CHAPTER NINE

They found Kahn several hours later. Selene was so relieved to know he had survived and so relieved to see him that for a moment she forgot that she was traveling in the company of an avowed enemy, even if he was her lover. Kahn shoved her aside and was looking at Michael down the barrel of his weapon before she could stop him. He fired and she cried out, simultaneously. There was no need. Michael moved beyond the speed of light. The only way she knew he had moved at all was a change in the atmosphere beside her. She could not follow him with her senses, heightened though they were. Kahn lowered his gun, a look of astonishment on his face. Michael came to rest beside him and almost casually flicked the weapon from the vampire's hand before another second passed. Michael looked distinctly uncomfortable. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself.

"I'm going to assume this is Michael," Kahn finally said as he bent to retrieve his gun.

"Yeah," Michael said, holding out his hand in greeting. Kahn took a step backward and hissed in warning. Michael slowly let his hand drop.

"We have to talk." Selene said tightly. "Is there somewhere we can go?"

Kahn looked Michael up and down several times. He jerked his head to a nearby car, motioning Michael to walk ahead of him. He didn't care if Selene had lost her sanity, he didn't intend to follow. Somehow the creature beside her was familiar…but no, that was impossible. He was plainly lycan, he couldn't possibly be a vampire, no matter what impression he gave.

As they approached the car, Kahn suddenly stopped. He shook his head and said, "On second thought, I'm not putting myself into such a small space with a lycan. Whatever you have to say, Selene, say it here." His expression was steely, his eyes narrow.

"Kahn, all I'm asking is that you listen."

He spit on the ground before her. Selene was not surprised by his rejection, but still it tore at her. "When did you decide to turn your back on your own kind?" he demanded.

"It isn't like that. You have to understand. All that we are, all that we have been fighting against has been a lie. Every single thing we've been made to believe is a lie. I need to tell you this! Please listen to me!" She took a step forward and Kahn brought his gun up. Michael growled in warning. He stepped between the two vampires. His eyes were a glittering deep shade; his fingers lengthened into sudden claws.

"He's protecting you?" Kahn was furious. "A lycan? A lycan? You're a Death Dealer! What in the hell has happened to you, Selene?"

"My eyes have been opened," she said quietly. "All I want is a chance to tell you what I've learned."

He shook his head and Michael added, "I'm not your enemy. There are some things you need to know. Kraven betrayed you…"

"What do you know about Kraven?" Kahn sneered.

"He was in league with the lycans to overthrow your Elders. That's something I know. You want to keep fighting for an eternity? First you need to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. You owe it to the survival of your species to hear us out. If you don't want to get into a car with me, then we'll walk back the way we came. I'll walk in front if you'd like." With that, Michael turned away.

Kahn took an angry breath. By nature, he was a logical man. Neither Selene nor her creature appeared to be armed. Neither had drawn a weapon or made any hostile move toward him. He had known Selene for centuries and if anything, he knew her to be truthful and unequivocal. He decided to listen to whatever they had to tell him. "Alright!" He tossed the keys to Selene. "You drive, I'm not taking any chances." Michael stopped walking and turned back. His eyes slowly faded to their customary hue. He gave Selene a small smile and shrugged.

Selene took the wheel. Kahn directed them across the Danube, toward Gellért Hill. He never let his guard down, nor did he loosen his grip on his weapon. The tension literally rolled off of Selene's fellow Death Dealer. He spoke very little, giving directions in terse bursts. When at last they arrived at the end of a long, wooded drive, he pointed toward a majestic villa, its stucco a rich, burnt orange and cream.

"Is this yours?" Michael asked, impressed.

"My home was Ordoghaz," Kahn spat. He climbed out of his car and led them to a pair of beautifully carved doors. He stopped before them. "I'm going to allow you inside for one reason. Neither of you has made any move to arm yourselves. I'm curious to know what could be so important that you'd allow yourselves to be at such a disadvantage. I'll hear you out and then I want you to leave, do you understand?"

He did not speak again until they were inside. He escorted them into a large sitting room and made no attempt to hide his displeasure when Michael sat close enough to Selene to touch her. "Do you think she needs you as a watchdog, lycan?" Kahn asked, his voice caustic.

"Yes," Michael said quietly. "Make no mistake, I'd fight you with everything I have before I'd let any harm come to her."

