Note: Please see Prologue for warning, copyright and disclaimer information.

Plans

I came out and sat down again without saying a word. Cormac picked up a few things from the couch beside him and walked over to me, holding them out. I looked up and he gestured for me to take them. I took the passport readily enough, but I hesitated over the money in his hand.

"There is more," he said. "This is just…."

"Pin money?" I asked dryly.

"Yes, complements of Brenda," he told me, a smile playing around his lips.

"Oh, really?" If it was Brenda's money, I didn't have single a problem taking it.

"Yes," he replied.

I counted the money quickly; he'd given me seven hundred and fifty dollars. "I must be buying a lot of pins."

He walked back across the cabin. "As I said, there is more."

A quick look at the passport told me the picture was what I'd expected; bad.

Cormac sat back down and cleared his throat. "And there is something else," he said hesitantly. "In Berlin, due to the way their chantry is run, arrangements have been made for both of us to stay there, but unfortunately as you are not Kindred they have been told that you are my ghoul. Ghouls are not allowed to, um, how did she put it? Roam free within the chantry."

I didn't understand what he meant. "What, you get a leash?"

He gave me a level look. "You must be with me at all times or else locked in the room."

I stared at him in disbelief. He was going to lock me alone in a room? In a building full of blood-sucking fiends?

"And Brenda was not sure if two beds were included in the arrangements," he added softly.

I closed my eyes at his words. "Why am I not surprised?" Visions of our shared past haunted me and I had to open my eyes to chase them away.

"I have also asked Brenda to keep an eye on Corrine in our absence."

"Gee," I murmured, shooting him a hard look, "lets just have the wolf watch the sheep."

"She is doing it as a favor to me," he told me. "She is not to become involved in her life, rather she is to make sure that nobody else does in specifically your absence, other than Jared."

Reluctantly, I nodded. "At least someone will keep an eye on her." Not exactly the best choice, but a good one under the circumstances.

"And possibly Summer," Cormac added.

I didn't recognize the name. "Who?"

"A friend of mine," he explained.

"Summer?" The more I thought about it, the more the name seemed familiar. "Does she have a sister named Winter?"

"As a matter of fact," he confirmed, "Winter is her twin. There is also Autumn and Spring is the youngest."

"Let me guess, they own The Four Seasons." It was a magic shop near downtown Salem, and one mentioned frequently at Society meetings.

"Yes."

That meant they were witches, but since no one at St. Stephen's had been able to prove that yet we hadn't touched them. "So you're having her keep an eye on Corrine?"

"Ah, watch out for her well being would be a better term," he corrected. "I just obtained my copy of the contract before leaving, I will be overnighting Brenda a copy of it so she knows what she's in for. Or into."

I really didn't want to discuss the contract again so I changed the subject quickly. "So we're headed to Berlin. What is it we're supposed to be doing?" I asked him.

"We are going to retrace Dougal's steps," he reminded me. "Hopefully find his grimoire."

"Okay." That sounded simple enough. "And he was in Berlin at this chantry?"

"Yes."

"So how long does it take to fly to Berlin?" Actually, this was the first time I'd ever been on a plane. Cormac's presence had unnerved me enough that I hadn't been bothered by the lift off.

"It will take well over half a day," he said.

"We'll get there some time tomorrow afternoon?"

"Yes, toward evening."

We ran out of things to say and an awkward silence filled the cabin. After several minutes, he picked up one of his books and started reading. I didn't want to just stare at him, so I looked around for my bags only to realize that they weren't where I'd left them.

"Where're my bags?" I asked, trying not to sound too alarmed. All my weapons were in those bags, at least all the ones I wasn't wearing.

"I moved them into the bedroom," he told me, not looking up from the pages of his book.

"Cool," I replied, relieved. I went into the bedroom and took out a hand full of round pieces of wood. A moment's digging turned up my sharpest knife; I kept the scabbard wrapped in an old towel to make sure it didn't accidentally come loose, you could lose your hand on that thing, it was very sharp.

I went back to my seat in the main cabin and laid the towel on the floor to catch the shavings as I started sharpening the pieces of wood.

From the corner of my eye I saw Cormac open what looked like a secret compartment in the book he'd been reading. He took out a letter, unfolded the paper, and began reading. I watched, but didn't comment until he was midway through the second letter. It was edged in black, and made him sigh.

"Bad news?" I asked nonchalantly. I remember Linda telling me once that if a letter was edged in black it usually meant someone died.

