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last moments on earth as agonizing as possible.
    “You do not think it would be better for people to know this murderer has been captured and is no longer a threat?”
    “Better for them how?” I asked. “He no longer will be a threat, and that is all that matters. And he will never tell his story so that deranged people can imitate him. Hollywood can’t make a movie. No one but I will know who the killer was.”
    “And I. May I kill him this time?”
    “Yes, very well. Must you crush them while you drain them?”
    “It is the same as squeezing the last bit of toothpaste from a tube.”
    “So you’ve told me,” I said, revolted.
    She laughed at my expression. She rose from the couch and walked past me to the open patio doors.
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” she said. “Did you see the tox panel?”
    “Yes. It was in the coroner’s report. She was apparently clean.”
    “That is strange. Sebastian, I would like to consult with Marcus on this case.”
    “Marcus? Why?” In all the cases Aliena and I had worked in the past, she had never, to my knowledge, discussed them with anyone else. Vampires did not concern themselves with human affairs.
    “I think he may be interested in it.”
    “Again, why?”
    She walked back to the coffee table, turned the laptop around, and moved the mouse so the screensaver cleared and we were looking at a long shot of Sherri’s hanging body. “I do not know. It is a feeling. She was also a virgin?”
    “Yes, the rape kit proved that.”
    “We’ve worked murder cases before, but this one has a different feel. I would like to apprise Marcus of the details. May I?”
    She wasn’t going to give me any more. I suppressed a surge of jealousy at the idea of her discussing the case with the handsome vampire. However, there was no gracious way to forbid it.
    “Of course.”
    She turned and looked at the angel atop the Christmas tree.
    “Do you like it?” I asked.
    “Very pretty.”
    She left at six thirty, lifting from my patio into the paling sky. For the last few months, she had been spending the daylight hours somewhere in the San Bernardino Mountains. Exactly where she slept was a secret she shared with no one.
    I returned to the couch, opened the “Hamilton III” document, added several notes from my conversation with Aliena (including her claim on the kill), then sat back. The nascent beams of the sun crept slowly toward me across the carpet. Blowing smoke rings at the ceiling, I thought about the man who had killed thirty-seven hours ago and wondered if he was ready to kill again.

Twelve
    Wednesday, December 22, 8:50 a.m.
     
    After ten cigarettes, I removed my jacket, tie, and shoes, stretched out full-length on the couch, and closed my eyes. Taking slow, deep breaths, I relaxed my muscles. The faint rumble of traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway drifted through the windows.
    I do not sleep the way mortals sleep. Instead I remember, and the memories play out in my mind like dreams. It is not something I always control. The subconscious mind is a recalcitrant junk collector, retaining memories the conscious mind would rather not. And because the unconscious makes unpredictable, illogical connections, my dream may be an experience I had hoped to forget.
    How I longed to close my eyes, remember my families as they were when we were happiest, clasp those images to my soul, and never again experience the darkness that fills my past.
    For although love is one of the constants of history, so is death.
     
    Even at a very young age, I knew there was something unusual about me.
    I was born Sebastian Laurence Montero in July of 1274 near the castle town of Arundel in West Sussex, the oldest of three children. My family were free people working the land of Earl William Fitzhugh.
    My father was tall and black-haired, with kind brown eyes and a big nose, built like a stone cathedral. My mother was a hardy, broad-shouldered, wide-hipped woman with fair hair and green eyes.
    By the time I