Notes: 'Uncovered' was based on the book The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte. It was an okay film, uplifted (!) by Peter Wingfield's portrayal of Max the Slut. 'Breed' was a god-awful film made watchable only by Adrian Paul as Aaron.

He touched his fingers to the metal that was rapidly warming to his body-heat. It was a heavy curb chain, diamond-cut, its facets etched with fine arabesques, and it looked very good on him. There was more gold on Sophia's dressing table, a careless tangle of necklaces and pendants and other assorted glitter that cost several fortunes, all treated with the same insouciance. But this one had been bought for him. She'd said she had a gift for him when she picked him up at their usual meeting place, but he hadn't expected anything like this.

Sophia finished fastening the clasp at the back of his neck and kissed his shoulder as she came to stand beside him. "Beautiful," she murmured.

"Yes," Max said huskily. "You are." But his eyes weren't on her. He knew he looked good, knew that women were drawn to him like mares in season, and he revelled in it. Casually he drifted his hand down his body, caressed lightly over his taut nipples, and caught his breath at the tingling arousal ignited by the simple caress. Sophia gasped as well, pressing closer to him, her desire a tangible thing.

He chuckled, and stroked down his belly, eased open the top button of his jeans to scroll through the fine line of dark hair that arrowed down to his hidden groin. Max didn't wear underpants. His ladies found it a turn-on, knowing that all he wore between them and his cock was a single layer of fabric.

"Don't tease," Sophia whispered, her fingers loosening another button. "I have to be at the restaurant for lunch in half an hour ... "

"I know," he said smugly. "Go and meet your politician-friends, and think of me." He let her slip her fingers inside his jeans and cup his genitals, then caught her wrist and lifted her hand to his mouth. At the same time he unfastened more buttons and freed his semi-erect penis, pumped it slowly, deliberately displaying himself in the mirror to arouse her even more. "I'll be waiting for you."

"Bastard!" She pouted and jerked free of his light hold, but she was smiling as she did so. Then a faint noise came from downstairs, a door shutting not quite quietly enough, perhaps. Yet the villa should be empty but for them. Sophia paled. "Ohmygod - Marco - he's come home early!"

Max swore, fastening his jeans quickly. Of all the farcical situations - the stupid bitch had been so sure her husband was in Madrid until the weekend.

He took one swift glance at the windows and dismissed them at once. There was a six metre drop onto the terrace and he had no wish to risk broken bones. So he did the next best thing; he dived to the floor and rolled under the bed, grabbing his shirt and shoes on the way.

Sophia snatched up her robe and a book and threw herself onto the rumpled sheets. "Who's there?" she called. "Is that you, sweetheart?"

A drape of linen partially obscured his view, but from where he lay, Max could see the mirror, and the foot of the bed and the door reflected in it. The door opened, and the dark silhouette of a man stood there. Not Marco Rodriguez, the body-shape was too tall, too broad-shouldered. He walked into the room and Max saw a stranger's face.

"Raoul?" Sophia, said surprise in her voice. "What are you - " Raoul raised his hand and the sunlight glinted off the barrel of his gun. Sophia screamed once, the sound cut off by the first shot.

Frozen in terror, Max could not move, and that probably saved his life. Three more shots rang out, each one punching through the bed in a line from pillow to midway, the last two into the floor only inches from his rigid body. If his bladder had not already been empty, Max would have pissed himself.

The thunder of his heart in his own ears was deafening. Surely this Raoul would hear it as well - but the man turned and walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him. Still Max couldn't move. Blood soaked the loose sheet and dripped slowly off the bottom edge to spatter on the carpet, the smell of it mingling with faeces and cordite to clog in his throat, and it was the steady pat-pat-pat into a widening pool that finally galvanised him into action.

A shuddering whine of horror broke from him, and Max rolled away from the spreading redness. He scrambled to his feet on the far side of the bed. Then he froze again. Sophia was dead. Very dead. One bullet had hit between her eyes, the others at breastbone, stomach and groin. Very precise, very deliberate. This was no passion-driven killing - this was an execution.

And he had witnessed it.

Max was at the door before common-sense stopped him. He had very little money, while Sophia was loaded and dead. Her purse lay on the dressing table and he pounced on it, jerked it open and filled his pockets with every coin and note he could find. The cards he left - any payment or withdrawal could be traced. Then the jewellery caught his eye.

Gold, gems: they could be fenced and Max had the contacts in Barcelona's back streets. He spread his shirt on the floor and dumped a double handful of indiscriminate treasure in the middle of it and knotted the fabric into a bundle. His brain was working now, and he hurried to the security panel by the front door. Sophia had driven him here in her car, and she had made sure his arrival hadn't been monitored. One glance told him all the cameras were down. No one was going to have a record of him leaving the place.

He made for the kitchen, and from the trash container he retrieved a reasonably clean plastic bag with a local supermarket's bright logo on both sides. He dropped his cache into it and let himself out the back door. Then, keeping to what cover he could find, he ran, not to the garage, but the boathouse below the terrace, and the small but powerful motor launch that was moored to the jetty. It was the work of seconds to hot-wire the ignition.

Max turned the boat for the open sea, and then accelerated south along the coast towards Barcelona and its busy marinas. Maybe he was being paranoid, maybe he wasn't, but he wasn't prepared to take chances. This was the safest way of getting back to his apartment, safer than taking Sophia's car and driving. Just in case the killer - or whoever hired him - was watching the road. His fingerprints would be all over the room, but it was not only the Police he was worried about.

Max Lapeña was going to disappear.

* * *

Inspector Luis De Quintana was a large, fleshy man in his fifties. He'd not attempted to fight his premature hair-loss; instead he'd shaved his head, and the heavy bones of his skull had a certain monumental grandeur. His eyes were dark under heavy black brows, and they held a keen intelligence as well as the deep cynicism that went with the job. Those eyes raked slowly over Aaron Grey, studying him in minute detail and not bothering to be subtle about it. Aaron had become more or less used to that kind of intense regard. He remained still, hands clasped loosely in front of him, face inscrutable, wishing he could put his sunglasses back on. But to do that might suggest that he had something to hide, and he needed this man's co-operation.

"I won't beat about the bush, Señor Grey," De Quintana said, leaning back in his chair until it creaked. "I know all about your little community up in the hills. I know what they are and why they're there. But they cause me no trouble and while that stays the status quo, I have no problems with them. What I won't tolerate are your own cops. This is my Police area, no one else's."

"That's understood," Aaron said quietly. "It's why I'm here, Inspector, to liaise, and make sure that our internal security officers don't cross your boundaries. It would be beneficial if you would permit a few more of us to work with your officers - "

"No deal, Señor. Not until I know what I'm working with. The NSA and FBI in the USA speak highly of you but I form my own opinions. I'm teaming you with Detective Ricardo Aquilar, and we'll take it from there for now. One more thing. This is Spain, not America. The political pendulum hasn't swung so wide here - we're not a Police state and not likely to be. The NSA's approval isn't necessarily a good thing in my book."

Aaron nodded. The National Security Agency had a grim reputation far beyond America's borders. "Understood," he said again. "Personally I look forward to the time when that pendulum drops back to a saner level."

De Quintana gave a harsh bark of laughter. "I'll bet," he said. "You and the rest of the world." Then he became all business again. "Aquilar's a good cop and has been known to think outside the envelope on occasion. He'll give you a fair chance. I expect you to give him your full co-operation and support."

"Yes, Inspector," Aaron said.

"Okay," De Quintana went on, "I may as well throw you in the deep end. Marco Rodriguez is one of our up-and-coming politicians. An hour ago he reported his wife shot to death in their villa in Badalona. The crime scene's been secured and we're waiting on the Forensics experts getting there." The Inspector picked up his phone and punched a single number. "Aquilar," he said. "Come in here."

The detective had obviously been briefed before Aaron had even arrived at the Police Headquarters. He came in with a nod and one sweeping glance for the visitor, that was all, and then he turned his attention to De Quintana. "Sir?" he said.

"The Sophia Matas murder. Update me."

"Still waiting for Forensics, sir. No witnesses, no suspects, yet, but the maid said her jewellery is missing. She was always given the day off when the Señora planned on company, but she didn't know who the boyfriend was. So far, no one does. The husband denies there was a boyfriend, but someone shot and robbed her." He hesitated, and gave Aaron another glance. "It looked as if she wasn't expecting company, though," he continued. "She had a lunch-appointment in Barcelona to go to. She was wearing her robe and there was a book on the bed with her. A biography of a film star. It was open when she was shot, there are blood spatters on some of the inside pages. On the face of it, it has all the hallmarks of a walk-in murder/robbery."

"Except for?"

"She was shot four times, sir." He touched himself, forehead, breast, belly and crotch. "In a straight line. That says execution to me, terrorist organisations or crime syndicates, but no one in our database uses that MO."

"Or just somebody making a point," De Quintana said heavily. "Do we have a list of the stolen items yet?"

"The husband's working on it."

"Good. Grey is your new partner on this. Show him around this lunatic asylum, and then bring him up to speed on the case. I've already told the squad room, Grey, all our cases have been effectively shunted back a place. Marco Rodriguez has too much political clout, and there's a strong chance this killing has a political motive. Aquilar, according to the brief from the NSA, Grey has some useful talents. Use 'em. Take him to the crime scene ASAP, preferably before the Forensics team decide to turn up, and see what his take on it is."

"Yes, sir," Aquilar said crisply. He didn't sound surprised.

"We're going to need fast results on this one," De Quintana went on. "So get started."

It was a dismissal, and with another nod to Aaron, Aquilar led the way out of the office. He paused outside a door sporting a large 'Squad Room' sign, both badly in need of repainting. "Sight, smell, hearing, right?" he asked quietly. "Speed and strength?"