"Is that a threat?" Kahn hissed.

Composed and with absolute conviction Michael said in a low voice, "No. It is my promise to you."

"Enough!" Selene snapped. Both Kahn and Michael turned to her. "Enough," she said softer. She leaned forward, her eyes glowing. "Kahn, sit down please. We've been fighting a war for the wrong reasons. Three of our elders have been slain within days of each other: Amelia by Kraven's treachery, Viktor and Marcus by my own hand."

"Your hand?"

"Yes," she said simply.

Stunned, Kahn slowly sank down. "I think you'd better explain what you mean."

Selene nodded and began to speak. She began with the night she had returned to the coven, bringing a clip of ultraviolet death to Kahn for analysis. She confirmed that Kraven had indeed plotted against the Elders with Lucian while Lucian built his army of lycans. But when she tried to describe Viktor's death, she faltered. She took several breaths before she could continue. Michael continued the story to the meeting with Alexander Corvinus and then Selene again found her voice. What she refused to share was losing Michael…her desperation, feeling as if she could not survive his death. For reasons she could not explain even to herself, she also held back the secret of Alexander's blood. She was the 'future', but what did that really mean? How could she explain this to Kahn, make him understand what she still struggled to understand? If Kahn were captured or tortured, she would not have this miracle become yet another reason to hunt her down and take her life. She carefully related the events surrounding Marcus' defeat. When at last she stopped, she closed her eyes and sat back, exhausted.

No one spoke for several minutes. "Why do you think Marcus destroyed the coven?" Kahn asked, breaking the silence.

"I think he was driven mad by grief," Selene answered. "The legends, Kahn…the legends were all true! Marcus and William inherited immortality from their father. Even still, Marcus could not stop his brother's lust for human flesh. He must have been desperate when he sought out a warlord and agreed to make him and his men immortal in turn for their help in subduing William."

"Who?" Kahn asked.

"Viktor," Selene said flatly. "Viktor. He was not the first vampire. Marcus gave him the gift of immortality in exchange for helping Marcus capture his brother.

"I don't understand, if Marcus was the first vampire, wasn't he the strongest? Why would he have deferred to Viktor? That doesn't make any sense, Selene," Kahn said.

"He endured centuries of deferring to Viktor because he thought his brother's survival depended upon it. When William was hunted down and captured, Viktor offered either imprisonment or death. Of course, Marcus would not see his brother cut down before his eyes. I also don't think he ever accepted the fact that his father would not intervene on William's behalf. That must have weighed on him. It must have! You would not have recognized him, Kahn. He had become something truly monstrous when we saw him. He'd become a hybrid of some sort…a demon. It was the final link in a chain of misery and madness. You know how he was, how high strung and unstable he had always been. Sooner or later, Marcus would have broken."

"So you're telling me the legends were true? Alexander Corvinus was the father of both species, and two of his sons the original carriers of the virus?" Kahn sounded skeptical.

"No matter how fantastic it sounds, it is true," Selene assured him. "He was alive…all those centuries. He was alive and he never stepped in, never tried to stop or help his sons. Even when Viktor manipulated his own hatred of lycans into full scale genocide, Alexander did nothing. The only thing he did was keep vigil. Anytime the war spilled into the mortal word, his men cleaned up the mess, destroyed the evidence."

"Where are they now?" Kahn asked.

"Who?"

"Corvinus' scrubbers."

"I don't know. But I do know this, lycans are no more monsters than we are, no matter what you believe! They didn't start the war, Kahn, Viktor did. He condemned his own daughter, his very own flesh and blood to death for her love of a lycan. That was the beginning of the slaughter."

"And next you're going to tell me that Lucian was that lycan, right?" Kahn smirked.

"I know this all sounds like a fairy tale. I understand that you don't believe me, I didn't want to believe it either. But I am telling you that everything I am saying is real and everything we've been lead to believe has been a lie. We have to find a way to reach any vampires and lycans still alive!"

Michael leaned forward, "Are there any other survivors? Have you been contacted by anyone from your coven?"

"No," Kahn answered.

Selene spoke up, "I don't know how many survivors there are, but it's time to lay down our arms and find a way we all can exist, living outside of nature as we do."

"And you mean to assume control and form your own coven?" Kahn asked as he looked Selene in the eye.

"No! Why would you ask such a thing?"