"Yes," he replied sadly.

He mumbled something else that I didn't catch, but I didn't ask. If he wanted me to know, I figured he'd tell me. His business wasn't mine anymore and I didn't have a right to ask. Eventually, though, my curiosity got the better of me.

"Anyone we know?"

"They are letters to a mage named Gomi," he told me. "From Dougal."

"That name's kind of familiar," I murmured. "Who is he?"

"He's a powerful mage in Ramadan," he replied softly, apparently not expecting me to know what he was talking about.

The thing was, I did. Ramadan was another world that Mac had once told me about. In many ways it was similar to ours, but for the most part it was very different. Mac had met Gomi in Ramadan long before he'd come to Baltimore. "Dougal knew Gomi? Is this the same Gomi?"

"Yes."

"It's really weird that he would know the same mage that you knew," I commented.

"Gomi is the one who alerted Dougal to my existence." He finished reading the third note and folded it up. "He had no idea what would happen, he had recognized me as a mage and an intellectual."

I shot him an angry look that he didn't see. "So we have some mage in some other world to thank for everything that happened? Gee, that's nice to know. So what was the bad news?"

"It is the letter again to Gomi from Dougal recounting the, ah, the night," he replied.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "The night?"

"The night," he said with a meaningful look my way.

"Really?" That was some coincidence. I wondered where he'd gotten the letters. "What does it say?"

He pulled out the black edged note and held it out toward me. I sat down my knife and stake and rose to walk over and get it. He was reading another note and never even looked up. I returned to my seat, opened the note and began to read. I could feel the emotion draining from my face as I read until by the time I reached the end my face felt like stone. The letter was addressed simply to "Friend Gomi."

It is with heavy heart that I write you this eve, but I feel I must inform you of recent events. When I last wrote to you, I told you that Cormac Brennan's life was in danger. I approached him as you suggested, even offered the embrace to him. Unfortunately, I barely escaped with my life. However, this is not the worst of it, friend. Our prince ordered the death of Cormac and his lover Eliza Harrow. Only by pleading that it would make far better sense to bring them into the clan than to destroy them was I able to convince our leader to order their embrace.

I and several of my kind went to Cormac's apartment where he lived with Eliza. They fought us, which we expected, but through the ineptness of one of my clan mates the girl was killed. Knowing how Cormac felt about her, the prince felt it would be best if he retained no memories of her. I have told you of the rare properties of my blood, and it was for that reason the prince ordered me to bring Cormac into the clan.

He is truly everything that you told me and more. He is the companion that I had never thought to find, Gomi. Although he remembers nothing from his mortal life, he is very intelligent and his theories constantly challenge my mind.

Still, he is quiet, sometimes too quiet, and I wonder if he remembers his Eliza. It seems that a deep and abiding love is the only way to reverse the curse that my vitae inflicts on those I embrace, but I'm not sure if his memories of the girl would do the trick. Lon only remembered his mortal life after he was reunited with the girl he'd been about to marry when I turned him.

It does weigh heavy on my mind that I had to embrace Cormac against his will. He has asked me briefly about his mortal life, and rather than admit the circumstances surrounding his embrace, I told him that there were horrible things in his past that he wouldn't want to remember. I led him to believe that there may be a spell in my grimoire that would return his memory, but the truth I fear is that only Eliza could do that for him and she is dead. I have written down everything I knew of his mortal life and the girl he once loved and have hidden it among your letters. Perhaps if he had that information it would be enough to pierce the veil and bring back his memories. I only hope that he never asks for his memory back, as I'm not sure I could live with the loss of his companionship.

I hope that you understand when I tell you that I will not be able to visit any time soon. I will not be able to leave Cormac for some years, and I can't run the risk of someone in Ramadan recognizing him, for I know he was well liked there.

I would send you more information about Kate, the high generation Kindred I told you of, but she disappeared the night of Cormac's embrace. If I come across her again, I will do my best to get the information you seek.

I look forward to hearing from you soon, and pray that you can forgive my actions.

The letter was signed "Your Friend, Dougal Galloway." Keeping my face carefully blank, I stood and returned the letter to Cormac without a word. I returned to my seat and by the time I looked again at Cormac he had already replaced the letters in the book. I made no comment about the note, not even the mention of Kate.

I picked up the stake-making supplies and vigorously applied the knife to the wood. Carefully avoiding looking in Cormac's direction, I made quick work of the wood I'd brought out, wishing with each one I finished that I could stick it in Dougal's dead black heart.

