"My little witch?" Emma gave a guarded lift of her chin, endeavoring in vain to ignore the wind that swept up over the cliffs in a mournful aria. The lonely sounds ushered in a fell rumble of distant thunder. A betokening of Anna's ill fate perhaps?

"Aye, the very same witch who took grave trouble in warning you against your lover." Victoria's lips flattened impenetrably. "A warning you dismissed."

The copse in which they stood was dense with umbrage. It compassed them as absolutely as nightfall. The harried leaves above, rustling and murmuring beneath the overset sky, allowed not even a momentary shaft of light to pierce the canopy and, thereby, bolster Emma's blood with needful warmth and light. The thunder and the bold flash of Victoria's fangs instantly drained what little hardihood remained to her. The sudden flare of the vampyre's nostrils spurred Emma to guard her face, though scarce could she master her stench of fear. She needed whatever armor she possessed if she was to spar with this creature and hope to outlast the mad endeavor. "Where is Anna?" Emma gave an impotent clench of her fist. "Upon my honor, fiend, if you have caused her any harm—"

"I wish you will calm yourself and listen"—Victoria gave an impatient sniff—"for it is not as if I have all the time in the world at my disposal, you know." Despite her words, Victoria grew still and waited until Emma had set her teeth and clamped her mouth shut. The vampyre made no attempt to act at all natural—as she had done before Winterly had evicted her from his castle—and stood frozen as a gargoyle, neither breathing nor blinking the while she considered Emma. Finally, she peeled her lips apart and moved only that which was required to form the cold sharp words that now filled the silence. "The dire plight of your witch, I assure you, was not of my creation. If it is blame you seek then look no further than yourself, for it was you that so recklessly lead Gabriel to her."

"Gabriel is nothing to me! I had no part—"

"For thousands of years, Gabriel has wanted nothing more than to seize himself a watcher." After a short cruel bark of laughter, she continued, "And here you have delivered him of the very watcher that killed his precious Sariel!" More hollow laughter swiftly ensued as she noted the wary scowl that flickered over Emma's brow. "Oh, famous! Did she neglect to mention her own perfidious trespasses against our kind? Did you imagine your little witch to be without the stain of murder on her soul?" Victoria gave a repugnant snort. "Naive girl. Well, at any event, she is gone and the fault is entirely your own. Had not you lead Markus to the inn—and therefore Gabriel—your little witch would even now be scurrying timidly in her lair of rotting tomes, safe as a church mouse. And it is you that delivered your only sister to the dragon himself, so have a care where you so recklessly cast your blame."

"Snake!" cried Emma! "It was not Markus that slithered each night into Milli's room to steal the warmth from her veins!"

"I stole nothing! I loved her and I love her still!"

"Love!" Emma spat. "A lover does not feed off the innocent! You are no more Milli's lover than a tick upon a lamb!"

"And what of your lover?! Did the dragon steal your blood while you slumbered, peaceful, in his coils, or did you offer it to him like a wanton lamb—a willing victim."

Like a cold dead trout, Emma opened and then shut her mouth in quick sickening succession, mindful of the untenability of her rash denial. "I..." She wrenched her eyes a moment from those unnatural orbs boring mercilessly into her very skull, the better to rally her thoughts. "You merely juxtapose love with obsession. I offered myself, it is true, but Milli gave you no such leave. The distinction here is love and you have no idea what that is."

"Markus bears you no love, you little fool!"

"I know that! But I cannot help how I feel!"

Here Victoria's stony eyes appeared to tremble beneath the force of some fulminating pathos. From her eyes erupted small freshets, a sudden thawing of those frozen looks that had, all this time, fixed on Emma like impatient shards. "Aye, he cannot love. Who better than I should know the veracity of such a foredoomed undertaking, for I have loved him for millennia; have surrendered every loving beat of my heart to him time and again. And this I did with no hope of that love ever being reciprocated, for I know what he is and what he will never be capable of." She dragged her nails raggedly over the smooth slabs of her white cheeks, hastily banishing the unwelcome thaw. "We were lovers once, he and I, but, I misuse the term, for there was no such sentiment between us, leastwise not on his part. I confess I was no more to him than an eager body—as you are now a warm and willing wineskin. Hence, be warned little lamb, he will use you ill. He will cast your desiccated bones aside when he is through with you."

