something primal about standing in front of a roaring fire. It answered an elemental need deep inside him, though he wasn't sure why. Perhaps it had something to do with the smoky scent of the wood and the hiss of the flames, or maybe it was the surging power held at bay by nothing more than a few bricks.
He stared into the hearth, mesmerized, as always, by the life that pulsed within the flames. All the colors of the rainbow danced within the flickering tongues of fire: red and yellow, blue and green and violet, a deep pure white.
Moving away from the fireplace, he wandered through the house, listening to the rising wind as it howled beneath the eaves. Thebranches of an old oak tree tapped against one of the upstairs windows, sounding for all the world like skeletal fingers scratching at the glass, as if some long-banished spirit were seeking entrance to the house.
He grinned, surprised by his fanciful thoughts, and by the recurring urge to go to the hospital and have a look at Gail Crawford's older sister.
Hospitals. He had never been inside one. In all the years of his existence, he had never been sick.
Forcing all thoughts ofGail and her sister from his mind, he went into the library, determined to finish the research needed for his latest novel before the night was through.
It was after four when he admitted he was fighting a losing battle. He couldn't concentrate, couldn't think of anything but the brave little girl who had come to him looking for a miracle.
Scowling, he stalked out into the night, drawn by a force he could no longer resist, his footsteps carrying him swiftly down the narrow dirt path that cut through the woods to the thriving seaside town of Moulton Bay.
The hospital was located on a side street near the far end of the town. It was a tall white building. He thought it looked more like an ancient mausoleum than a modern place of healing.
A myriad of scents assaulted his keen sense of smell the moment he opened the front door: blood, death, urine, the cloying scent of flowers, starch and bleach, the pungent smell of antiseptics and drugs.
At this time of the morning, the corridors were virtually deserted. He found the Intensive Care Unit at the end of a long hallway.
A nurse sat at a large desk, thumbing through a stack of papers. Alex watched her for a moment; then, focusing his mind on one of the emergency buzzers located at the opposite end of the corridor, he willed it to ring.
As soon as the nurse left the station, he walked past the desk and stepped into the Intensive Care Ward.
There was only one patient: Kara Elizabeth Crawford, age twenty-two, blood type A negative. She was swathed in bandages, connected to numerous tubes and monitors.
He quickly perused her chart. She had sustained no broken bones, though she had numerous cuts and contusions; a gash in her right leg had required stitching. She had three bruised ribs, a laceration in her scalp, internal bleeding. Amazingly, her face had escaped injury. She had fine, even features. A wealth of russet-colored hair emphasized her skin's pallor. Indeed, her face was almost as white as the pillowcase beneath her head. She had been in a coma for the last four days. Her prognosis was grim.
"Where are you, Kara Crawford?" he murmured. "Is your spirit still trapped within that feeble tabernacle of flesh, or has your soul found redemption in worlds beyond while you wait for your body to perish?"
He stared at the blood dripping from a plastic bag down a tube and into her arm. The sharp metallic scent of it excited a hunger he had long ago suppressed. Blood. The elixir of life.
He frowned as he glanced down at his arm, at the dark blue vein. He had survived for two hundred years because of the blood in his veins.
"If I gave you my blood, would it bring you back from the edge of eternity," he mused aloud, "or would it release you from your tenuous hold on life and send you to meet whatever waits on the other side?"
He let the tip of one finger slide down the soft, smooth skin of her cheek and then, driven by an impulse he could neither understand nor deny, he picked up a syringe, removed the protective wrapping, and inserted the needle into the large vein of his left arm, watching with vague interest as the