Henry's instincts were on high alert and had been from the instant that he entered the kitchen. He could discern the same scent that he had found at his cottage this evening. His eyes darkened as he scanned the room for any threat.

Jenny was standing next to him, shaking like a leaf in the wind and staring fixedly down at the message burned into the countertop.

He pulled her into his arms, trying to shelter her with his body.

As Jenny registered the cool length of him against her and his arms enfold her she felt whatever reserve that held her upright give way.

She collapsed with a sob against Henry as her knees would no longer support her. He cradled her in his arms.

"He told me, he told me he would kill her if I left him. I shouldn't have left. He has her now. If I had just stayed there, she would be safe," she sobbed and Henry could hear the hysteria growing in her voice.

"You don't understand what he can do, what he is capable of…. He's going to hurt her, my baby sister."

She was shaking her head back and forth as though she could deny the reality of the situation, as she clutched at Henry's shirt front where he held her against him. "He's going to kill her…to punish me. I should have stayed…"

The scent of her fear and despair filled the kitchen and was overpowering. Her hysteria hammered at his self control and the vampire edged close behind the mask.

Henry held Jenny away from him by her shoulders and shook her slightly.

"Jenny!" He called to her. She would not respond. He allowed a little of his will to bleed into his voice.

"Jenny! Look at me!"

Slowly her frantic eyes met his gaze. He caught her as soon as their eyes met. He willed her to be calm, his persuasion inherent in the timber of his voice as he bid her, "Calm yourself."

She drew in a shuddering breath and though the tears still flowed down her cheeks, the blank hysteria left her eyes. She felt his will flow into her, strengthening and shoring up her own. When he saw that she was again resident behind her eyes. He released his compulsion.

"Is it Anthony?" he asked her carefully.

She nodded numbly. "Yes."

She glanced towards the countertop, and Henry once again called her back.

"What does it mean?" he asked her in a low voice as her attention focused on him again. "What does it mean, 'Come home to me,' do you know?"

Jenny looked perplexed for a moment and then she said slowly, "It means that he has taken her to our cabin. He wants me to come to him there. I have to go. I have to go back."

Henry nodded his head in agreement, though it pained his heart. "I believe you must," he said slowly…

"And I believe that I must go with you."

***

Henry was driving as Jenny stared out into the dark through the passenger side window, at the trees flashing by at the side of the highway. It was easier, easier to just watch than it was to think about what Anthony might have done…or could be doing…right now to Lily. Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes stung as she felt the crushing weight of her guilt come down.

"Don't." His calm voice came from beside her, "Don't. It won't do any good and you won't be able to help her if you exhaust yourself.

She turned to look at his profile in the dark. His mouth was drawn in a grim line of determination.

Her voice caught as she whispered, "This is all my fault."

She jumped at the vehemence in his reply, "No! This is Anthony's fault. The responsibility is his."

Henry was pushing the car at well past the speed limits and was maneuvering expertly over the road's wet surface. Jenny had said that the cabin was perhaps two and a half hours north of Windemere. He intended to make it in considerably less time, and wanted to take full advantage of the paved surface of the highway before the gravel of the smaller roads through the woods forced him to a slower pace.

He could hear that her heart beat had slowed now that they were moving but he could see when he glanced her way that she sat with her shoulders hunched and she was dry washing her hands over and over in her lap.

Finally Jenny spoke, "I don't know what I will do if he has hurt Lily. She is all that I have. We have always been so close; I was always her big sister watching out for her." She sighed and continued, "Then after I got away from Anthony, I was so confused and I just couldn't think straight. Lily was there for me. She helped me and protected me." She smiled the slightest of smiles, "I can't tell you how many nosey gossips she chased away, when I first came home." She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes brimming with tears."

"We'll find her," Henry told her.

"Tell me about yourself Henry, talk to me so that I don't have to think about…please."

Henry nodded and drew a deep breath. "I was born at the town of Blackmore, Essex in the year 1519. I am the bastard son of…."

***

"…and so I paint her portrait every year, somehow it seems to help." At some point during his dissertation Jenny's hand had crept across the seat and he had grasped it in his own. He disengaged his fingers from hers now as he turned the car off the paved surface onto a gravel road where Jenny indicated.

"It is ten miles along here and then a left to another smaller private logging road that runs nearly five miles into the cabin."

Henry took out his watch and flipped the cover open; just slightly after two. They had made good time so far and thankfully the gravel road had recently been graded so it was in decent condition.

***

"Here! Turn left here," Jenny said… she had been sitting forward in the seat for almost ten minutes now searching for where the two roads connected. The car swerved on the wet gravel as Henry hit the brakes, almost over-shooting the turn. He wrestled the car into the narrow opening and the high beams illuminated a narrow and rutted track through what appeared to be an impenetrable forest of scrub pine. He was forced to reduce his speed as the car bounced along through deep puddles.

At length Jenny sat forward in the seat and said in a whisper as though she were afraid of being overheard, "This is it," indicating a short driveway and a cabin set far back from the road. There were lights on in the cabin's windows even though the time was close to three in the morning.

Henry pulled the car to a halt a distance down the drive from the house and turned off the engine.

The silence was complete once the engine died. He turned to Jenny as she started to open her door.

"Stay with me," he said. "Stay close to me."

He listened carefully and then said to Jenny, "They are in the cabin, both of them. Lily is alive."

"How can you know that?" Jenny said, hardly daring to believe.

"I can hear their hearts beating," he said. What he didn't tell her was that the heartbeat that he identified as Lily was beating erratically as though she were completely terrified.

As they stood clear of the car, Jenny came around to stand beside Henry.

A long beam of light shone out along the ground as the door of the cabin swung noisily open.