"Yes," Aaron said, studying him in his turn. Aquilar was in his early forties, with thick dark hair in a crew-cut, and a heavy moustache. He wore a single gold earring, and a crucifix on a chunky gold chain was almost lost in the dense mat of curling black hair that showed in the V of his open-necked red shirt. A scar cut across his left cheek from ear to jaw, and he looked more like a street-tough than a detective. Which was probably an asset.

"Okay. Before you get the guided tour, we're going to have a talk, unofficial, just the two of us. Nothing personal, you understand," Aquilar went on. "It's just that if you're going to be my partner out there, covering my back, I need to know a hell of a lot more about you than I've been told."

"The feeling," Aaron said dryly, "is mutual. Where do you suggest?"

"The canteen. They serve industrial strength caffeine, and I have a hunch I'm going to need it."

They took the elevator to the next floor up. The canteen was a short walk down a wide corridor, and once there Aquilar directed him to a corner table while he headed for the service counter. Aaron gained a few assessing stares from the half a dozen officers in the large room, but to all intents and purposes he ignored them. He knew what they saw: a tall, wide-shouldered man in his thirties, with black hair and the yellowed-ivory pallor of the olive complexioned who'd stayed too long away from the sun, and a thin dark moustache that followed the line of his upper lip. Aaron was aware that some might have called him handsome if there was more animation in his features, but that was unimportant to him. He kept his hair combed straight back from his forehead, and hid his light-sensitive eyes behind opaque sunglasses. He wore a dark, old-fashioned suit and tie, clothes that hung on him and blurred the lines of his body. But they could not entirely disguise the fact that he moved with a fluid grace that defied comparison, and carried with him an aura of stillness that was not entirely human.

Deliberately Aaron faded himself into the background, and the conversations that had stopped when he came into the room started up again.

Aquilar rejoined him, carrying two large mugs of black coffee. He sat down opposite Aaron, and put a coffee in front of him, then he fished a handful of sugar sachets out of his pocket and dumped them on the table between them. "Help yourself," he said.

"Thank you," Aaron said politely. "How long have you been with the Police, Detective?"

"Nearly twenty years. You?"

"Nearly seventy years."

Aquilar's mouth set hard beneath his moustache. "That gives me an easy lead in," he said. "You are a vampire, is that right?"

"Yes," Aaron said. "But don't believe all you may have read in books or seen on the movie screen."

"That's obvious. You're sitting here in broad daylight. What else is wrong? Garlic? Silver? Holy water? The stake in the heart? Blood?"

"Garlic gives me indigestion," Aaron replied. "A wound made by a silver weapon will take a long time to heal, if it doesn't kill me outright. A stake in the heart will severely incapacitate me. We don't drink blood - there's a substitute liquid that meets all our dietary needs. Holy water - " He spread his hands and shrugged, smiling enough to show the tips of his canines. "I'm Jewish, Detective."

Aquilar scowled, but his mouth was twitching in a reluctant smile of his own. "That community of yours, in the hills above Begues; do you live there?"

"No, I have a hotel room in the city, but I intend to rent an apartment."

"Sensible. Hotels here are the ultimate rip-offs." Aquilar shook his head in disbelief. "You should be a myth," he said abruptly. "Are there werewolves out there as well?"

"I have no idea." Aaron took the question at face value. "I have never met one, nor heard of anyone who has."

The detective snorted and crossed himself. It seemed an automatic response. "Then I thank God for small mercies. You're here to liaise, you said. So what experience do you have of working with regular cops?"

"Almost seventy years," Aaron said softly. "If you mean non-vampire, none. My usual partner, Steven Grant, is an FBI agent. We've worked together for nearly four years. It has been a successful teaming, on the whole. There are a growing number of joint pairings in the various law enforcement agencies across the USA."

"Uh-huh." Aquilar studied him with shrewd eyes. "Would you call this Steven Grant your friend?"

"Yes." Aaron said with conviction. He didn't have to think about it.

"Okay. You strike me as being a very controlled kind of man, Señor Grey. Do you often lose it?"

"Very rarely. The end result can be - messy. And unproductive."

"How rarely is rarely?" Aquilar asked, sitting back in his chair as if he needed to put some distance between them.

"Twice."

"In how long?"

"Ninety-eight years, give or take a year or so."

"Impressive."

"A necessity."

"I can see it would be." Aquilar took a deep swallow of his coffee. "Okay, Señor. I think we can work together up to a point. You'll understand if I reserve judgement until I've seen how you operate out in the field."

"Of course," Aaron said. "I, too, have questions, Detective." He waited for the nod of assent. "You have problems with what I am?"

"Over and above the instinctive gut reaction? No more than I would about any stranger coming in and being partnered with me. Your kind has received a lot of publicity since the USA acknowledged you. I've read the press releases and I've read some of the more intelligible scientific papers, so I know about the blood-infection risk. Like all the Barcelonan cops, I was tested. Along with about a dozen others, I came out among the 20% immune, so we became the unit that oversaw the set-up of the Begues settlement some three years ago now. It was one of the first major immigrations from America, I think? So." And he shrugged, spreading his hands. "I guess I know as much as anyone about the reality of vampires. I'm more concerned with the reality of Señor Aaron Grey as a detective." His moustache didn't quite hide his bleak smile. "There are a lot of people out there who've not read more than the gutter press, so be warned. You want some advice?"

Aaron nodded guardedly. "I will listen," he said.

"Change your image. You look like an undertaker down on his luck. That fashion statement might work in the USA, but it doesn't in Cataluña and you'll stand out from the crowd like a nun in a brothel, which is no use to me."

Aaron inclined his head briefly. "I'll bear that in mind," he said. "The Matas case - the husband found the body?"

"Yes, he came home early. He said he'd forgotten some papers, and if he hadn't had an alibi for the approximate time of death, he'd be in the cells now. Personally, I think he was aiming to surprise her and the boyfriend, but she'd been dead an hour or so by the time he got there. So," Aquilar continued, and changed the subject completely, "where are you staying?" 

"The Alhambra. It's in the Gothic Quarter." Aaron paused. "It seemed an appropriate area," he added with a half-shrug, and let a brief glimmer of amusement show.

Aquilar gave a hoot of laughter and raised his coffee mug in a salute. "Okay, Señor Grey, let’s see if we can do business together. We better get out to the crime scene ASAP - just in case the Forensics boffins manage to get their asses into gear."

"My name is Aaron," he said quietly and got a wide grin in return, teeth showing very white beneath the heavy black moustache.

"And I'm Rico." They shook hands solemnly over the table, mutual respect and acceptance growing between them. "Do you have any objections to being used as a two-legged blood-hound?"

"None at all. It's something I'm skilled at, and Steve would assure you I am even house-trained."

Aquilar was sill sniggering when they climbed into the unmarked police car. Aaron hadn't thought it was that funny.

* * *

The unmistakable aroma of death was heavy in the air; cordite, faeces, urine and above all, blood, reacting with his under-brain to raise his hackles and shiver down his spine. Aaron ignored it, concentrating instead on the scents that were almost smothered by the red, wet reek. Terror, sex, and a man's expensive cologne, different to the cigar-layered after-shave of the man who'd stood in the doorway and shot the woman, and the light citrus cologne that Aquilar used.

The detective stayed outside at the top of the stairs, while with meticulous care, Aaron examined the bedroom and en suite bathroom, touching little, though he wore the necessary cotton gloves. The jewellery had not been taken by the killer, Aaron discovered. He had not come into the room.

On the pillow Aaron found a strand of dark hair, about four inches long and with a slight curl to it. Not the woman's: her hair was shoulder-length, fashionably lavender and blonde. He raised the fine thread to his nose and sniffed, eyes closed to hone the required sense. The cologne again, a herbal shampoo, and that oh-so-elusive trace that was the man himself.

Aaron glanced around the room one more time. The story was easy to read: Sophia and her lover had spent some hours in the bed, and then taken showers. At some point they must have heard something that alerted them because the man had hidden under the bed while Sophia had arranged herself casually on the sheets with a book, an unnecessary picture of marital innocence.

After the killing, the lover had taken the jewellery, and with Aquilar trailing silently behind him, Aaron followed the fear-tinged cologne scent down to the kitchen and out of the door. There he lost it, the wind off the sea and the free-flowing smells of the open air shredding the trail.

"What have you got?" Aquilar asked. To his credit, there was no impatience in his voice.

"The killer came no further than the door," Aaron said. "The lover was hiding under the bed at the time of the shooting. Afterwards, he went to the dressing-table, emptied her purse, took the jewellery and went down to the kitchen. He opened the trash-can, then went out of the kitchen door. Later, back in the house, her husband came as far as the end of the bed, then went down to the telephone in the hall. Then you came in by the front door, walked to the bed, to the bathroom, and then left the way you came. That's all I can tell you."

Aquilar nodded. "How do you know it was her husband?" he asked. "Just from the report that he phoned it in?"

"No. His scent. Body-scent, not just cologne. It's in the room, his wardrobe. The lover's scent is here, too: the bed, the bathroom - "

"And the shooter's?" Aquilar interrupted.

"Yes. As far as the threshold."

"You'd know them again?"

"Yes."

"Good. Is it possible the lover was in on it?"

"No. He was terrified. Fear has its own odour, like sex."

"So Rodriguez could have a motive for arranging her death."

Aaron nodded agreement. "It wouldn't be the first time a jealous husband hired a killer, though usually it's the lover that's the target."

"Or both. So why didn't the hit-man go looking for the boyfriend?" Aquilar scowled, then answered his own question. "Rodriguez has political ambitions. A wife with the morals of an alley-cat would be a millstone round his neck. A beloved wife tragically murdered makes him a suffering but strong hero."

