Author's Notes:

Smoke: Thank you for the advice..it seems to be working, and the more I use what i learn in school the better I feel. Normally I just write out of my head, and my sentence structure is rarely ever correct even though it sounds okay to me... so I have to go through and fix that.... thanks again. And yes, Kain is quite paternal toward Amanda... in fact, more than he'd like to admit... It appears that Amanda finds peace in that place by the dam. It makes her feel warm and special... and sad at the same time. But it could contain power.

Laila: Glad I could keep your faith in me burning. Sorry this took so long... had to ensure it's quality was good first. -hugs-

--Kain--

The winter landscape reminded me of my Nosgoth, pristine and white when it wasn't choked with pollution and decay. I pondered the aspect of Amanda's nature, what she was like while she grew up here. I understood it that she did not grow up 'here' precisely her entire life, but across the landscape, moving from here to there as she and her mother saw the need to. It wasn't a whimsical decision, but thought-out and intended to improve Amanda's future and opportunities. It did not appear to work out quite that way, so obviously I would never quite know what she would have grown to be as a mortal woman.

Does she hate me? I wondered suddenly, realizing that she might turn on me. That all of her anger was not because of me, precisely, but because of all the suffering she had endured - all at the hands of these miserable vampires. I began to have a certain loathing of them myself, how disorganized and how brutal they could be.

Well...

The starlight sparkled through the broken clouds that otherwise filled the majority of the sky. The trees were black and majestic, each branch pulsating with the life that was her world's blood. I found myself relaxing, if only a little, as we walked a short road under a roof of barren branches into the small parking lot, a wall of snow directly to our left. Amanda stopped here under the trees, realizing she wore little else but a black tank top and jeans, and it was probably well below freezing.

"Lights are on," she whispered, hugging herself. "Could be my mother's on the computer or something... she never sleeps well at night." Suddenly she turned to me, and implored me with begging, wide eyes. "Kain, I'm afraid. It's... been over two years."

"I know. It seems a long time. It may well be. But you've only been a vampire for a week, and you have aged. She will understand." I hoped I was right.

"I wish you could come up with me," she went on, turning back to the downstairs apartment windows.

I smiled, resting my hand on her shoulder. "Just jump," I whispered, winking.

I watched her eyes light up a little. Thrilled to see that my charms worked so well most of the time, I was heartened to see her walking boldly around the side of the porch and climb up the steps to the door. She opened the door as quietly as she could, and from my place under the trees I heard the metallic creaking. Then, crestfallen, I made out the shape of a man as they exchanged words.

Amanda thanked him, then turned away, walking down the steps after insisting that she didn't need something warm to drink at the moment.

"She doesn't live here anymore," she said quietly. "She probably moved on with her life. That... hurts me."

I already noticed she had come to a grim and unhappy decision.

"So I'm not going to go looking for her. I think if she's forgotten me already, I..." She swallowed with difficulty, turning her face away from me. "I wouldn't do her harm by suddenly reappearing, all better and happy."

We walked for awhile in the streets, my daughter and I, in an uncomfortable but amiable silence. My daughter. I still have trouble calling her that. It was always my lieutenants, my sons. How far I had come.

"What do you want to do now?" Comforting was becoming something I was marginally good at. It seemed she needed it frequently, along with a good kick in her rear occasionally.

She looked as if she wanted to give one of her more colorful answers, but she trailed off and wandered haphazardly toward the wall. She staggered, slipping and falling headfirst against the brick surface. She fell backwards again onto her back and, clenching her fists, grew rigid. I thought she'd Become enraged. But instead she proceeded cackling contagiously so that I too found myself grinning with bemusement.

I shook my head. I would never understand my daughter's strange and unusual ways.

The next night we found ourselves booked at a local church founded by a kind old patriarch who was more or less a little slow to catch on to what I was. He was glad to let us live in his attic, which was beautifully adorned with stained glass windows which filtered out enough light during the day to keep Amanda comfortable. The light didn't bother me in the slightest, as I discovered when I woke up to find a single shining ray of light blazing me in the face from a hole in the window. After covering it with a strip of cloth, I returned to my rest.

Raziel found a nest next to us on a cracked old oak bookshelf that was missing the bottom most shelf. The blade hummed occasionally, and for a moment I worried that he might awaken and command a power I couldn't control. Unexpectedly, he was calm and content to be where he was. I wondered how long that would last, and what sorcery could hold him there, and for how long.

The echo of his words wounded me as I watched the weapon. I am, as ever, your right hand - your sword...

