"You're lucky you walked away from that one!" the cop marveled, chowing down on his Snickers bar so that it took some effort on Roman's part to decipher what exactly he had said.

The tow truck was backing along the shoulder, inching menacingly towards them.

Roman closed his fist, running his fingertips over the new ridges of scars, the entry and exit points of the glass and steel shards that had been his '71 Jag. He healed faster, more so with every passing day, as he grew into his new self. He didn't really have to fear things like near-fatal car accidents.

Of course, if he'd been paying attention, he wouldn't have had to test his healing powers. And he'd still have the car. He winced as the tow truck's arm struck it and the gears grinded, lowering to latch onto his prized possession.

"Cool car!" Peter had said enviously and how much fun he had driving it. Roman remembered every detail of that road trip.

He remembered every detail of the accident, too, the way you remember traumas –in slow motion so that everything takes on a new emphasis. So that you see things you aren't meant to see.

The car had come up behind him. If he had been paying attention to it, he would have noticed at once that it was accelerating way too fast, coming up on his tail not to pass him but to hit him. But he hadn't and by the time he'd registered the problem and looked in the rear view mirror, it was too late. What he did see was what he was sure he wasn't supposed to see - the expression on the driver's face. So captivated was he by that face that when the man came alongside him and pushed him to the edge, he was still dwelling on it and failed to react appropriately to keep from colliding with the barrier.

All he had to do was brake. How many Bourne and Bond movies had he seen, for Christ's sake?

But it was what came next that threw him into a tailspin. He'd blacked out for a second, no more. When he woke he saw that the driver had looped back, stopping in the median to park in the thickness of the trees to jump out. He was carrying something and even from the distance between them Roman could smell the gasoline. The reality that he was about to be barbequed kicked him into action. He wrenched the wheel and windshield from him and leaped from the car, jumping the rail and sprinting down the hillside into the woods where he waited breathlessly, wondering what his assailant might do. He heard the footfalls over the roar of cross traffic and the ripping of metal as his car came to a full rest. Uncertain, he just peeked around the bushes and watched as the man came to the edge of the road and peered down into the darkness. He was tall but otherwise unremarkable. African-American, trim, athletic. It was his eyes that bothered Roman, that and the fact that he was carrying a gas can and had just run him off the road.

Roman could have sworn that the man, peering hundreds of yards down the cliff, and was staring straight at him.

….

He called Norman, feeling like an 18-year-old. He'd done this plenty of times with his mom but that was before he'd turned, before he was a father himself. He had hoped to present himself to the world in a new light, to pass himself off as a responsible adult. The phone call was humiliating.

"Jesus Christ, Roman! Did you fall asleep at the wheel?" Norman had had a girl, not a boy. He had never had any testosterone in his household except his own. His girls were sweet and malleable. He had never in his life been called out of bed for a near-fatal car accident, his brother's shenanigans aside.

But perhaps pregnancies were just as wearing on an old man.

"No," Roman pulled the seat belt over his shoulder and glanced once more at the wreckage under the platoon of flashing lights. "I ran off the road." He omitted the fact that he had been pushed off intentionally. Some things unnerved fathers in the early hours of morn; some things Norman just didn't need to know. Ever.

Norman was still sputtering expletives as he maneuvered the Volvo wagon back onto the turnpike to head back to Hemlock Grove. "Coffee?" was all he said and that more of a grunt than an invitation.

Roman fell asleep in the passenger seat and dreamed of absolutely nothing.

…

"I'm telling you someone tried to kill me." It did sound a little histrionic and he did appreciate Destiny's skepticism. He just didn't need it today.

"Did you get a look at the person?"

"Sort of. He was a ways from me. But male from the scent. And dark."

"Dark?"

"Black." He offered.

"Dark-skinned?" She wasn't sure if he was being metaphorical.

"For fuck's sake, isn't this your line of work? Can't you just look into the crystal ball and tell me who tried to kill me?"

"It doesn't work that way. If you'd brought me a piece of the wreckage or some of his hair – "

"How about this? This came out of the wreckage." He held out his scarred hand.

"Scars are good." She peered closely at them, her nose no more than a centimeter above. "We'll need help with this one. Someone who has access to –" and she rambled off an odd array of items that Peter would appreciate.

"Where do we get those?" he asked, exasperated by all the delays.

"Nicole."

….

Nicole was Peter's favorite first-cousin-once-removed, the one who still lived in the city they had just left, the only one who didn't feel staying put for more than two years was a terrible thing. Her profession was much like the other Rumancek women, "only more legit," Destiny grinned. "Nicole's the real shit. We're all pretty much amateurs by comparison." It occurred to Roman to wonder why Nicole's name had never been brought up before but etiquette required him to keep his mouth shut. The Rumanceks had their own arcane way of doing things that defied comprehension by outsiders.

Nicole lived on the tenth floor of an apartment complex with no elevator which meant they had to walk the steps. Roman thought this was a bad omen and he and Destiny spent several flights quibbling over the matter. Destiny equated climbing with elevation of the mind and Roman said bullshit, it just made his lungs and thighs hurt and Destiny almost brought up the refined sugars number but the look on his face said he wasn't having any of it.

"No wonder Peter moved!" was all he said.