"Voters," Aaron said mildly, "like heroes. On the other hand, in a situation like this, isn't the husband always the Number One Suspect? His enemies could find that useful."

"There's always that angle," the detective agreed. "Since this is Cataluña; it could be a threat from an extreme political group, or a set-up. We'll know more of the ramifications when we ID the shooter." He sounded supremely confident. Aaron said nothing.

* * *

Once his door was securely locked and the drapes pulled closed and overlapped, Max investigated his haul. With a growing sense of awe, he separated the clutter into necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings. Then went through the four piles and sorted out the sets.

Jewels glowed among the gold, both faceted and cabochon. Pearls added their more subtle lustre, from almost black to warm white. And the gold itself ranged from blush through butter-yellow to white. Even more appealing was the overall price.

Long ago Max had made it his business to know jewellery, along with art and antiques. They were part of his arsenal, as was his body, his practised charm and sexual expertise. Both sets of talents had landed him a rich wife with an old family name, but she had not been quite as rich as Max had hoped. The stupid bitch was dead, and he had no hope of inheriting anything bar general ill-will. In fact he'd been very lucky to escape from that dark fiasco without ending up with a prison sentence.

Disappearing took money, so some of his haul would have to be fenced. He sorted again, taking out the less easily traced stuff, and wrapped the rest in a clean hand towel. He'd parcel them up and decide where to hide them later.

He was still left with some choice items that would net him a large amount of cash from the right source, and a quantity of gold chains. The chains sat in a separate heap, glistening with their own special allure. He'd keep them back, Max decided, as a financial necessity. He'd need more cash than he'd already gained to find a bolt-hole and stay there. But the necklace Sophia had given him was staying where it was: around his throat. Not for any sentimental reason, purely because it looked damned good.

Quickly he linked the necklaces, fasteners to jump-rings, until he had a series of continuous chains long enough to fit snugly around his waist. He changed into a loose t-shirt and checked that they couldn't be seen beneath it.

Finally, Max packed as much of his clothing as he could into his large backpack, mixing the down-market stuff with the good quality fashionable. His hoard was buried in the middle of it, tucked into a pillowcase pulled from the clean laundry bag, and all the time his mind was busy turning over various plans, and rejecting most of them.

Max knew he had to cover his back with the Police, but didn't trust them enough to simply turn himself in. They'd ID him as soon as they found his prints and ran them through the computer, let alone any DNA he'd left in the room, so it would be a waste of time to deny he was there. But sometimes attack was the best defence - or in this case being up-front and open about his involvement with Sophia.

On the other hand, there was no such animal as an incorruptible cop, and it was odds-on that whoever wanted Sophia executed had a detective on their payroll. But there was one Inspector that street-gossip was sure couldn't easily be bought. The question was, could he risk it? He decided it was worth taking a chance, but he would need to get straight to the man, which would not be easy without some fast talking. So Max got the number out of the phone-book and dialled it before he could change his mind. "This is the Mayor's office," he said with a crisp confidence he didn't feel. "Put me through to Inspector De Quintana, please."

That got him to the man without any questions asked, and Max launched straight into his speech as soon as De Quintana gave his name. "I'm Max Lapeña," he said, "and if you don't already know it, Sophia Matas has been murdered. I saw it and I heard the first name of the shooter. It's Raoul, and Sophia knew him. He's about one metre eighty, with wavy dark blond hair, collar length, good-looking, clean-shaven, blue eyes and looks about thirty or so. I'll recognise him if I see him, no question. I'm not coming in, I don't trust the cops to keep me alive. As soon as you've caught this bastard and whoever hired him, I'll contact you again. Most of the jewellery is in storage for Marco Rodriguez. I'll hand it over when we meet." Then he put the phone down and grabbed his backpack, and got out of there, fast.

* * *

Aquilar's cell phone rang as they were leaving the villa. He answered it, and listened with a wry smile growing. "Yes, sir," he said. "We're on our way in. From what Señor Grey has been able to pick up, your man is on the level. Someone was there and maybe could have seen it, and if it was Lapeña, Aaron will know once we get hold of him." He listened again. "Understood, sir, I'll be suitably hangdog."

"There is a problem?" Aaron asked as they got into the car.

"Not as such. Someone's called the Inspector, told him he saw the man shoot Matas."

The vampire nodded. "The lover, hiding under the bed. But he could have seen virtually nothing from there."

"Apparently he saw enough to give a pretty good description of the shooter." Aquilar shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough."

"Why must you be suitably hangdog?" Aaron asked.

"Because He Who Must Be Obeyed is planning something and he is going to rip me a new asshole as part of it. He's got a devious mind, has De Quintana. A good cop, too, one of the best. Okay, he explodes every now and then, but that's just the way he is. Sometimes, like now, he can make it work for him."

They drove in silence for a while, Aquilar's hands relaxed on the wheel, but he was frowning thoughtfully.

"How the hell did you do that?" he asked abruptly. "Just by what? Sense of smell alone?"

Aaron gave a minimal shrug. "Focus," he said. He paused for a moment. "Imagine a bundle of threads, different colours, different textures, twists, spread out and tangled. You pick one, lock your focus on it and - you can trace its path no matter where it goes."

"Predator," the detective said. "And prey."

"Yes," Aaron agreed with impenetrable serenity. "Exactly that. Who called the Inspector?"

"Max Lapeña. The name's familiar, but I can't quite place him. Yet. I'll run him through the computer as soon as I get a chance."

* * *

The squad room was almost empty when they arrived. The lone detective looked up from his keyboard as they came in and gave Aquilar a grin. "He is looking for you," he said. "He is not happy. What have you done this time - or not done?"

Aquilar frowned and shrugged. "Shit, Julio, I don't know." He didn't sound concerned. "I better not keep him waiting, then, or my balls will be on the butcher's block. C'mon, Aaron."

"Perhaps it would be better if I waited here for you?"

"No way. He's less likely to bawl me out in front of an audience."

"Never stopped him before," Julio muttered to his screen.

"Yeah, thanks for the reassurance, friend." Aquilar gave him a patently false grin, and led the way to the Inspector's office.

They were greeted by a bellowed command to get their misbegotten asses in front of his desk and shut the fucking door. As soon as the maligned door was slammed closed, De Quintana leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Update me," he said.

The Inspector listened in silence as Aquilar gave a concise report on the crime scene and Aaron's findings. Then he nodded.

"That ties up with what Lapeña had to say," he said. "Now we have to find him as well as this Raoul."

"Why won't he come in?" Aaron asked. "If he is willing to testify he has nothing to lose by holding out."

"Only his life," De Quintana said, and Aquilar grunted. "Unofficially, Señor Grey, the Police Department in Cataluña is not as clean as some of us would like. I'm sure your NSA and FBI are no different."

"They are not mine," Aaron said, his voice characteristically calm and quiet.

"None the less," De Quintana answered smoothly, "you are theirs. He could be right to play it safe," he went on. "We'll keep Lapeña and what he saw out of this for as long as we can. Forensics will place him at the scene, and the shooter or whoever hired him might well decide to take him out of the equation. You two find him, sit on him and keep him alive."

"I think I've placed him," Aquilar said. "Wasn't he involved in those chess-painting murders a year or so ago?"

"Yes, Feijoo had the case. But don't ask him or his team about Lapeña." The lack of expression in De Quintana's face and voice spoke volumes. "He didn't solve those murders, Julia Daro and her gypsy did that." A certain edge had crept into the words. "Lapeña," he said, glancing at Aaron and pushing a file across the desk. "He's a street rat. He'll have to be handled carefully. Too much heavy-handed pressure and he's likely to go for your throat. Or clam up out of sheer bloody-mindedness." He flipped the file open, spread out a few photocopied mug-shots.

The first was of a tired-eyed child with an unprepossessing appearance. His nose and ears were too big for his features, and there was a wary vulnerability about him, despite the stubborn set of his jaw. Tear-tracks showed on his grubby face, along with several bruises and contusions.

"He was first picked up when he was ten," De Quintana said. "Stealing from a market stall. Then nothing until he was thirteen when he stuck a knife into a tourist trying to rape him." This mug shot was little different from the first, except there was a hardness about the young face. "He wasn't above selling blow-jobs when he couldn't get money any other way, but took exception to a punter who was aiming on taking more. Nothing came of it: the tourist had superficial injuries and skipped town, and the kid was only defending himself, so we let him go with a warning. That's it. Until he got pulled in for the Lola Belmonte murder." This time it was a man's face staring at the camera, gaze wide and defenceless under an untidy tangle of dark hair. He looked stunned, scared, but there was something calculating behind the hazel eyes. The adult face was a far cry from the juvenile. While not classically handsome, Max Lapeña had gained eye-catching good-looks. The ugly duckling had transmuted into something approaching a raptor. "He was cleared of that, and dropped out of sight again."

"Does he have any family in the area?" Aaron asked.

"No." De Quintana closed the file and Aquilar scooped it up. "None living. No known contacts either. I want him found before the Forensics team haul his name out of the system. Find him," he repeated, "keep him safe and report only to me."

"So do we let the husband off the hook for now?" Aquilar asked. "Having an alibi for the shooting doesn't mean much if he did the hiring."

De Quintana silenced Aquilar with a glare. "That kind of speculation will be going the rounds fast enough when this hits the news," he said. "And it's a good way to discredit a troublesome politician. He isn't off the list, but neither is any other theory, from ex-lover to organised crime and political rivals. Don't forget that according to our only witness, she knew her killer. When you've got Lapeña, don't take him to any of the usual safe houses, and keep close to him 24-7. Rico, as far as everyone else is concerned, you are reluctantly escorting our guest, keeping him away from the real action, and I've bawled you out for involving him in the Matas case. You over-stepped the line there, so the baby-sitting is by way of a slapped wrist."

