The old office was quiet as Nick and I sat in the office of Milan Cole, director of the Ministry of Antiquities in Cairo. The office was large and lined with books and old artifacts, in the corner stood a lit table with small artifacts in different stages of repair with books laid out, probably describing the item. Nick sat beside me, his fingers drumming the chair of the arm in impatients as he asks with a bored undertone, 'Remind me why we are here again?'

I couldn't bring my eyes up to meet his as I murmur, 'Direction.'

My mind went back to just a few hours previously, sitting there in the darkness of my room, feeling numb. I had played back to the beginning of my day then, the interrogation and seeing those three Pureblood's standing there at the entrance of the large house.

Nick's words of passing the test ringing in my ear. I hadn't realized it until I felt the throb in my hand and the loud smack that I had slapped Nick. Nick had seemd surprised as his turned his head slowly back to look at me, a large red mark marking the impact of my hand, his eyes having gone to slits of anger. The two Night Hunter's seemed unaffected by it, other than a twitch of humor to their lips as I turned tail and power walked to my room. I had been horrified by my actions and expected death at any moment. Seconds to minutes and minutes to hours he never came to render retribution.

It didn't matter to me anyhow. When I had reached my room and collapsed on the floor in a puddle of tears. Not those small tears, but deep wrenching howls of pain. I felt as if I had been mentally raped by Igor, unable to escape, knowing death was only one swift movement away in that room. To Nick, it was a test, to me it meant life. I had started to trust Nick, and the minute I did, this happened. Night Hunter's, something to be feared by human and vampire alike.

Night had fallen I knewas the movement in the house had increased and once again I was in the clutches of the Dracul Pureblood, unable to escape. It didn't really matter, I had been waiting for a while now for Nick to come and turn me to dust, but he hadn't. In that time I had emptied my soul of my memories of Dante, crying over that once possible love, to my life hence. My bitter tears of betrayal by all the male figures in my life. How jaded I had become. But as I sit there, my once wet cheeks dried, I knew my strategy had to change. My escape wouldn't come soon, so I needed to know what Nick wanted. Revenge was what he was after and handing over the Silent Phantasma was the answer. If I could smoke out the leader with the help of this powerful ally I might survive this and escape with my life.

Just then there was a knock on my door. I didn't answer it, knowing who it was by the blanket of power that enfolded me once again. Silence was momentary until I heard Nick say from behind me, 'I thought you might be hunger.'

I could smell the sharp scent of blood and felt my stomach clinch. Momentarily I was tempted to not take it out of spite, but I knew now more than ever I needed to be at my sharpest and even the slightest snag of hunger could dull it. It surprised me to realize I had stayed in the same place for the whole day, crying, and mulling over my past. Strangely I felt more centered after something like that. Standing slowly, I turn and see him in the shadow of the closed door. He hadn't opened it, having simply phased through it.

In his hands was a pitcher, the other two glasses. He holds the glasses out to me and I take them without a word. He pours the blood into each, setting the pitcher on a small table inside the door. Taking one of the glasees from my hand, he sips at it as he stares down at thw crown of my head. my eyes were on his shined and expensive armani shoes.

Still not speaking, I take a sip of the cool blood. For reasons I couldn't explain, I couldn't bring myself to look at him. To many raw emotions had passed between us in the past week that it felt awkward and now he had returned to his cold self. Finally, after another bolstering sip, I ask, 'Are you satisfied?'

'Enough.'

'Enough isn't all.'

'I was told by my brother that you have reason to believe the ghoul to be working with the Phantasma, and most likely that their leader is the one controlling them. It makes me wonder what else you are hiding from myself and my brother.'

The fear that bubbled worth had started to make me shake, waiting for the hangmans gnose, until he had finally said with a underlying sharpness in that smokey voice of his, 'I will forgive what happened earlier, but should you raise. your hand to me again. Be sure you will lose it.'

The relief of those words had been profound, yet terrifying.

'Nina!'

I jump as I'm pulled from my memories and turn to look towards the doorway leading into the large office. There stood Milan. She was beautiful as ever with her sharp Arabian features, large almond eyes and velvety ebondy skin from her father Ethiopian lineage. However her eyes round larger as Nick's blanket of power envelopes her. She goes dowb on one knee, head bowing as she says quickly, 'Prince Berchinski of the Dracul, it is an honor.'

Milan was a vampire like us, but she was fairly new to the world. I could still remember the first time I had met her. She had been standing at the bottom of the stairs of the subway, looking longly up at the sunlight sky above. Her power unbridled with her 'youth' as a phantom newly turned. It had been about 40 years ago when that happened and I had helped her find her way in the new reality she had been thrown into. I had quite literally had left Dante at the alter and gobe to Egypt to escape at the time, and seeing someone so vulnerable had helped me out of my depression. Nick murmurs his pleasure at meeting her two, looking more bored and uninterested by the minute. It brings me back to the present.

Milan stands and walks around to her seat at the large oak desk. Slowly sitting she lools between us and asks in a stuttered awkwardness, 'Wh-what brings you here Nina?'

Her clipped, indie words refreshing and takibg me back to training her, giving her all the advice that Furlow had given me, but unlike me she had joined a clan, the Zula. They had been impressed wuth her knowledge of the past and thus set her up in the position she was now as director of the Ministry of Antiquities for thirty years. Those years where almost uo abd soob she would move to archieves, but she relished it as I say, 'I need your help finding someone during a very specific time in history.'

Milan nods curly, still shifting her eyes between us, obviously curious why a clanless and a royal Pureblood would ve working together as she says softly, 'I will try to help if I can. About what time period are you looking into?'

I tap my chin, thinking on the subtext of my conversation with Dante and murmur, 'I'm looking for all A rank and Purebloods that died between the years of 2,300 BCE and..." I stop, turn to look Nick for the first time since the slap and ask, 'When were you born?'

'Why do you want to know?' He asks blandly giving me a cocked brow.

'A hunch.'

'746 BCE.'

I nod turn to the beautiful Milan and say, 'Between the years of 2,300 and 750BCE.'

Milan shakes her head and sighs as she says, 'That will be a lot of vampires Nina. You know as well as I do that was tge War of the Romane.'

Furlow had taught me little about the history of the vanpiric society, as he saw fit that my survival in the present was more important. However he glance over a short history of the five great clans. Tge time in question was when the Romane clan was created, and they were the forebears of the Roman Empire of those days. It was a bloody war I knew, but still I knew little of how bloody. Nodding my head, I reply confidently, 'I understand, but it is of the upmost importance that I see those records.'

Milan stares at me for a moment, the rich green contrasting with her rich ebondy skin as she nods her understanding. Standding, she says quickly, 'Let me get my things and we had leave. The sun rises in three hours and to the Library of Alexandria is a little over two. We can get their before tthe livrary opens as I do have a key.'

I watched as she grabbed a large pyrse stuffed to the brim, a scarf, and a large briefcase. I stand as she asks, 'Do you have a car waiting?'

'Yes.'