eyes, and sounds of his own body convulsing on the alley floor faded in his ears. Perhaps this was why there were so few of their kind.

Awareness died in Toret as he suffered the sailor's death as if it were his own. In this moment, he and his new creation were connected as one.

The first time with Sapphire had been horrifying, experiencing death again. What would have happened if he'd given in, sinking to the bottom of the darkness? Would he have truly died?

His own flesh felt like it would split and rupture from the inside. He forced his senses to widen, open, and then slammed his fist against the alley wall. Pain shot up his arm, but he didn't dismiss it as any undead could. He let it stab him. He struck the wall again. And again. Finally he flopped down on his back.

The hard cobble ground into his shoulders, and he let the irritation goad him. Any sensation to stay aware and pull him back up away from death was welcome.

As his vision returned, he found Chane staring down at him curiously.

Toret tried to speak but couldn't and simply held up a wavering hand. Chane obeyed, pulling him to his feet, and Toret staggered deeper down the alley to disgorge.

He'd not taken in all of the sailor's blood, for that was physically impossible. But he'd taken in so much to kill so quickly, that he couldn't feed on the other man if he was already glutted. His abdomen clenched as he heaved, and like an overturned bucket, blood poured from his mouth to splash on the ground, collecting in a dark pool around his feet.

Toret's vision jumped and twisted in vertigo as he stumbled back down the alley, one hand on the wall to steady himself. The first sailor's body lay still and unmoving, eyes open and mouth frozen wide in shock. Chane's expression remained casually curious.

"He is dead?" Chane asked.

"Yes," Toret managed to answer, resting for just a moment more. "The body will flush all waste, and perhaps by the end of the night he'll rise, but he must rest for tonight. Tomorrow evening, he'll be ready to serve our family."

Chane studied Toret. "You do not look like you can do this again."

Toret ignored him, and straddled the second man. Gripping the back of the sailor's head, he gorged again. As life slammed into his already sated body, he gagged. When he heard the heart falter, he pulled back, but the alley spun wildly around him.

"Help me!" he hissed.

Chane gripped his wrist, jerking it toward the sailor's mouth.

Darkness erupted in Toret's head and swallowed him whole.

Pieces of memory thinned and drifted from him like blood in tepid running water.

A clay-walled hovel in the beggar's quarters of il'Nar'Sahkil, where his mother lay sick as he scavenged and stole food from the markets, wondering always where and who his father was.

Teesha's eyes, softly stern but warmly admonishing as she tended his wounds.

Sapphire's cool body next to him while the sun burned through the sky over their roof.

Cold panic seized Toret like frost crystallizing around him to hold in the memories.

He opened his eyes to find himself lying facedown in the alley, his cheek to the cobblestone, and he convulsed until blood poured again from his mouth. He pushed himself up on his elbows as his abdomen clenched over and over, even after nothing more would come up.

By the time Toret finished, he was too weak to walk, and Chane lifted him to his feet, leaning him against the alley wall. He looked down at the bloodied cobblestones.

"I see now why you did not want to take them back to the house first," Chane commented dryly.

Toret ignored him, both hands flat against the wall to keep himself from sliding to the ground again.

"Search the alleys," he instructed weakly. "Find barrels, crates, tarp, or whatever is useful to hide the bodies. Then hail a carriage. I must get them back to the house."

"Very well," Chane answered. "I'll get them loaded. While you take them home, I will find your lady her young girl, perhaps somewhere in the upper districts. Will you be strong enough to unload them by the time you reach home?"

Toret nodded, and Chane slipped down the alley.

A visitor waited patiently outside Lord Au'shiyn's home in the inner wall ring. He remained in the shadows, and no one in this wealthy neighborhood had even seen him arrive. In little time, his patience was rewarded, as a coach pulled up to the outer gate.