"Reading loud and clear. I am the injured innocent, thinking I was doing the right thing by bringing a fellow-cop into a major murder case. But - " Aquilar broke off and shifted restlessly in his chair, his half-smile becoming an angry frown. "Something will have to be done about Feijoo before long," he added, a growl in his voice.

"Maybe. But not by you," De Quintana said coldly. "Now, get out of here and find Lapeña."

* * *

Finding Max Lapeña was not going to be easy. The latest address on the file - which had turned out to be copies of everything the Police had on the man - was the Belmonte estate and he hadn't lived in the castle since the Chess Game murders. But there was enough information to give them a start.

Lapeña had been Lola Belmonte's personal fitness trainer before they'd married. It would be likely that he'd've gone back to the job he knew after Lola's death.

"For personal trainer," Aquilar said, "read stud. He's good-looking, takes care of his body, and before Lola Belmonte he pimped himself around to the rich locals and tourists. You can take the file home with you tonight, if you don't get a chance to finish it during the day."

"Thanks," Aaron said. "In the meantime, we find out which gym or leisure centre Sophia Matas used?"

Aquilar's moustache lifted in a feral grin. "Got it in one," he said. "On the way there, you can start reading."

* * *

Sophia was a member of the Olympian Fitness Centre, a private club for the rich and upwardly mobile. The manager was sweetly co-operative, confirming the names and addresses that Marco had already given the Police, and adding more: casual friends as well as Juan Carlos Manito, Sophia's Pilates and yoga instructor; and Max Lapeña, her swimming and gym trainer. Both men worked at the Centre on an ad hoc basis, and neither were around at the moment. Manito was on leave and Lapeña had called in sick. The name of Raoul did not come up.

The address the manager gave them for Lapeña was an empty apartment above a bakery in the La Born district. He'd been there, no question, and some of his belongings still were. But half-emptied drawers in the small bedroom suggested someone had packed in a hurry. Aaron prowled around the rooms, taking in the scents that hung in the still air like the ghost of the man: the expensive cologne that did not match the tidy drabness of the apartment, the underlying tang of fear, and below it the aroma that was the man himself; subtle and warm and somehow exotic.

"He's not coming back here," Aquilar said, and Aaron refocused his attention. "There are a couple of places we can try, though."

The 'couple of places' turned out to be a lot more than that, and it was not far off midnight before the detective elected to call a temporary halt to the hunt.

Aaron was unwilling to go along with the decision. After the dreary utilitarianism of American big cities, the colours of Barcelona were a shock to the system. So was the light. In spite of the traffic-packed streets, there was a crystalline quality to it that defied description. There was a vitality to the city as well, and it appealed to something deep in Aaron's soul, even though the sun had hurt his eyes and laid a harsh blanket on his skin.

The night, though, that was another matter. The vibrancy was increased, and dusk had been a benison. Full night was silk velvet, replete with a multitude of scents that woke the hunter that slept so very close to his surface. It softened his steps to a glide, darkened his eyes until the gold was a narrow ring around the black, and he moved through the shifting shoals of people like the predator he was.

Then in the cartwheel plaza where four streets intersected with the Ramblas, Aaron caught a familiar drifting essence and turned to follow it. They were by the Liceu Theatre, close to the Sant Pau junction. Beyond the theatre was El Raval, which used to be the Chinese Quarter, a district that had not yet outgrown its grim reputation despite the change of name.

Aaron's abrupt change of direction took Aquilar by surprise. "What is it?" he demanded, catching up in a few strides.

"Lapeña," Aaron said. "He's not far. Stay here."

* * *

Max was fit - he knew he was fit - so why was his chest hurting with every indrawn breath and why did his legs feel rubbery and leaden at the same time?

An alleyway opened up beside him and he dived into it without breaking his stride. It was far too narrow for a car, and ended in a flight of steps down to another terrace, so they'd have to follow him on foot. That would give him an advantage. Wouldn't it?

Medieval cobbles were slick with modern garbage under the soles of his trainers, but he'd got his second wind now and the backpack didn't hamper him. He was running through the night, through alleys and back street courtyards of the Chinese Quarter the way he used to do as a kid, only this time the enemy was a lot more dangerous.

He heard the thin crack of a silenced automatic, and a bullet clanged off an old metal drainpipe as he brushed past it. Heavy leather-shod feet pounded behind him now, and anger began to push at the fear that drove him. He needed to get out of this maze, familiar though it was. Out in the open, among the crowds of tourists that milled along the Ramblas, they couldn't touch him. Maybe.

Max jinked right, then left. The sounds of pursuit were dropping back. Then a dark car slid to a halt across the alley ahead of him, and as he spun left again into another small courtyard, three men piled out and followed on his heels. One was a sprinter, and he was closing rapidly. In the meagre street-lights, gun-metal glinted briefly. They were boxing him in.

There was a way out of the courtyard, but a bullet ricocheted off the cobbles at his feet, and instinctively Max jumped aside. He couldn't get to the black mouth of the alley, the hunter was too close.

Back to the wall, literally as well as metaphorically, Max stared the gunman in the face. The man was grinning as he raised his weapon, taking slow aim.

"Got you, sucker," he panted.

Something snapped in Max's brain. With a yell of fury and terror mixed, he threw himself forward, his one coherent thought to take the bastard with him - the man shouted and pulled the trigger, and at the same time a heavy body cannoned into Max, hurling him sideways and landing on top of him. More shots cracked, cobbles splintered, and the body pinning him jerked under the impact of bullets. But the man rolled to his feet, towing Max with him, and shoved him towards the wall.

Bouncing off the stone-work, Max looked back over his shoulder to see the dark shape of his rescuer kick the gun from the shooter's hand, and drive a punch to the man's face that snapped his head back and sent him flying off his feet.

In the same movement the dark silhouette turned and came swiftly towards him.

Max had a brief impression of a pale, expressionless face and sleek black hair, then he was grabbed and lifted - thrown - and the metalwork of a balcony appeared magically before his eyes. Instinct cut in and he snatched at the railing, and hands were there to catch him by the belt and hoist him up and over.

It was a summer night, but the shutters were closed and locked. There could be no escape through the apartment. They were wedged in a corner, crouched where night and shadows merged to form a cave of blackness, and Max could not move. He was blocked by the weight of the man's body, and steady, unhurried breathing moved past his ear.

"Be still," the man whispered, his voice calm as a priest in a seminary, and with an accent Max couldn't immediately place.

It had taken scant seconds, and Max was still shuddering with the adrenaline rush. Running footsteps came nearer, and four men burst into the courtyard. One of them bent over the body of the fallen shooter, and then they headed for the alley across from them and disappeared. Max pushed against his captor, but the man didn't move.

"Wait," was all he said, and that spoken as quiet as a sigh.

Max waited. He closed his eyes, listening to the fading sounds of his pursuers, aware of the racing beat of his own heart, and the annoyingly steady breathing of the man pressed close beside him. A man who had taken bullets for him, but showed no sign that he'd been shot. So who went out at night in a bullet-proof vest? Max began to get a nasty feeling under his breastbone.

Then he was free, and he shivered, suddenly cold. "I'm Aaron Grey, Señor Lapeña," he heard. "I've been looking for you."

"Looking for - " Max echoed blankly, backing away. The railing stopped his retreat and he took a quick glance to check the drop. Three metres below him, the downed heavy had not stirred and Max wondered if he still lived. "Why? Who the fuck are you? How did you find me? Who are you working for?"

"They'll be coming back soon. We need to get out of here."

"No way!" Max snarled. "No 'we'! I want answers!"

"This is neither the time nor the place," Grey said, with a patience that both infuriated Max and made him feel like a posturing child. Which enraged him the more. It was, however, an anger in direct ratio to the fear that churned in his gut, and when a shout and running footsteps echoed in the night, his bravado deflated. "We are leaving. Now."

Max didn't argue.

There was a faint sound of splintering wood and the shutters swung open, but Max couldn't see how it had happened. He followed his rescuer into the blackness of the room, and sighed with relief when the night was shut out. He heard men run into the small square, heard angry voices raised - heard his name, and felt nauseous.

"Shit!" He whimpered. "They'll think I did it!"

"They can only kill you once," Grey pointed out with unwelcome logic. "Shall we go?"

"Where to?"

"My hotel." A small light flared, and the flickering flame painted his features into an impassive devil-mask. "You'll get some of your answers there."

Max hesitated. He was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. But Aaron Grey had saved his life while the men out in the square were doing their damnedest to take it. Besides, his curiosity was heading into overdrive. This guy was undoubtedly the weirdest man he'd come across. Who the hell was he?

"Okay," he said cautiously.

"Good." Grey took out a cell phone and punched in numbers. "Rico," he said, "Señor Lapeña and I are heading for my hotel. Will you meet us there? Good."

* * *

The apartment was empty and had been for some time, if the dust was anything to go by. Smothering the urge to sneeze, Max followed the tiny glow of the cigarette lighter to the front door.

Grey did something to the lock and the door opened onto a dimly lit corridor. Music was hammering away in the background - from beneath them, Max realised, and suddenly knew exactly where they were. "We're above the Neptune Tapas bar," he said. "It opens onto Sant Rafael Street. Where's your hotel?"

"The Alhambra, in the Gothic Quarter."

"I know it."

"Then lead the way. I'll be just behind you, making sure we're not followed."

Max nodded and hurried along the corridor to the stairs. He couldn't hear Grey behind him, but the knot of tension lodged between his shoulder-blades told him the man was there, shadowing him. It was nerve-wracking but oddly reassuring, and Max headed for the street level with growing confidence.