Hatred, hot and bilious, surged to the fore and it was all Emma could do not to lunge at the tear-stained statue looming over her. "So you detained me only to confess your vile incestuous love for your brother?!" The thought of Victoria in Markus' bed—the idea of his lips caressing her beautiful flesh—sickened Emma. "You beastly wicked thing!"

"He is no more my brother than you are my sister."

"What do you want? Come to the point at once, I grow tired of your prating."

Victoria stood a moment manifestly taken aback—as much as vampiric inscrutability would allow—before she answered. "I want you to free Milli from him."

"So that you may wrap your leaching lips about her neck? Never!"

"My wish," she said cooly, "would be merely one of the happy consequences of what is your only recourse. You must Kill Markus."

Kill Markus. The words fell so hard upon Emma that she felt her bones shudder with the force.

"Advisedly, I care nothing for you," Victoria went on, "except that your eventual demise is like to upset your poor sister. Accordingly, and for the sake of my conscience, I must make some small effort to secure your safety, dubious as that may be. Your success is, after all, only to my benefit, therefore—" she sighed "—I shall prepare you."

Kill Markus. Twice now had this exigency been devolved to her, first by Anna and now by their mutual enemy, the very snake that had stolen the color from Milli's cheeks. The trees, adjured by the encroaching cloudburst, seemed to threaten closer, menacing and demanding with dark and silent censure. Kill Markus. Kill Markus. Kill Markus. Again and again, they echoed the vampyre's impossible words.

"No!" Emma flung her arms out in desperate refusal and then planted her palms against her ears, the better to smother their awful chanting. "No!"

"Then you will end up no better than every other sad creature that dared to love him."

Swiftly came the image of Markus—Kassiel—swooping down like a raging carrion bird, cleaving instantly to his prey. No matter how fiercely Emma shook her head she could not oust the visceral flashes of blood memory from her brain—could no more escape the fervid sounds of his wet supping than if she herself lay dying beneath him. "I cannot!"

"You must!" Victoria brought her lips to Emma's ears. "You must," she said again, her voice soft and yet overmastering even the wind and the hideous sucking noises. "And to sweeten our bargain—" as though Emma had not just negatived, with desperate shakes of her head, above a hundred times "—I shall make you a vow: if you should die in the undertaking, I shall not touch Milli ever again except to liberate her from him."

"I don't believe you," Emma whispered miserably. What was her strength to his?

Saying nothing, Victoria peeled back her sleeve with impatient movements and bit readily into her wrist. The very next moment, her bleeding flesh was thrust at Emma's mouth. "I give you my blood and my honor on it!" There was a spark of insult in her scowl.

Emma glared her odium and pushed the wrist away. "Never."

"I disrelish the idea as wholly as you do, but I will not have you question my vow."

"And what will you do with Milli once she is in your power?"

"Only that which she bids me, and nothing more."

Emma gave another rapid shake of her head, her nerves blunted and ravaged. She needed time to think alone, and she could not do that with a vampyre looming and seething over her. And another far more formidable vampyre on its way. Trust Victoria?! Ha! She could not even trust herself, or Anna. Or Markus. Only God himself knew how she ought to act, but she was too filled with shame to supplicate Him.

"Bah!" Victoria growled and pulled her sleeve tersely over her wound. "If you will not kill him, then do mankind a service and make away with yourself instead." She then crouched low to the ground like a wolf preparing to lunge.

Emma threw out her hands and stumbled back in fright, crying out in horror.

The reaction merely amused the vampyre as she watched, her fingers questing in the leaves and dirt. Presently, she found what she had been searching for and then unbent herself to stand tall once more. In her hand, she clutched the mud-caked hilt of an inconspicuous little blade still in its scabbard. "You'll be needing this, methinks."