Nicole's door had all the anticipated marks against evil but whatever else he expected, he could never have anticipated her. She was small and dark and looked nothing like what he thought a gypsy fortune-teller should look like. She was fit and had a monkey face that led him to wonder if other species were in the family lineage.

She looked like she could have been a contortionist in a Romanian circus troupe.

"How'd you guess?" she murmured and when Roman was taken aback she said, "Gymnast. But acrobat works as well," and continued to lead them into her abode as if he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

"And you are the upyr!" she exclaimed when they arrived in the back room, a veritable opium den with more knick-knacks than Peter's trailer. Roman was starting to see family traits. The only thing missing was Christmas lights. She obligingly turned them on for him.

"Yes," he said politely, for want of anything better to say.

"You've not spoken of this to Peter?" It was a statement even though the final words ended on the up note.

"No." There really wasn't anything else to say. "Fuckin' shit hasn't called" would hardly be appropriate with a favorite first cousin once removed.

"You have every reason to be angry," she said soothingly and Roman made a mental note not to think in complete sentences.

He tried to clear his head.

"Clearing your head is good," she continued. "It will help us see the one who pursues you."

He'd long gotten used to language like that – "the one who pursues you" or "to rise, a victim of your own hand" or "to be a stillpoint in a turning world, that is the greatest feat of the warrior." He often wondered if English really was their native tongue.

Nicole laughed, a rousing belly laugh, and began lighting candles. "We are the children of our Mother, Earth."

He was used to that too, the whole earth/candle thing.

"Do you wish to speak with Peter?"

The words caught him off guard and before he could compose himself and say it didn't really matter he had already blurted out, "Yes!"

"He would help you on your journey," was all she said before motioning him to the table. "Sit."

He did as he was told.

Destiny sat as well.

She exhaled and stretched, from the very tips of her fingers to – he suspected – her toes, rolling her shoulders and allowing her head to rotate circularly around her neck in a way he always felt was completely bogus, pretending to relax while preparing to invite the supernatural. He felt like he had an army of ants marching under his skin. He wished they would just go ahead and admit that they were as tense as he was. How could anyone getting ready to face a spirit be relaxed?

She pulled her head back to its normal position and opened her eyes to look straight into his. "You know your past?" she asked and again the question was rhetorical.

He said "yes" and then immediately "no" realizing she was referring to his upyr past and not his immediate family's history.

"As it is. The Dragon does not look to his past but remains in the present." She closed her eyes again and made several tired sounds and then she began to sway slightly in that way that made Roman hopeful.

She reached and took his hand. "You are powerful," she continued, "More powerful than you know.

"But your mother was a greater power still and it is she who has laid your path."

He'd killed his mother a few months earlier but figured Nicole already knew that.

"Your mother's plan threatens all. You alone possess the ability to stop her."

"She's dead," Roman interjected, silencing himself when he felt Destiny's hand squeezing his in a reprimand.

"There are those who seek to destroy you," Nicole continued. "And they will."

"What?" It wasn't at all what he wanted to hear.

"Shhhhhhhhht!" hissed Destiny.

"Only one way, to join with your sworn enemy." Her voice had that sing-song fading quality that meant the session was about to end.

He racked his brain trying to think who his sworn enemy might be. "Peter?" he ventured diffidently. He hadn't really thought of him as an enemy at all though their last words had been pretty harsh.

Destiny kicked him again.

But it was too late. Nicole was descending from the higher levels of consciousness and shook her head briskly.

"I need a drink!" she stated in typical Rumancek fashion.

…..

"Who's my sworn enemy?" Roman demanded as he and Destiny left the apartment and climbed down the ten flights of stairs with considerably more ease than they had climbed up.

"I dunno," she was genuinely perplexed. "You can't think of anybody who has it in for you?"

"Just about everybody has it in for me," he pointed out. "And that was why we came here in the first place," he reminded her. "To find out who was trying to kill me in the car."

"Well there you have it," she said with the logic and genuineness of a ten-year-old. "Whoever is trying to kill you is your sworn enemy."

Roman sighed and ducked into the car. He'd had enough of gypsy bullshit for the year.

….

"And how come she didn't tell me how to get in touch with Peter?" he demanded on the route home. He was still in a kerfuffle over the whole episode.

"You're assuming she's in touch with him."

"Well, yeah. Isn't she his favorite cousin?"

"That makes no difference. He will run as long as he must."

"Please stop speaking like that."

"Like what?"

"All the 'as long as he must' bullshit. Can't you people just speak normally?"

"What do you want me to say?" His bad mood was catching. "That you're fucked?"

"Yeah, tell me I'm fucked."

"K. You're fucked."

"Thanks a lot." He glared at her and shifted gears.

…..

He packed better this time, a hand gun and the family executioner's axe and even borrowed his mother's black Ford pick-up. Far more sensible in every respect. Shelley would need a place to sit when he found her.

"I really wish you would let the police handle this," Norman said tiredly. He'd dealt with more in the past year than the entire previous 48 years combined. And that was saying something.

"The police aren't doing anything. How hard can it be to find Shelley? And she wouldn't be safe if they did find her anyway. No, it has to be me."

Norman pulled together his best tolerant father expression. "Drive only during the day and call frequently." He said to his son.

"Will do." It was such a different experience, having a dad. He felt no need to give his customary Nazi salute.

…