He paused in the doorway that opened onto Sant Raphael, eyes searching the crowd that hung around outside for anyone who looked like they wanted to kill him.

"Go on," Grey said quietly. "The hunters aren't here."

So Max took a deep breath and walked out, somehow managing to make it a casual stroll rather than a bolt for new cover.

Even at gone midnight, the Ramblas were busy with tourists and locals, most of them not as sober as they might be. Max slipped through the throng like an eel, aware on the edge of his senses that Grey had no problems keeping up with him. Finally he turned off the Ramblas and into the Gothic Quarter. A few streets later, Grey's hotel was in front of them, and Max dived into the foyer with a gasp of relief.

* * *

As soon as the door closed, Max spun round. He gave the hotel room no more than a cursory glance that took in the bed, the couch, the TV, the small table by the window, and the two chairs: then he turned all his attention on Aaron Grey.

A dark, ill-fitting suit hung on the man, shouting foreignness. Black hair was still sleekly in place despite the brawl in the courtyard, and the darkness of it accentuated the ivory pallor of his skin. And that pencil-thin moustache might have been fashionable in his grandfather's day, but it sure as hell wasn't now. Even so, it was a handsome face, Max conceded, or would be if it weren't for that unnatural lack of colour and total absence of expression. He looked to be a little older than Max's twenty-nine years, but not by much. Incongruously, as they’d entered the brightly lit room the man had put on sunglasses, and Max couldn’t see his eyes. That was unsettling.

Then Max remembered the ease with which this stranger had taken out the gunman. He stared at the pale features, and the suit that was slightly too large. There was an aura of stillness around him, and somehow the impressions just didn't add up.

"You're an agent of some kind. Not a cop. Not from here." Max took a deep breath. "Okay, Señor Grey," he said with a bravado he did not feel, "you want to tell me who the fuck you are and why I'm here?" Then he noticed the stains that darkened the breast of the suit and the slate-coloured shirt beneath it. "You're hit. I thought - you're wearing body-armour, aren't you?" And knew as he said it that the man wasn't. But Grey's next words drove it out of his head.

"You are in protective custody," Grey said serenely. "I am working with the Police Department, under Inspector De Quintana."

"Shit!"

"I believe the Inspector can be trusted."

"Easy for you to say!" Max snapped. "It isn't your neck on the line!"

"Then why did you phone him?"

Max glared at him. "It seemed like a good idea at the time!" he muttered. "Now, I'm not so sure. How the hell did you find me? The same way those assholes did? Juanito sold me out, the bastard!"

"No, I followed your scent."

"You - what?" Max's glare became an incredulous stare.

"Vampires are hunters, Señor. I hunted you."

Max gaped at him, jaw dropping. "You're a - what - ?" he squawked, backing away.

"Vampire," Grey repeated, taking off the sunglasses. Eyes the colour of topaz in sunlight gazed at him with the lazy inscrutability of a lion studying a future lunch. Max accelerated his retreat but something caught his heel and he fell in a graceless sprawl on his ass. All the tabloid stories he'd ever read reared up in his memory in blood-dripping, fanged details. "Ohmygod," he whimpered, scuttling on hands and heels until his backpack hit the wall. "Mary-Mother-of-God-and-all-Her-Saints ... "

Grey watched him placidly. "We intend to keep you safe, Señor," he said.

"We?" Max yelped, eyes raking the room for another vampire. "How many of you are there, for Christ's sake?"

"Just under four thousand," Grey said, and Max saw a glimmer of humour in his golden eyes. "But they're not all here. I'm in Cataluña to liaise with the Police Department, and I've been teamed with Ricardo Aquilar. I am a Police officer, Señor."

As if answering a cue, the door opened and a heavy-set man came in, holding up a too-familiar badge.

"No need to panic, Señor," he said crisply. "You're not under arrest. We're here to make sure you stay alive. I'm Detective Rico Aquilar, and Inspector De Quintana has tasked us with your protection."

"You said you were sold out," Grey cut in before Max could find coherence. "What happened?"

"I - uh - " Max scrabbled to his feet and sidled towards a chair. He stood behind it, holding the wooden back in a white-knuckled grip, as if it could give him some measure of protection. "Juanito - I needed to fence some stuff - "

"Sophia Matas' jewellery?" Aquilar drawled.

"No!" Max shouted, outraged. "Well, yes, but only enough to buy me some security. It takes hard cash to go undercover and stay there."

"And there wasn't enough in her purse?"

"No! Fuck you! Don't you judge me, asshole! I need to stay alive to be your star witness, right?"

"That's why we're here," Aquilar said, folding his arms across his broad chest.

"Like I'm supposed to trust you?" Max sneered.

"You'd sooner trust Raoul's pals?" the detective countered.

"You can trust us, Señor." The quiet voice cut through the rising tension and dispelled it. "What happened at Juanito's? Why did you go to him?"

"I always do, when I need to hock some stuff - my own things," he added with a vicious snarl. "Not stolen! I don't steal from - anyone. Sophia - she didn't deserve to die, not like that! I saw who did it, so I - "

"The fence," Aquilar interrupted. "You went there, and...?"

"I showed him the jewellery I was going to hock, and he stalled me. He went into the back-room, to get his eyeglass-thing, he said, but he must have made a phone-call as well." Max let go of the chair and stared at the welts across his hands, startled to see them so marked. "There's an extension out there and when you pick it up, the phone in the shop gives a quiet ping sound. I didn't think anything of it at the time, then when he came back out, he took a long time examining the hallmarks. That's when I connected the sound with a phone-call, so I grabbed the stuff and got out of there. This car pulled up just as I ducked into an alley and these heavies piled out - they went into Juanito's, then came out in a hurry. I ran. They came after me."

"Interesting," Aquilar said softly, "that he knew to call someone about you. You were lucky Aaron found you."

Max nodded, feeling numb and bone-weary. "Yes," he admitted.

The detective's eyes flicked to the vampire, and he frowned. "And you, my friend? You took some bullets by the look of you."

"They weren't silver," Grey said. "I'm fine. More to the point, one of the men after him was the Matas killer," he continued, and Max's head jerked round.

"It was? Shit! I didn't see him - "

"Even more to the point," Aquilar cut in, "you were seen, Aaron."

"Yes," he agreed, "but only by one man, and he won't be a factor for a while. His neck and jaw are broken. It'll be some time before he'll be able to pass on any information."

"Even so, we're going to have to play this very close to our chests." Aquilar frowned. "We need to get - "

"I want out of here!" Max broke in. "Now! If I'm not under arrest, you can't hold me!" He started for the door, but somehow the vampire was there before him. Nothing human could move that fast, and Max retreated a few steps, swallowing the rising panic in his throat.

"You can trust Inspector De Quintana," Grey said. "He is aware that there are some rotten apples in his barrel, which is why our assignment has been kept out of common knowledge."

"Exactly," Aquilar followed on smoothly. "So you'll stay here tonight and in the morning we'll move you to a safe house. Aaron, I'll check in with the boss and collect you both at nine-thirty." He gave the taller man a slap on the back. "You do fine work, friend. Have a good night's sleep, Señor Lapeña."

"Wait a minute!" Max protested. "You're leaving me here? With - him? He's a vampire!"

Aquilar gazed at him speculatively. Then, "Aaron, have you had supper?"

"Yes."

"Then you're safe, Señor. He doesn't snack between meals. Usually," he added as he opened the door.

"I'm beginning to wonder about Rico's sense of humour," Grey said placidly as the door closed. "You may have the bed, Señor. The bathroom is through there."

"I can't stay here!" Max said, desperation in his voice.

"Why not? We weren't followed, no one saw us go through the foyer, no one saw us come in here." Those strange topaz eyes locked with his, and a warm shiver grew in Max's gut. "I will keep you safe, Maximo Lapeña. You have my word on it."

He nodded and slowly moved to the bed. He took off his backpack and let it drop to the floor. He needed to rest, though he knew that sleep would be out of the question. Tomorrow, when maybe his watchdogs had been lulled to a false sense of security as far as he was concerned, he'd take the first chance that offered itself to make a run for it. He would be better off on his own. He didn't need anyone to guard his back. He didn't need anyone, period.

* * *

The room was dark and quiet. Not silent, because Aaron could hear the steady breathing of the sleeping man, and the tempo of his heart.

Street rat, De Quintana had said, and yes, the file had nothing in its copied pages to refute that, but what wasn't there was as telling as what was. Other than the two incidents when he was a child, and the Chess Game murders, Max did not have a criminal record. Which was very much against the odds given his background environment. That might simply mean that he hadn't been caught, or it could be a conscious decision on his part to stay on the right side of the law.

But phoning in to name Sophia Matas' killer had not been done out of altruism or sentiment, Aaron was certain. It was more like an attempt to use the Police as shield and insurance until the killer was taken. Then Max would go back to his chosen life style: finding rich women who were looking for a stud to fulfil their sexual fantasies. But what lay further ahead? Just how resourceful was he? What did the Max Lapeñas of the world do when their stock-in-trade wasn't viable any more? Aaron remembered Lola Belmonte and smiled wryly to himself. They married money, of course, and before the merchandise started to deteriorate.

So why was he wasting his time worrying about the man? Max was obviously a survivor. Or was he? Aaron frowned in the darkness. An instinct told him that there was something vulnerable about Max Lapeña, and his own words came back to echo through his thoughts. 'I will keep you safe. You have my word on it.'

Across the room, the sleeper began to stir, and Aaron drifted silently to the bedside. Like most of his kind, his night-vision was acute, and he could clearly see the rapid eye movements under the closed lids, and the gloss of sweat on the proud bones. Max's head turned restlessly on the pillow, his disordered hair curling about his face, and a small sound escaped his parted lips. For the first time in many, many years, Aaron felt a surge of protectiveness rise in him.

