The Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement headquarters are destroyed, and their pet horror, the Oracle, is on the loose. She’ll stop at nothing to turn the world into a vampire’s paradise, even if it means helping the Soul Eater become a god and harnessing his power for her own evil ends.

An ancient vampire, a blood--sucking near deity and oh, yeah, my presently human former sire thrown into the mix. I say bring it on. May the best monster win.

"Carrie, I think it's time you call Nathan."

I knew that statement would come, sooner or later. I'd just been hoping it would be much, much later.

We were lounging in Max's bedroom, the only room in his spacious, opulently furnished condo that had a television. For the past three weeks, all we'd done was lie around during the days and prowl various blues clubs at night. It wasn't as though I hadn't had time to talk to Nathan. I just hadn't wanted to.

When I didn't answer, Max sighed heavily. He folded his arms and leaned against the carved headboard of his antique bed, the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn't modern. He seemed strange and anachronistic on it. Having been turned in the late seventies, Max was the youngest vampire I knew. Besides myself, of course. He'd adapted to the changing times much more easily than some vampires did. Max kept his sandy-blond hair cut short and spiky, and his uniform of T-shirts and jeans helped him blend so perfectly with the twenty-something population of Chicago, I forgot at times that he was really old enough to be my biological father.

Clearly, he was about to pull chronological rank. "It's been almost a month now. I don't mind you crashing here. Hell, most nights you've been one mojito away from a rebound fling, and being the only male here, I'm digging the odds. But Nathan is my friend. If you're splitting up permanently, he deserves to know."

I refused to argue that the only thing my sire and I had between us was the blood tie, our weird psychological link that made us privy to each other's thoughts and emotions. Even that didn't connect us so much, lately. Nathan seemed to be blocking me from his mind. The few times I'd tried to communicate with him, I'd gotten only terse, vague answers. I supposed it was better than begging me to come back, but it stung nonetheless.

Still, Max wouldn't take simple logic for an answer. The many, many times I'd tried to explain my nonrelationship with Nathan, Max had refused to see reason. "He wouldn't have asked you to stay if he didn't love you," he'd insisted. "Just because he doesn't admit it doesn't mean it's not true."

"Oh, kind of like you and Bella?" I'd quipped, effectively ending the conversation. I should have cut Max a little more slack. After all, he had just gone through a nasty breakup himself, no matter how he denied it. Obviously, he had transferred the situation with Bella onto Nathan and me to avoid dealing with his feelings.

"I don't think I can handle talking to him right now," I said, knowing full well how lame that sounded.

"It'll only get worse the longer you wait." Max knew he had a perfectly valid point. I could tell from the gleam of triumph in his blue eyes. "And if it's horrible, so what? We're going down to Navy Pier tonight. You can drown your sorrows in cotton candy. No one can be sad with cotton candy."

I raised one eyebrow. "Not even a vampire with a profoundly screwed up love life?"

"Cotton candy is to vampire suffering as kryptonite is to Superman." He reached for the cordless phone on the nightstand and handed it to me. "Call him."

Helpless, I looked from the alarm clock to the phone. The days had gotten longer. Though the sun wasn't down yet in Chicago, it was almost nine Michigan time. Nathan would be getting ready to open the store. If I called now we wouldn't have long to talk. That was a good thing, considering I had no clue what I would say to him.

I took the phone and punched in the number, a pang of homesickness assailing me as I imagined Nathan navigating the cluttered living room to get to the phone in the kitchen. An overwhelming desire to be home again gripped me, and my heart pounded in my chest in anticipation of speaking to him. The line clicked and I wet my lips, preparing to answer his "Hello?"

"Nathan Grant's residence," a sleepy, female voice purred over the line.

As quickly as my heart had warmed to the prospect of speaking to Nathan, it froze again with the realization of who this was.

"Hello?" she asked, the word marked with a distinct Italian accent. "Is anyone there?"

Bella.

With shaking hands, I hung up the phone. I couldn't look at Max. How would I break it to him that Bella, the only woman he'd ever had feelings for, no matter how he tried to deny them, had apparently extended her stay at Nathan's apartment by a good three weeks?

I was having a hard enough time explaining it myself. My mind jumped from one possibility—Bella's employers, the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement, had discovered she'd helped us find a cure for Nathan, leaving her with no job or residence—to the next—she'd missed her plane and had to wait for a much, much later flight—but none of them dislodged the sick feeling in my stomach.

"Carrie, what's wrong?" Max frowned at me as though he'd be able to discern my thoughts if he stared hard enough.

I opened my mouth cautiously. I wasn't sure I wouldn't throw up. "He wasn't home. I guess I dodged that bullet."

"Yeah, well…you're still calling him when we get back." He eyed the window, where rosy sunlight sneaked in around the edges of the curtains. "I'm gonna go take a shower. By the time we're ready, the sun will be off the streets and we can head out."

I nodded and watched him start for his bathroom before I left for my own room.

Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Armintrout.