Having recovered herself, Emma folded her arms tight against her chest, tucking her hands under her arms, and scowled at Victoria. "I will not do it."

Long steely fingers then wrapped themselves painfully around Emma's wrists, forcing her to take hold of the hilt. With deliberate force, her overpowering fingers tight over Emma's, she moved the tip of the scabbard over Emma's heart. "Yours or his—one of you must die. I care not which."

Emma blenched and wrested her wrists from Victoria's clutches. The wind flung the rain at her face, hitting her eyes like tiny blades, but she held her glare firmly in place. "Kill m-myself?! Never!"

"I know what you are!" Victoria set her sharp teeth. "Your dragon knows what you are! Why do you think he has kept you alive all this time? Even now you may be carrying his spawn! Kill him!"

"No!"

"Don't be a fool!" Victoria gave a despiteful snort. "I ought to kill you myself and be done with it." She appeared to consider the ramifications a moment but ostensibly gave the notion up as being unappealing, for she next said, "However, I am too vain a creature to risk my own neck...and Markus' wrath. Leastwise, not for you." Stormwater lashed her face like a cataract, yet she appeared unconcerned by the sting of wet and cold. "I'm afraid it must be your hand that wields the blade, one way or the other."

"I tell you, I cannot kill him!"

"Then take the blade for yourself." Victoria's hand shot out viperously fast and before Emma knew what she was about, the vampyre snatched her hand up and slapped the hilt of the blade forcibly in her palm. "Stop struggling, damn you!" Her voice was sharp as flint above the howl of the storm. "All I've said here today is true: your witch may already be lost to you, but your sister's life is yet salvageable. Do you think Markus would let her live long once you've been snuffed? Knowing what she knows? Knowing what we are? She'd be of no use to him then. Committing her to Bedlam—branding her a raving lunatic—might entertain him a twelvemonth at the very most, but, in due course, he would tire of that divertissement."

A strange catalepsy seeped deep into Emma's marrow, the dagger laying heavier in her palm as the vampyre went on.

"Then there is the matter of your...usefulness. Certainly, he will not do to you what was done to those poor unfortunate women in London. No, he means to beget an heir on you first."

"The London s-slaying?!" Despite her chattering teeth and the roar of nature, Emma's words rang clear with dread. "That cannot be!"

"Can it not? Your lover has quite the voracious appetite." The black eyes tightened slightingly. "But then you know all about his appetites, don't you?"

"No! Liar! He could never—"

"Do not deceive yourself! Pray, where did you first meet your beau? Hmm? What do you think he was doing the night he rescued you? But, of course, you know the answer: hunting, my dear. It does not take but some small measure of perspicacity to divine his motives that night. Every night. Where was he last night, hmm, when you were plotting with your witch?" Then she shrugged. "Well, never mind. You have only to avail yourself of any newspaper to see for yourself what the brothers have been doing while your head was turned." Victoria then aimed a disdainful glare at Emma's waist. "How you can stand to be the mother of his abominations, I don't know."

Emma dropped the dagger, her fingers slipping down, trembling, to clutch at her waist.

"Ah, yes. I am sure your estimable parents would be only too proud to know their eldest daughter not only bears the mark of the beast—" here she directed a fleeting scowl at Emma's neck "—and relinquished her own sister to the devil himself but has made herself his great harlot." Victoria's eyes grew bleak and grave of a sudden. "Tell me, will you be always The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth? Will you bear the very spawn your Book of Revelation warns will devour the world and all those as innocent as your young sister?"

"Enough, I beg you!"

"Or will you be the woman clothed in white"—she picked the dagger up from where it had lain at Emma's feet—"the enemy of the Dragon. A white queen to save your race of lambs."

Emma clamped her hands once more to her ears, lest Victoria's skewed allegories twist her head from her shoulders. "I will hear no more!" But it was too late and she had heard enough; the snake's venom had spread too far already. No matter how she fought to negate the vampyre's exhortations, Emma had heard and now knew too much. And it was agony to love the Dragon and to know what he was; to know he bore her no love in return; to know that she was fain to die rather than plunge the blade into his heart. Fain to die rather than bear his offspring.