"Hush," he murmured. "You're safe. I'm here."

And Max sighed, curled onto his side and relaxed into a deeper sleep.

Why was he feeling that need to shelter now? It was, to say the least, ill-timed and inappropriate. What was it about Max Lapeña that had triggered it? Setting aside his striking features and sculptured elegance of his body, first impressions did not hint at a matching character, and it was that above all else that Aaron was drawn to. Usually.

A street rat, with the lines of a thoroughbred.

But what was his heart, his soul? And what was it that Max needed that he, Aaron, was responding to? A shared necessity or a complimentary one?

Protection ...

One eyebrow climbing, questioning himself, Aaron moved away from the bed. It seemed unlikely.

Aaron sighed and sat down again. He'd consider Max's needs another time. For now it was best he examined and understood his own responses.

From the moment he had taken the man's scent in Sophia Matas' abattoir of a bedroom, it had caught at him, intrigued him. He'd followed it tonight through the maze of back-alleys, gaining remorselessly on hunters and hunted alike, and he knew he would have done the same even without the necessity of his assignment. Something about the man drew him. Aaron frowned. That needed to be assessed, objectively and dispassionately, and he replayed the scene in his mind.

It was nearly a century since Aaron had accepted the double-edged offer of vampirism, a choice born of a ravening need for vengeance. He had survived the blood-rage and the savage avenging, the regret and self-loathing that had followed, and had settled into a cool acceptance of what he was and what he'd become. During that time, he'd regained his integrity, his sense of self-worth; all of it mostly with Lucy Westenra's help. So much older than he was, so much wiser, she had given him the comfort of her body, the answers to his questions, and the time to find acceptance of those answers within himself.

Being a vampire had some very useful side-effects, and when he'd gone into a career as a cop, he was able to exploit those gifts to the full.

But after that bitter winter in war-ravaged Poland, it was as if the ice had settled into his soul. Lucy had said often enough that he'd thaw one day, and surprise himself; that it was no symptom of vampirism, but his own reaction to the catastrophic events that had swept him along with them, wrenching away any semblance of control over his own life and those of his loved ones. But whatever the cause, he no longer found the need for any commitment deeper than friendship, did not feel the aching hunger for anything more than casual unions. Since the long ago death of his wife and daughter in the chill mercy of the snow, he had not felt the need to shield and shelter - to claim - Startled, Aaron glanced over his shoulder and met a heavy-eyed half-aware gaze. "Go back to sleep," he said evenly. "All's well." And watched the man's eyelids droop and close.

There might be more to Max Lapeña than could be guessed from appearances alone. He'd have plenty of time to discover it - if it was there - over the next few days or weeks. If he chose to take the risk. The question was, did he want to?

* * *

Max hadn't expected to sleep, but he did. The few times he'd woken in the night, he'd seen the dark silhouette of the vampire sitting unmoving in the chair, and had gone straight back to sleep with an odd feeling of security to soothe him. Which surely was insane. It was a monster, a blood-drinking mutation of a human being that had neither passion nor compassion in its cruel soul - if it had one - and he was at its mercy.

Cautiously he sat up in the bed, drawn by the aroma of coffee. The vampire glanced round, although Max knew he hadn't made a sound.

"I ordered a breakfast for you," Grey said. "Your coffee is getting cold."

Max discovered that he was ravenous, and a lot of his qualms faded. The monster was sitting there in the bright morning sunlight without any concern, and they weren't supposed to be able to do that. It was a poor joke at his expense - or a figment of his imagination. "I'll be right there," he said quickly, and dived for the bathroom, taking his backpack with him.

He showered, shaved and dressed quickly, and joined the vampire at the table. If he was a vampire. Max studied the handsome, expressionless face with its unhealthy pallor and stupid moustache. "You were kidding me on," he said abruptly. There was a covered plate in front of him and he lifted the top to discover a ham and mushroom omelette steaming gently. "Last night. You were wearing body armour, weren't you?" The man's slate shirt had been replaced by a black one and a grey tie.

"No," Grey said, drinking his own coffee, "and no."

Max's appetite faltered. But only for a moment. The new settlement outside Begues had been a sensation a few years ago, and there had been some lurid stories in the press. But they had fizzled out through lack of fuel. Now he recalled that the inhabitants had proved to be dull, ordinary and totally uninterested in life outside of their own enclave. Okay, they were supposed to be vampires, but they hadn't looked the part at all, just pale and dowdy in dark old fashioned clothes. They farmed, grew olives and vegetables, sold them to a middle-man who brought them into the markets, just like their Cataluñan counterparts.

Ordinary.

Aaron Grey, however, looked anything but.

"We will require a statement from you," the vampire said, pouring more coffee for them both and effectively distracting him.

"Fine," Max said, starting in on the food. "Just as long as you don't forget I'm valuable. I can pick the bastard out of an ID line-up, remember, and stand up in a court and point the finger at him."

"How did you see so much of him?" Grey asked. "You were under the bed."

"Saw him in the mirror. Watched him pull the fucking trigger - he was smiling! The bastard was smiling!" His voice shook with fury, and he took a swallow of coffee to regain his composure. "Why did he do it? Four bullets - so fucking precise - "

"An execution, perhaps," Grey said. "Where is her jewellery?"

"Safe," Max snapped. "I was going to hock only a small part of it. Rodriguez could have redeemed it any time when it's all over. I don't steal from my ladies!"

Grey said nothing, but one eyebrow twitched.

Max flushed. "I look after my ladies," he hissed. "I don't get any complaints! I keep them happy and satisfied, and if they're generous, then I'm not refusing!" His fingers went automatically to the heavy gold around his throat. "I take care of them!"

"I'm glad to hear it," Grey said quietly. "Who takes care of you?"

"No one!" That hit home with a painful jolt for some reason and Max responded instantly with aggression. "I'm not part of a pack - to hell with that! I look after Number One!"

"Ladies?" the vampire queried smoothly. "As in the plural? How many do you run?"

"What?" Max stared at him uncomprehendingly, then understanding came with another flush of anger. "I don't run a stable!" he yelled, temper flaring. "The only body I pimp is my own, and I can do what the fuck I like with that!" Then he stood up quickly, his chair skidding back. "Are you deliberately goading me? Why?"

"Reactions can be informative," Grey said, offering a half-smile. "Finish your breakfast."

"Huh!" Max sat down again and picked up his fork, wondering what, if anything he'd given away. "So what happens now?" he demanded.

"A safe-house, all expenses paid, courtesy of the Police Department."

"Good. I have expensive tastes."

"I'll be sure to warn the Inspector." He glanced towards the door as he spoke, and a moment later, there came a couple of taps and Aquilar strolled in, an old green back-pack slung over one shoulder.

"'Morning," the detective said cheerfully. "How's your neck, Señor Lapeña?"

Max did not dignify that with a reply.

"Is it arranged?" Grey asked, and Aquilar nodded.

"You go to Begues," he said. "The Boss - "

"Begues?" Max interrupted. For some reason, that one simple tactic hadn't occurred to him before. Barcelona was his home, his city, he knew it more familiarly than the body of any lover. He did not want to leave.

"The Boss," Aquilar continued over him, "has booked you into La Casita. It's a small house, part of the Las Palomas Hotel on the other side of the town, towards Villafranca del Panadés. If that doesn't pan out, go to the settlement."

"He'll be safe with my people." Grey nodded.

Ice trickled down Max's spine and he hunched his shoulders. More vampires. He took a surreptitious look at Grey and shook his head in wonder. This was crazy! "No way!"

"No choice," Aquilar drawled. "We know what's best for you in this situation, Señor. Aaron, here are the clothes you'll need," he continued, holding out the battered backpack. "They should get you out of the city without being noticed."

"Clothes?" Grey said. "I have enough of my own, thank you."

"You need to change your image. We agreed on that."

"No, I agreed to listen. And you advised me. That coat and shirt were ruined, yes, but I have others."

Max scowled at his coffee. It was an unpleasant reminder that those bullets would have gone into him without the vampire's intervention.

"Not like these." Aquilar said and produced a couple of t-shirts from the backpack. One was a light coffee colour, trimmed with a darker brown at neck and cuffs, the other a tie-dye in browns and greens. "There're trainers and a couple pairs of pants in here as well. Lose the moustache, Aaron, and mess your hair. People look at you and they see the funeral suit, the moustache, the shades and the slicked-back hair. In all the sunlight and bright colours of Barcelona you are memorable. Be a tourist."

"If I don't wish to be seen," Grey said, voice cold, "I will not be seen."

"Can you fool CCTV?" Aquilar asked with wry amusement, and the vampire frowned.

"No," he admitted, and accepted the backpack and t-shirts.

Ten minutes later, a different person emerged from the bathroom. The cafe latte t-shirt moulded itself to an upper body as sculpted as Max's own. Long legs were encased in worn and faded denim that fitted like a glove over lean hips and buttocks, and he was scrubbing a towel over his damp hair.

"Well," Aquilar said with smug satisfaction in his voice, "Who'd have thought all this was hidden under that god-awful suit? The ladies of Barcelona will thank me."

"Huh." Grey dropped the towel and raked his hands through his hair. Clean-shaven now, dark curls falling over his brow, he looked years younger, and the sensuality of his lower lip was obvious: now he was a more than usually handsome man. The warm colour of the t-shirt mellowed his pallor and only the yellow-gold of his eyes remained to hint at his strangeness. That and the stillness that was so much a part of him. And the subtle aura that warned 'here be dragons'.