"Because you are 'next in line' Selene. Surely you realize that."

Michael spoke up, "What do you mean?"

"Marcus burned Ordoghaz at sunrise," Kahn explained. "He made sure any survivors of the fire would be destroyed by the sun. The only reason I'm alive is that I was forced to spend that day in Lucian's compound. Unless I'm mistaken, Amelia's coven died with her. Selene is the only vampire Viktor sired after the death of his daughter. Any vampires left will look to her to assume leadership. They'll likely even overlook your creation, lycan."

"I have a name," Michael reminded him.

"Not to them you don't."

"It doesn't matter. I have no desire to assume control of anything. I'm through living in a coven," Selene said.

"What will you do? Join his den?" Kahn demanded, his voice incredulous.

"Michael is not the lycan alpha. He's lycan dominant, true…but remember he's a hybrid."

"If you don't know how many lycans are left, how do you know he isn't the alpha?" Kahn persisted.

"I'm no one's 'alpha' nor will I be used as a weapon," Michael said. "I'm not going to spend the next several centuries fighting and running from lycans who want my blood to defeat vampires. And I'm not joining a coven so they can use me for the same purpose. This war has to end!"

Kahn looked skeptical. "It will take a lot more than the two of you giving pretty speeches and rallying for peace."

Michael nodded. "That's why I'm giving Ziodex my blood."

"What?" Selene and Kahn said in unison.

"What do you mean?" Shocked, Selene turned to Michael. "When did you decide this?"

"I'm a doctor, Selene. I've studied viruses and genetics. You and I are both hybrids now even if you don't want to admit it. I know Ziodex can use our blood to create some kind of viral therapy to even out the playing field. The war will stop if all the players are suddenly on the same side."

"When did you decide this?" she repeated.

"Just now. Why, does it matter?"

"How is Selene a hybrid?" Kahn demanded.

Michael ignored his question, his eyes locked with Selene's. Finally she shook her head and looked away, deep in thought. He stood and held out his wrist to Kahn. "Go ahead, Death Dealer. Become a hybrid. Get in on the ground level, so to speak."

Kahn's eyebrows rose and he frowned, looking for a trap. Michael sighed and turned the inside of his wrist closer to Kahn, his veins a faint roadmap. "Do it," he whispered.

Kahn gripped his hand, crushing his bones. Michael winced but did not pull away. He shuddered as Kahn's teeth pierced his skin and he clenched his jaw, struggling not to cry out. The pain was immediate, immense, surrounding him completely in a fiery red cocoon. Images bloomed within his mind…19th century London, swirling with fog, a woman with painted lips, laughing up at him from the bottom of a boat…a young girl handing him a letter, her fingers stained with ink…an old man eating an apple. Michael understood that he was seeing Kahn's life, played back as if he were a Parisian gentleman viewing the Cinematographe.

Hot tears rolled down his cheeks. He saw and felt what had once been the vampire's hopes, dreams, and felt also his agony at being wrenched away from the mortal life he had once led. The images faded and sharpened in rhythm with Michael's heartbeat. When he began to see pictures of the villa he now was standing in, Kahn dropped his hand. Blood dripped onto the exquisite hand-knotted rug at Michael's feet.

Michael opened his eyes and pressed shaking fingers against his wrist. He could not begin to have imagined that he would have felt such pain. Somehow, neither Lucian's teeth gnashing his shoulder or Selene's needle-sharp fangs had ever brought this agony. He felt as if someone had injected his veins with petrol. He stumbled and Selene caught him, easing him down beside her. He wondered if Kahn's grief had alchemized his blood. Was that even possible? Was he beginning to think as they did? Nothing too fanciful, no fiction too extreme? He felt Kahn watching him and Michael raised his eyes, still brimming with unshed tears. Kahn looked away.

Suddenly, footsteps rang down a long hall and a woman rushed into the room, her voice sharp with fear. She knelt in front of Kahn, frantically searching his body for injury, many rings upon her slender fingers, many circles of gold and silver about her wrists. He shook his head and embraced her. He looked at Selene and Michael over her head and motioned with his chin for them to leave. As they crossed the threshold, something flashed through the air. Selene raised her hand and deftly caught the keys to Kahn's car. She did not look back, merely walked with Michael out into the night. The woman's warm human fragrance followed them out the door. It was once again snowing.