It was all too much! Were it not for Anna's revelations, she might have better withstood Victoria's attack, but she was only a mortal—weak and fallible. There was far too much mounting evidence and testimony against Markus, to say nothing of the Book of Revelations itself.

"Kill him, Emma!"

"I will not!"

"Then kill yourself."

Emma answered with a negativing sob.

"So you will conduce the fall of mankind instead? you selfish little wretch!"

Emma dropped to her knees and keened as not even the wind and surf pummeling the cliffs could do. She prayed and wept till her throat was raw with agony, and all the while the vampyre watched with cold detachment.

She, Emma, was the Dragon's harlot! Just a vessel through which evil could be made flesh and, thereby, smite the earth. Smite all as viciously as had been done to the women in London. Even now, in the deprecating moaning of the wind, she heard the sermons of her rector echoing along the ramparts of the castle, warning of the sea churning with blood, the earth engulfed by fire, and the world plunged into absolute darkness.

When Emma's throat was finally hoarse and silent, though her eyes were drenched still in tears and rain, Victoria knelt down beside her. "Into his heart," she said, vouchsafing the dagger once more into Emma's hand. "He might not love you, but he trusts your weakness. He will not expect an attack from you. Impale his heart when he least expects it and perhaps you may yet live to see your sister again." Victoria stood suddenly and cast her eyes warily to the leaden sky. The storm had passed, dragging with it the pall of clouds in its wake, but dusk was already snatching the colors from the sky. "I must go." She glanced about her, restive and fearful now. "Good luck, little white queen." But she spared no backward glance as she turned to leave. "Make haste, he comes."

Emma lay still and prostrate, her head turned to the side, filling her nose with the decay of leaves and earth. The dagger lay cold in her palm, but, for all it sickened her to do so, she clenched her fingers tightly around the hilt. What choice did she have? "Wait," she whispered at Victoria's retreating back. "How will I...?" Speaking the question aloud repulsed her much as the thought.

Victoria understood her perfectly. "Wait till daybreak—he is more powerful at night." That said, she launched herself into the shadows and was gone.

Drenched and cold, Emma lifted her cheek from the ground and then proceeded to test her trembling limbs. It was some time before she felt herself able to stumble, wretched and undecided, from the copse back towards the waiting castle. Towards uncertainty. Her feet appeared to have purpose, but not she. What choice do I have? she asked of herself again. Murder or suicide. Two choices offering such cold comfort.

The dagger she had sheathed securely in her boot. So heavy was the burden that it bedeviled her gait and reduced her to some misshapen creature skulking furtively in the night. Past the black roses, she moved, shivering beneath their sharp glares. Kill Markus. Kill Markus. Kill Markus. Even they had taken up the hideous canticle of the trees. Or was it all only the dooming chant of her own heartbeats? Each subsequent knell came harder and faster till her heart was racing, hopeless. Kill Markus. Kill Markus. Kill Markus.

The jarring din came suddenly to halt as she rounded the hedgerow. The lamps either side of the giant double doors glowed suspiciously as she neared. Her sodden dress clung to her limbs, heavy as leg irons. She slowed, her bones crippled with impending doom. Fear held primacy even over her desperate need to warm her flesh by the fire. Presently, she stopped altogether, unwilling to enter. Unwilling to go any further. And there she might have stayed all night, frozen, had not the doors suddenly swung apart and the flames guttered fearfully before the great dragon.

Markus surveyed her from the doorway, his face thrown into shadow, as he waited. Thus, she forced herself forward. He stood, unmoving, bestial in his stillness, as the night air crackled and snapped with the force of his ire. All was silent as she mounted the stairs. Only her heart sustained the morbid canticle, heedless of the dragon's discerning ears, fain to warn him of all that had transpired, and all that would betide by morning light.

Less than ten chapters to go! Woot Woot! How excited are you?

Do you guys have any questions so far? Anything you're hoping gets resolved by the end? Lemme know!