"Head for Begues," Aquilar said, handing over his car keys. "I'll get back to He Who Must Be Obeyed and let him know you're on your way. Give me the damaged shirt and jacket, and the rest of your gear that won't fit in the backpack, and I'll get rid of them."

Grey nodded. "I'll call you as soon as we're there," he said.

"I'm not going to Begues," Max repeated stubbornly. "I know this city inside out, no one's going to find me if I - "

"Like they didn't last night?" Aquilar interrupted, his grin fierce under his moustache. Max's chin took on a mulish jut, and at the same time his eyes slid sideways to Aaron Grey, who had saved his life. Who was a vampire. And a cop. The door, he suddenly realised was behind him, and then he was out of his chair and lunging for it the instant the impulse hit him.

Grey moved with lightning speed and was there before him, blocking his escape. Inevitably, he cannoned into the vampire's solid body.

"You can walk beside me," he said as Max staggered back, "freely, or walk beside me cuffed. Your choice, Señor."

"You can stuff your cuffs," Max snarled, hating the petulance in his own voice almost as much as he hated the vampire. "I'll behave." Until he had a better chance of making a break for it.

"But before you go anywhere," Aquilar said, taking a small recorder out of his pocket and placing it on the table in front of him, "I'd like you to tell me all you can about the murder, and about the attack on you last night."

* * *

The plan was to lose Aaron Grey and his dark, funeral suit, and all that was linked to him. So Aquilar paid off his hotel room, then drove the hire car back to the company offices at the airport and handed it over. While Aaron and Max took a taxi, also to the airport, and disappeared into the busy complex.

Once inside, Max made another escape bid, probably thinking that Aaron wouldn't cause any kind of fuss that might draw attention to them. He did not get far. Aaron cornered him by the rank of drink dispensers.

There was a brief scuffle, but vampire strength had no difficulty with Max's resistance and Aaron cuffed their wrists together. Max was staring at him, scared half out of his wits if his shocked expression was anything to go by. But Aaron didn't rely on sight alone to read his quarry. Max's body-scent was changing, he noticed, and not just with fear. There was another signature-note that might almost be desire.

Now, that was interesting.

But if it was a sexual impulse, Max did not seem in a hurry to follow it up, or even acknowledge it. "This is crazy!" he protested, a shake in his voice. "I thought you wanted to be unnoticed! This is a bit obvious, isn't it?" He lifted their arms so that the bright metal flashed in the overhead lights, but no heads turned to stare.

"And I thought you wanted to stay alive," Aaron said.

"I do, but not in Begues surrounded by fucking vampires! As for these - "

"People see what they expect to see; two men having an argument and then making up."

"What?" Max gaped at him as if he was no longer speaking Spanish. "Are you crazy? They are handcuffs, for God's sake!"

Aaron shrugged. "They won't see them. They won't notice us, either, or if they do, all they'll see are two men walking hand in hand. Now we are going over to that bistro and we're going to drink coffee for a while."

"You are mad," Max said with conviction, and Aaron gave him a wide smile, lips lifting away from his teeth. It was something he rarely did, since people tended to react a little strongly when his canines showed so clearly. The effect on Max was salutary; the man gulped, eyes wide, and became docile.

This time Aaron was sure. Max Lapeña was ripe for the taking. If he chose to do so.

* * *

A couple of hours later, they emerged once more, part of a jostling pack of tourists fresh off an incoming flight. Not a single glance lingered on them.

Aaron headed for another of the car hire firms that operated out of the airport, and by midday they were driving back towards the city in a white Ford, Max's wrist securely cuffed to his seat runner.

Max sulked.

* * *

There was a lot more to Begues than the vampire settlement just up the road from it. They had been booked into what a century ago had been the stable block of a good-sized house that stood in its own grounds on the edge of the town. The house itself, Las Palomas, had been converted into holiday lets. On one side a large swimming pool was surrounded by palm trees and tubs of scarlet geraniums, while the stable block off to the other side was now La Casita, a fully self-contained unit of one spacious living-room, a large bedroom with a small en suite shower, a good-sized kitchen and a bathroom, all fully fitted with modern conveniences. The walls and woodwork were white, and the brightly coloured furniture was clean, reasonably new and looked comfortable. At the front of the ex-stable stretched the wide parking lot shared with the house. Behind it, the stable yard had been turned into a patio and garden that backed onto Las Palomas' boundary wall, completely enclosed and private, and those walls were smoothly plastered stone, over three metres high. The only way into - or out of - it was through the front door. Beyond the wall, the ground fell away down the hillside in terraces cloaked with olive trees and vines.

Aaron was quietly satisfied. Max Lapeña would have trouble bolting that way. Equally as important, if they should be traced, an enemy would not find it easy to attack from the rear.

Free of the handcuffs now, his recalcitrant witness explored the living accommodation while Aaron reported in to Aquilar via their cell phones. As he ended the call, Max was investigating the kitchen, opening the refrigerator to find it empty. So too was the small freezer beside it.

"Self-catering?" Max sniffed disparagingly.

"Yes," said Aaron. "Is that a problem?"

"You tell me. Your diet is - uh, restricted, yes?"

"Yes, but that's not an issue."

"It isn't?" Max backed away from him warily.

"I have plenty of the blood-substitute with me," Aaron said blandly, "and if I need more, my people are only a few miles away."

"Are you sure of that?" Max said suspiciously. "This isn’t going to end up in that old cliché where I’m on the menu, is it?"

"Yes," Aaron said imperturbably. "And no."

"Thank God." Max prowled restlessly around the living room, giving the vampire as wide a berth as possible. "Now what?"

"We are tourists, here for a quiet vacation."

"Huh. And we won't stand out? Two men, one bedroom - which I'm not sharing - "

"That's why we're here, I would say. It seems that Las Palomas caters for a predominantly homosexual clientele."

"I'm not hanging round a bunch of perverts!" Max yelled indignantly.

Aaron shrugged. "Very well. Then we go to my people."

"No!"

"So we stay. Are you going to be sensible, or do we go everywhere handcuffed together? Your choice, Señor Lapeña."

"No way! Fuck you!" Furious, Max kicked at the nearest target; a solidly built coffee table. It and the woven rug it stood on skidded a short way, but that was all he accomplished.

"You've already learned I am faster and stronger than you are," Aaron pointed out. "Sooner or later, you will learn to trust me. I hope for your sake, it is sooner. My patience is not inexhaustible."

"I don't trust cops! Or anyone else!" Then for no reason that Aaron could see, his mood changed abruptly, and with it his scent. "But if you want a boyfriend, you've got one." He strolled to the door and leaned against it, thumbs hooked in his front pockets so that his long fingers framed his crotch, and thrust his hips forward. His smile was provocative, supremely confident in his sensuality, but this was challenge, not seduction. If Aaron did not have his enhanced senses, he would not have known there was fear and uncertainty beneath the display. "So shall we go shopping? Better make sure you have your wallet; did I mention I'm very expensive?"

Aaron did not let his exasperation show. "You are a witness under my protection," he said with cool patience. "A façade is all that's required of you - a believable façade. From now on we will be on a first-name basis. So act like a companion, not a courtesan." He quelled the impulse to prove to Max Lapeña that he was right to fear, and walked past the profligate body and out into the afternoon sunlight. "Come," he ordered, and Max fell into step at his side.

* * *

Begues wasn't as bad as Max had thought it would be. The main square was large and had an impressive fountain in the middle of it, along with plenty of room for street cafes, tourists and locals, flower-sellers and musicians and all the rest of street life Cataluña-style. It was, in fact, a mini-Rambla, and just as busy.

On one side was the Town Hall, with the church of Mary Magdalene facing it. On another was a movie theatre that apparently shared its roof with live plays and operas, and opposite that was a modern shopping mall, The Colonnades. From the posters plastered everywhere, Begues also boasted a museum and art gallery, and a small university, as well as a bullring just outside the town to the south. Under different circumstances, he might have enjoyed the prospect of wandering around, exploring the place. As it was, he felt merely vulnerable.

"This is crazy," he muttered, not for the first time. "Maybe I should just paint a target on my back."

"Why?" Grey asked. "You don't need to; you already look hunted, and you certainly smell hunted."

"I do not!" Max snapped. "I showered this morning as well as last night! So fuck you!"

"Showers won't help." There was a tolerant amusement on what Max could see of his watch-dog's profile. "Everyone has their own unique body-odour, and it is layered with their mood. Anger, fear, arousal, grief, desperation; they can all be read if you have the skill."

"And you do, I suppose," Max said sourly. He didn't like the idea that he could be so easily interpreted, especially by this man. This vampire.

"Yes, more so than most of my people. Stay closer to me. That way you are more likely to be overlooked as well."

"As well as what?" Max stopped in his tracks, and Grey paused, waiting.

"As well as me," the vampire said patiently. "It's a knack some of us have. We can become part of the crowd and no one notices us. Of course, as Rico said, we can't fool a CCTV camera, but human eyes are a different matter. Walking slowly as we were, it is easy to do. Being motionless it is even easier."

"Oh." Max thought about that. Then, "So why couldn't you do that in Barcelona?"

"Because there are elements within the Police Department that the Inspector and Rico do not trust. It was decided that you'd be far safer out of the city."

That made sense, and reluctantly Max nodded. "Okay," he said, and sauntered towards him, not stopping until scant inches separated them. "Close enough?" he drawled, knowing he was pushing his luck and perversely welcoming the rush it gave him.

"Close enough," Grey agreed, completely unconcerned and unresponsive as far as he could tell. "Since you have played the part of a gigolo and seducer of rich women with reasonable success, I presume you know your way around a wine cellar. You can choose the wines. I will select the spirits."