The lulling sound of voices from below the building for some midnight sermon stirred me relaxation. I wanted a little sleep, for I was quite tired and nothing would serve me better than to get some well-earned shut-eye. Light still spilled in across the floor, faded blue, green and orange across the dusty attic floor with its small holes and unkempt stacks of paper and bibles laying about. Amanda was nestled in a pile of clean blankets on a pine futon nearby, while I reclined serenely on a bedroll.

For the second time, I unwillingly left my body unwatched while the hours ticked by. My body relented to its powerful desire to rest, bound on dreaming of things I had no heart to remember. The sound of Raziel's scream of rage and agony as I cast him into the abyss - that sound had echoed far into the centuries, following me every step, haunting my every action until I was hardly confident that I even knew what I was doing.

For several moments I wondered what Raziel would have appeared to look like if I had mercifully spared him his terrible punishment - it was almost certain he would have become the Hylden's champion. But I would rather let Raziel kill me in battle then see him live an innumerable millennia contained in a sword and damned to the total loss of his identity.

Time passed over me and left me untouched, if not a bit thirstier. The placidity of my rest was still with me when I awoke to my fledgling fumbling with her blankets slowly and sluggishly, before squirming her way toward me. She looked like a caterpillar, or a child struggling to reach me without the coordination of an adult. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing, but it was so very hard!

She reached out to me, scraping her nails gratingly on the floor. When I saw her face, it was twisted in a grimace of pain and terror, and her eyes were seeing things I could not comprehend. Then she relinquished her will to her dreams and pulled herself into a ball. I sat up and a moment passed in silent observance. Then, when I'd had enough of watching her body give way to violent tremors, I snuck toward her and pulled her close, pulling her blankets open and baring open another vein.

As expected, she opened her eyes and fixed them on the bleeding wound. Then her lips closed on it and I was in painful ecstasy. After that, she fell asleep, full up with blood and I was not feeling any better for it, but I could deal with it.

A few hours later, Amanda was awake, and the night had blossomed with a promise for good hunting. The good father who had put us up for the night arrived with mortal fair, which Amanda picked at while he chatted with us for awhile. Once more I was nervous, yet intrigued that the wizened, senile man didn't seem to notice the demon apparition that was me sitting in the shadows.

"A man came asking for you and your daughter the other day," Father Madden informed us, cheerfully smacking me on the shoulder. I grimaced, but smiled through it. "He said his name was Grant. Quite a red-faced little man."

"Did he say what he wanted?" Amanda questioned carefully.

The priest nodded. "Yes. He says he had a summons for you. And he wanted to give you this." He slid a paper envelope into Amanda's waiting fingers unquestionably. Scanning the name on it, she proceeded to pass it to me. I shook my head at her, indicating I had no idea what it said - I couldn't decipher the hand-writing.

"Thank you, Father," she told him quietly. He was smart enough to know that it was time for him to leave. Then she tore open the envelope by sliding her finger through a crease in the corner and manipulating it open neatly. The paper was clean, crisp and white with alarming straight, neat hand-writing.

Amanda scanned this, too before folding it up and pushing her plate away from her, leaning back on her hands because we were seated on the floor. "The jist of it is, Grant's boss knows about us and the man himself wants an audience with us. His boss.. I don't know how to pronounce his name. It's really long and drawn-out. But the first few letters are Soran."

I was intrigued, but after my last encounter with vampires I was not keen on beginning another war and putting myself on the personal agenda of another powerful vampire. The look in my eyes was clear enough for her to understand.

"I know," she said quietly, rubbing her foot which she had pulled up close to her body, her leg hanging out sideways. "But there might be something..."

"What?"

"I don't know... I get so tired of hearing it myself... but you... you really want to leave, don't you? Nosgoth..." She stared into the palm of her hand, and her eyes followed the curve of my clan symbol painfully etched into her skin. Of all the scars on her body it seemed the tattoos were the only things unaffected.

No matter what I tried to do to avoid the subject, it was plain that I would have to think about it. What was I to do? Amanda clearly could take no more of the cold world that no longer had a place for her in it. While I scrutinized her, she was smothering her emotions inefficiently; I could see through her mask of indifference.

"I was deliberating the possibility... and I must say, there is no other way. You must come with me to Nosgoth... if we ever find a way to get there."

"But in the meantime are we going to see this Soran and Mr. Grant guy?"

"I will dictate a letter. If this Mister - Grant - returns, you can hand it to him."