It felt as if I were staring into the sun at noon.

Gifts.

He was a killer without thought. Snuffing out my existence and Wade's meant less than nothing. I was not immune to his gift, indeed probably more susceptible since it was new to me. But then again, he wasn't immune to mine either. I crossed my arms in fear and looked at the floor.

"Philip, don't hurt me."

Concentrate. Emanate. Get him on his knees.

"You're finally here," I said. "I kept hoping. I didn't know what to do."

His expression flickered. Could he feel it? Did he know what I was doing, or was he lost in some overinflated sense of forgotten manhood? He was so perfect. I'd never seen anything like him in my life-except Maggie.

A humorless smile curved the corners of his mouth. "We seem to be at a standoff, little one. Unexpected. Maggie tried to warn me, but her words were often exaggerated. Yet right now I feel an overwhelming urge to throw my body in front of a moving train to rescue your handkerchief."

A lie, and a stupid play. Showing that he already knew the score gave me an advantage. He liked to show off.

"How did you find me?"

"Followed you from Maggie's." He motioned with his head toward the bedroom. "Who's your pet?"

"No one. He's been helping me. If you sit down, I'll tell you everything."

I didn't tell him to sit down; that's the key to handling men like Philip. You can't tell them to do anything. You either ask them or make it seem like their own idea.

He crossed to a chair, expression guarded. I felt torn for a moment. Sitting by his feet would give me the best psychological advantage, but getting that close to him was dangerous.

"If I had come to kill you, you would be dead," he said in a voice that sounded more sad than angry. Sorrow was no mystery to me, at least not anymore.

Moving to the floor by his knee, I focused on his black Hugo Boss pant legs and not his face.

Don't look at his face.

"Odd little thing," he said. "More than I expected."

"Do you remember the first night I saw you?"

"No, have you seen me?"

My words pleased him. He might have had some depth hidden away, but he thrived on attention.

"Yes, at Cliffbracken. You came in with Julian and Maggie late one night, but that was a long time ago."

"A long time ago," he echoed. "What happened to my Maggie?"

"How much do you know? She said she called you once."

"Only that Edward Claymore destroyed himself and mortal men chased you to Seattle."

Part of me wanted to say anything that would make him leave. I wanted him to go away. Wade slept helpless in the next room, and I knew no way to protect him. But another part of me understood Philip's confusion, his pain. Maggie had been a deadly work of art, and she'd barely outlasted two lifetimes. She should have gone far into the future. And now it was as though she'd never been.

"A policeman killed her," I said quietly, "named Dominick Vasundara."

Starting with the first night at Edward's, I gave him my version of the past six weeks, letting him know the kind of hunter Maggie truly had been, so competent and skilled-and still graceful. No matter how sick it sounds, that was my comfort for his loss. Perhaps that's another gift I'd developed, instinctive recognition of what others needed to hear. I left out Wade's psychic ability, though, and played up Dominick's psychometry.

"You cared for her?" he asked.

"She was good to me… and to William."

"I was close to the house when he died."

His words startled me, leaving no response. For the first time since watching him step away from the curtain, I looked into his eyes. Reckless or not, it felt like the right thing to do. He was searching for words, like a computer accessing memory banks for a correct response and finding none. No residual trace of humanity remained in Philip.

"It's all right," I told him. "You don't need to say anything."

"Julian would think us mad, no? Like two old ladies sad for things past."

I didn't know how to answer that, so I just sat there, looking at him.

"Maggie's voice changed the last time she telephoned," he said abruptly. "You gave her something I could not."

"What?"

"You tell me."

"Maybe she was just tired of being alone."

"Our kind lives alone, hunts alone. It's the way."

If he really believed that, he was as cracked as Julian. But Philip's expression reminded me of faces I hadn't seen since going to church as a child. Religion? Did we have a religion? If so, Edward certainly hadn't mentioned it.

"Why are we supposed to be alone?" I asked.

"Your maker once said we are the despised of God's children. We live in darkness and deserve no comfort."

"That's ridiculous. We used to be mortal ourselves. If that's true, where did the first vampires come from?"

"Spirits. Before the world was made, a mass of black clouds existed in its place. When God made the world, spirits rebelled and entered the bodies of dead mortals."

What? Did Julian believe any of this? Maybe Edward had been some sort of heathen or atheist, because he had never talked like this-not that I was buying into it either. But does it make any less sense than other religions? Does it sound any less plausible than four billion years of evolution being condensed into six days?

"So why did you make Maggie? Didn't you want her to stay with you?" I pitched my tone to suggest deference, childlike innocence. Challenging him would have been a mistake.

The question threw him anyway. "A crime… but letting her beauty fade seemed a sin. Not before, not since, has anyone matched my Maggie." He smiled weakly. "Julian would think us mad."

That was it. Possibly not even in life had Philip experienced true loss, mourning. Emotion confused him, and this kind of pain was new.

"Why did you come here, Philip?"

"For you. I came for you."

The ambiguity of his answer brought fear rushing back. I rolled over and up, gauging the distance to Wade's door.

"Worried about your pet?"

"He's not a pet."

"You should silence him, little one. He knows what you are, doesn't he?"

I wanted to smash his face with a brass lamp, but I'd lose, and Wade would die. "No, please. He doesn't know much-just some guy I seduced for help. Don't hurt him."

That was a bad play, and Philip knew it. Vampires don't worry about each other, much less about one insignificant mortal.

"You are a curious thing," he said. "But when Julian comes, your pet will die anyway. Come with me, and he might live."

"Why would you want that?"

"Maggie helped you. Edward helped you. At the beginning, they were on the brink of despair. Oh, don't look so shocked. I know more of Edward than you think. He'd have jumped off a porch a hundred years sooner were it not for you." His handsome face grew intense. "What did you give them?" he demanded.

"Nothing."

"Come, tell me. I am more than Edward was."

Bastard. He was taking me whether I wanted to go or not. Defeat ebbed my power, faded my gift, brought anger to the surface. "You're nothing compared to Edward. Would you take in an orphan and a half-mad undead? Bathe them? Feed them from your arm? Don't compare yourself to him."

I might as well have slapped him. Perhaps no one ever spoke to him like that. He took a step toward me and stopped. "Odd thing. Cold without your gift."

"As you."

Gazing down, his eyes reminded me of Maggie's again. Did he have any of her fire for living? For hunting? Compassion for old cripples like William? Or was he empty?

And then it occurred to me that everyone else was really gone-except Julian, who didn't count. If I wanted companionship from my own kind, Philip was the last boy in town. Sorry thought.

"Come with me," he said. "Your little friend will live."