Near dawn, Cormac stood. "Would you like the bed?" He asked me.

I shook my head. "It's probably too soft for me," I told him. "I'll take the couch."

"Suit yourself," he said with a shrug as he bent to gather his things.

"Plus it gives me access to the kitchen and the bathroom," I reminded him.

"I sleep like the dead, you wouldn't wake me," he replied, turning to glance at me.

I shot him a scathing look. "That's the whole entire point," I said harshly. "Do you think it would be fun for me to come out here to watch TV with a stiff on the couch?"

He sighed. "As you wish."

"As I wish," I muttered under my breath. Like I'll ever got what I wished for.

He left the stakes on the couch where he'd sat and walked toward the back of the plane and the bedroom. When he drew even with me, I called his name softly. He stopped and half turned in my direction, looking at me expectantly.

"I was kind of hoping you could do something for me," I said hesitantly. I didn't want to do this, but I knew there was no one else I could trust.

"And that would be?" he asked softly.

"Well," I began, "we don't know what's going to happen on this jaunt. The other members of your clan were right to wonder if one or both of us would survive this whole thing, but if it happens that I don't survive—" I looked everywhere but at him, not comfortable with the knowledge that I actually trusted him enough to ask this. "If I don't survive could you do something for me?"

"Name it."

I glanced up at him from the corner of my eye. "Can you swear that if anything happens to me you'll see that Corrine is taken care of? That she'll never be embraced?"

He paused long enough that I thought he was going to refuse, then said, "I will do whatever is in my power to prevent it."

"Do you swear?" I repeated. This was the most important thing in the world to me; I needed him to swear it.

"Yes."

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "Thank you."

"If you will do something for me," he added softly.

I looked up at him, suspicious of his motives. What could he possibly want from me?

He returned my look with a direct one of his own. "No matter if I live or die through this adventure," he said softly, "prevent Corrine from taking the path that I chose, that we chose."

It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about. "The whole hunter thing?"

"Yes."

I looked down. "It would be a conflict of interest if I encouraged her in that, now wouldn't it?" If she became a hunter, I would most likely be the first one on her target list, given both what I was and what I did for the Tremere.

"Yes," he agreed. "Good night."

He'd barely made it into the bedroom when I heard his cell phone ring. He hadn't closed the door all the way and I heard him answer. When he learned who it was, his voice got real hard.

"On what business?" I heard him demand of the caller.

A moment later he was standing at my side holding the phone out to me. "It's your mother," he said coldly.

"Will you quit calling her that?" I asked him, more than a little pissed that he still insisted on calling her my mother. I hated it.

"No," he replied simply before turning and walking back into the bedroom.

I sighed. We were going to have to come to terms on that or I knew I'd end up staking him. I put the phone to my ear. "Kate?"

"Eliza, where are you?" she demanded.

"Somewhere over the Atlantic," I told her, then waited for the explosion.

She didn't disappoint me. "You went with him?" she cried. "After I told you not to?"

After she told me? "Since when do you have any say in what I do, Kate?" I asked, my voice very hard and cold.

"Eliza," she pleaded, "you know I only want what's best for you."

"I know no such thing," I said firmly. "I only know you want what's best for you."

"I would never do anything to hurt you, dear."

If I didn't know her better, I'd think she was insulted by my suspicions. As it was I knew that she was just trying to manipulate me. "Wouldn't you, Prudence?"

"You would believe him over me?" she said, outraged, "your own—"

I cut her off. "Don't say it, Kate," I warned her, my voice like ice. "And who said I believed him?"

"That message you left me," she replied, pleading with me once again. "Do you really think I knew about the raid? Don't you think I would have stopped it if I had known?"

"I don't know," I answered coldly, "would you have? He is right about one thing, Kate. You never liked him twenty years ago, and you sure as hell don't like him now."

"Do you have any idea what he's been up to the last two years?" she asked angrily. "He's been living with a witch in LA. Hell, he's visited one of the local Verbena several times in the last week alone. He spends a lot of time with that Nina in LA, and tonight he was with Brenda Thompson and her pathetic sister."

That was Kate for you, when she knew she was cornered, she always attacked the most convenient target. "Is there going to be an intermission sometime soon?" I murmured, pretending boredom. "Cause I think I'd like to get some popcorn."

