Destiny moved away from the sheer potency of his larger, masculine frame. “What happened back there with Velda? Is she like me?”
Her eyes were begging him to give her the right answer. Nicolae touched her mind very gently as she shared with him that first dangerous memory. The little girl with a mass of ringlets falling around her shoulders and eyes too big for her face smiling up at a handsome man. The stranger bent down to her level, speaking softly, and her smile widened. She nodded her head several times, took his hand and walked him back to a small house. A woman stood on the porch, frowning a little as she watched her daughter speaking animatedly to a tall, rather beautiful man who slowly took on the form of a monster. His perfect skin became gray. His thick dark hair grew white and hung in strings. The slash of his mouth revealed jagged teeth stained black with blood, and long, sharp talons bit into the child’s arm.
Immediately, Nicolae realized he was looking at the vampire through the eyes of the child Destiny had once been. “How could a child of six recognize a vampire? How could she know that one even existed? A child is innocent of such things.”
“I drew him to my family. You can’t say different. Velda is in her seventies. In all this time, why hasn’t she drawn a vampire to her or her family? And what of MaryAnn? She is also psychic. We’ve destroyed several vampires in this area, yet none of them were drawn to these women.”
Nicolae could feel the tears burning behind her eyes, although she held her chin up and her blue-green gaze was as steady as ever. “A better question might be why are all the vampires congregating here? That disturbs me immensely. Three women with varying psychic talents are here together. Is that really a coincidence? And Father Mulligan knows about our people, and he just happens to be here too. In this city of so many, we just happen to meet him and become involved in his life. Does that not disturb you? And we have two men, John Paul and Martin, behaving in a manner totally out of character for either one of them. I examined Martin. He has no darkness in him at all. He is incapable of harming another human being, yet he must have assaulted the priest. Or someone pretending to be him did so. How could one person play the part of John Paul, a large, muscular man, as well as Martin Wright, a slender, much shorter man?”
“A vampire could. He could assume any shape, any role,” Destiny pointed out.
“And play the part well enough to fool Father Mulligan?” Nicolae’s eyebrow shot up. “A man of the church? A man of such wisdom?”
“Of course, a vampire could fool Father Mulligan. I could do it. I could take your shape and make anyone believe I was you.” She shrugged her shoulders with casual disdain. “Well, almost anyone. Maybe not Vikirnoff.”
There was a small silence while Nicolae watched her closely with his unblinking stare. He saw the moment she understood what he was getting at. A vampire could fool any human. There was no way that she, an innocent child of six, could have recognized the monster who’d destroyed her family.
“I see what you’re saying, Nicolae, and I know you’re right. In my head I know you’re right. I tell myself to stop placing the blame for my parents’ deaths on my shoulders, but my heart doesn’t listen.”
“At least you are hearing me,” he said quietly. “It was not a vampire that entered the church. No vampire would do so, nor would one of their ghouls. They are unclean and would not dare to enter a sanctified place.”
“I know that.” He had trapped her very neatly into admitting to herself that she was not unclean, for she had entered the church. She wanted that truth to sink into her heart and soul and live there, freeing her from the weight of guilt and self-hatred. She lived. It mattered little that her life had been a form of hell. She was alive, and the vampire who had murdered her family and countless others was dead at her hand.