She paused in her tirade, then changed tactics. "I know how much you loved him, dear. I would hate to see you hurt again."

I gave a low laugh, amused that she'd think I'd fall for the concerned mother routine after all these years. "You act as if we're still going to get married," I told her. "It's been twenty years, Kate, and he's Kindred. Get over it already."

"Are you sure that you're over it?" she insinuated. "That you don't still love him? In twenty years you've never even looked at anyone else."

I stiffened at her words, angry that she would go this far in pretending to care about how I felt. "What I feel for him is none of your business, Kate," I said flatly. "You should be more concerned with your own neck. I meant what I said; if you knew what was going to happen and did nothing to stop it, I will kill you."

"Your own mother, Eliza?" I could hear the disbelief in her voice. Even now she didn't think I was serious about believing she could do anything wrong. "You would kill your own blood because of a no-good bastard that would never have made you happy?"

"You have never been my mother, Kate," I said fiercely, "and I would kill you in a heartbeat. That raid destroyed all of our lives. Your clan stole everything we could have been from us and now look at what I am, what Cormac is. If all of this is because of you, if I had to give my child to someone else to raise just because you thought Mac wasn't good enough for me, I will hunt you down and kill you like a dog. I'll find you and I'll send you to final death and believe me, I won't shed a tear over it, Kate." I didn't mind being this harsh to her. She had to find out sooner or later that I was serious.

There was a shocked silence on the line, and when she spoke again there was fear in her voice. "Eliza, you have to believe that I would never have done such a thing," she begged.

I wasn't falling for her innocent act. If anything, her protests were beginning to convince me that she had known about the raid. "I don't have to do anything but live by my contract and die," I reminded her quite seriously. "But I will find out the truth if it takes me the rest of my unnaturally long life, Kate, mark my words."

Taking the phone from my ear I pushed the 'end' button, hanging up on her. I put my head back against the seat and stared at the ceiling. Could I kill Kate? She had given birth to me, after all. Then I remembered Linda, and Kate's frequent absences. I remembered her manipulations and the times she had abandoned me to do her clan's business.

Mac and I had once had a real chance for a future. We could have raised Corrine together and led a normal, happy life. If Kate had known about the plans to end our future, nothing short of my own death would stop me from killing her.

I could hear Cormac chanting softly in the bedroom and wondered just what he was doing. The smell of burning feathers reminded me of Kate and my childhood, and it made me flinch to remember. I looked down at the daisy on the seat beside me and tried to tell myself that Cormac was just like Kate now, but somehow I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it.

When all sound had stopped in the back of the plane, I rose and walked silently to the doorway of the bedroom. I listened carefully, but all I heard was the drone of the engines. It was unnerving to know he was in there but not hear him breathing. Other than growing up with Kate, I'd never actually spent any time with a vamp; it was bizarre to be doing it now.

I opened the door very quietly and peeked inside. He was lying on the bed covered with a light sheet. He looked dead. Hell, he was dead, what was I thinking?

I knew better than to spend any time in the room with him like that, it was generally believed that sleeping vamps were as likely to wake up and instinctively kill you as they were to ignore your presence. I picked up my suitcase and carefully closed the door behind me. I took the case into the main cabin and sat it on the couch. Opening it, I took out the photo album I'd packed and put it on the low table.

A quick search of the kitchen area turned up some waxed paper. I took it back to the low table and laid two six-inch squares of the paper down. I brought the daisy to my nose and inhaled its fragrant perfume. Had Cormac remembered what daisies had once meant to us? Or had he simply remembered the gesture and repeated it just to get to me? Either way it didn't matter. I remembered and that was enough.

I turned to the back of the album where I kept my oldest photos. This book had been one of the few things Kate had saved from our apartment, although not very many of the pictures had survived intact. Lying under the plastic was another daisy, one he'd given me just weeks before he died.

Blinking away the tears that tried to form, I laid the fresh daisy down on one of the squares of waxed paper. It had been years since I'd pressed a flower, but I remembered how as if it were yesterday. I carefully arranged the petals and laid the second square over it. I placed it on the opened book and gently closed it, pressing the flower between the pages.

I put the book back in the bottom of the suitcase and laid down on the couch. I had to rearrange my schedule to allow for Cormac's, and that meant sleeping during the day so I could be awake and alert at night. I didn't think it would be hard for me to go to nod off, I really hadn't gotten much sleep lately. By all rights, I should have dropped off right away.

It took me a long time to fall asleep.