"So you do drink other things than coffee and that substitute-potion?" Max asked, his mood lightening. Somehow that made the monst - no, man - seem more human.

"Yes. Brandy by choice, but whisky is a fine alternative."

Side by side, shoulders brushing at every step in a false camaraderie, they strolled around town, exploring the squares and side streets at a leisurely pace. Grey refused the mall, though. It had CCTV.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed in a confusion of impressions. There were long stretches of time when Max forgot he was with the nearest thing to a supernatural creature he was ever likely to meet. Grey was just a rather reserved foreigner with an intriguing accent, and an annoyingly pedantic turn of phrase - a young man of his own age, part rival and part almost-friend.

It was automatic for Max to check out the women, and he was conversely irritated and pleased to see that he wasn't getting their usual response; most of the time they didn't seem to notice him at all. At least it proved Grey's deflecting attention trick, or whatever it was, but it sure as hell didn't do his, Max's, ego any good. He was used to being given that warm assessing stare and it didn't seem right to be overlooked. As for Grey, despite his pallor, he was a showy stud now he was dressing more the part. The women should have been all over both of them. They could have had their pick - instead he was shacked up in a pervert's paradise with a fucking vampire, forced into celibacy and at risk of having his head blown off by assorted gunmen.

Then he flashed on Sophia's body, and sudden nausea choked in his throat. He wanted to run, to kill, to scream denial - and did none of it.

A hand steered him to a chair and pushed him down. Moments later, a glass was put into his hand.

"Drink," said Grey's quiet voice.

The hot bite of the whisky steadied him. "Sorry," he muttered. "How did you know? Don't tell me." And he somehow managed a shaky laugh. "My scent, right?"

"Yes. It is a natural reaction on your part; delayed shock, feeling trapped, unable to strike back. Instincts and rationality sometimes collide, and the body wants to obey the impulse rather than the logical thought. It will get easier with time."

Max looked up. They were under the awning of a street cafe and bar, and the vampire was sitting beside him. All he could see was his own reflection in the man's sunglasses. "I don't want to be here," he said.

"It won't be for long."

"Don't give me sweet reason!" Max flared. "How the fuck do you know what I'm going through, what it was like to-to - " He broke off and swallowed the remainder of the whisky straight back, coughing as it burned its way down to his belly.

"I know." It was a flat statement, and there was the faintest sliver of pain embedded in the cool velvet voice that told Max he hadn't been offered text book platitudes.

The cheerful clatter and bustle of the street retreated, and there was only the two of them, enclosed in a sphere of brittle tranquillity.

It was more than Max could take, and he searched desperately for something to say - anything, as long as that too-aware silence was broken.

"Why did they come here?" he blurted. "Vampires. To Begues."

Grey shrugged. "Back in America they were a farming community, much as they are here. When certain of us decided it was time to reveal our existence, there were incidents. It was a difficult time for us. Some found the USA too pervasive and repressive. Too violent." Max gave a snort at that, but Grey ignored him. "So they decided to leave America," he continued, "to find another place to farm. Some made their own arrangements, but this group asked for official - asylum, I suppose. The Begues site used to be a holiday complex of small houses and amenities. It had failed and went into receivership some 20 years ago and had been empty ever since. The Spanish government acquired it, along with some olive groves and farmland, and deeded it to them. They are happy here. They have named it Renaissance."

Renaissance. Rebirth. It had a hopefulness to it that Max could not equate to the drab life the newspapers had shown.

"You're no farmer," he said.

"True," Grey agreed, a smile curving his lips.

"So what were you? Before - " Max waved his hand in a vague gesture.

"Before I was a vampire? I was a journalist."

"Oh." It was not what Max had expected. But it gave him a lead into his next question. "How did you become a vampire?"

The humour remained on Grey's mouth, but it gained a sardonic twist. "The traditional way," he said.

"The traditional as opposed to - ? There's more than one way?"

He got no reply to that. "There's an open air market over there," Grey said instead. "Shall we go?"

"When?" Max asked, not moving.

"1941," the vampire said crisply, getting to his feet. "Come on." It was not a request, and Max stood up, sighing.

"Okay," he muttered. There were many more questions crowding in his head, and maybe later on he'd have a chance to voice them. If he played his cards right, he could lull Grey off his guard and get some real answers.

* * *

But things did not go as Max had planned. They - or rather Grey - bought what Max considered to be adequate supplies for the next few days, but when shelves, fridge and freezer had been stocked, his suggestion that they eat out was firmly vetoed.

Instead Max had to cook his own meal. Grey ate nothing, just sat in his chair as if he had a rod up his ass, sipping the wine and steering any conversation Max initiated away from personal questions.

Then the inquisition had begun. Grey produced a small recorder from his backpack and proceeded to subject him to an interrogation that, in Max's opinion, lacked only physical violence to make it a war-crime. Or something. What was even more galling was the fact that he'd gone over the same ground Max had already covered with Aquilar.

"Just doing a back-up," Grey said when he protested, "and collecting any new scraps you might have forgotten first time around."

Finally, the vampire seemed satisfied he'd wrung every bit of information on the murder and Sophia out of Max's aching head, and turned off the device. It was nearly midnight. Disgruntled and too tired even to sulk, Max watched him take out the bright disk and stow it away in a clear plastic sleeve.

"Now what?" he demanded.

"Tomorrow we buy our friend Rico a gift," Grey replied, "and post it to his home address along with this."

"That's not what I meant!" He glared around the room, resenting the subdued lighting and warm comfort that surrounded him. It was a far cry from his abandoned apartment and reminded him too strongly of the life he'd had before Lola's death. "Do we just stay here and turn into vegetables?" All that earned him was a raised eyebrow and a narrow-lidded gaze.

Now the fucking vampire had nothing to say, and Max had never been comfortable with silences at the best of times.

"I'm going to bed," he said abruptly, and left the room, shutting the door with a snap. It obtained him nothing, of course, except another kind of silence. This one was filled with the sounds of night-insects: no voices, no traffic, not even a bloody dog barking.

Standing in the darkness of the single bedroom, the crazy unreality of his situation crashed over Max in a wave. From the moment Sophia had heard that door close downstairs, he'd been thrown into the whirlpool and had lost all his bearings.

Max had long ago come to terms with the fact that life just wasn't fair, and had carved his own path regardless, mostly with success. Some might say that he preyed on women, took advantage of them, but he would have hotly disputed that. In his book he gave them what they wanted, what they expected, and he profited from their generosity where he could. It didn't always pay the rent, and work at the Olympian was seasonal, so in the lean times he was forced to find other ways of making money. Then he went against his preferences and took on male clients. Blow-jobs in back alleys or half-an-hour or so in an anonymous hotel room were a useful source of revenue, but he had nothing but contempt for the men who bought his services. Still, money was money and he didn't much care how he earned it. Up to a point. He would not get involved with anything that meant accepting pain, and his ass was not and never would be for sale.

Now he was stuck out in the sticks with a vampire of all things - not that Grey looked like one any more, and it was easy to forget what he was - but the bottom line was 'cop'. Aaron Grey was Police. So was Rico Aquilar and he knew nothing else about them. It could be them selling him out, which was why he'd been spirited out of Barcelona, why they were booked into this faggot-farm, and the killers could be closing in on him right now. All Grey had to do was open the door, shut his eyes, turn his back, and he, Max, was dead.

'I will keep you safe. You have my word on it.' It was only a thread of a memory, but it tangled itself around Max's thoughts and wouldn't go away. With it came that shivering tension in his stomach he'd come to associate with Grey ever since he'd lost the battle of strength in the airport - fear - the vampire scared the shit out of him and Max was not ashamed to admit it.

All of which left him with only one course of action, so Max took it.

He bolted.

The bedroom had no window, just wide glass patio doors that took up most of the wall and opened onto the enclosed garden. Moving silent as a shade, Max unlocked them. There was no sound other than a faint snick, and they slid open on their runners just as quietly. He waited, leaning nonchalantly on the glass as if he was just taking in the scented night air, but the inner door remained shut.

Max breathed a sigh of relief and crept back to collect his pack, eased it onto his shoulders and went out into the moonlight.

The patio lay half in white light, half in shadow, the line between the two as keen as a blade. The top of the wall was out of reach, but there was an old and sturdy vine growing along it that would give him enough hand- and foot-holds to climb up. Once on the other side, he could sneak round to the front of the small house, hot-wire the car and be out of there before Grey -

"Be still," the vampire said behind him and Max stopped in his tracks, his heart lurching to a faster tempo. There had been no threat in those two words, no overt command and certainly no plea. Just an assumption of obedience that coiled tight in Max's gut and fired his pulse.

"I'm out of here," he snapped, but didn't move. The backpack was taken from him, was dropped to the ground, and then hands closed over his upper arms just below the short sleeves of his t-shirt, and he bit back a gasp of shock. Vampires were the living dead, right? So their touch should be cold and clammy, right? Wrong. Warm, dry hands held him prisoner, the same hands that had lifted him and thrown him to a balcony without effort, as if he weighed no more than a child's doll. A toy. He remembered the grip on his belt that had hauled him up and over the railing, and the more-than-human strength that had overpowered him at the airport. He shivered.

"No." Again the unshakeable certainty, and Max felt something twist a little tighter in his belly. He also felt the subtle movement of breath past his ear, the invisible gossamer touch of it on his cheek, and then the vampire's mouth was on his throat, startlingly hot, just above Sophia's gold and the collar of his t-shirt where the muscle rose into his neck.

He made a faint protest and his shiver became a shudder. The knot in his vitals wasn't fear; it was fire, spreading out in pulses, driven by the escalation of his heartbeat. He felt teeth - fangs - graze lightly over his skin: teeth so sharp they could tear into his flesh as efficiently as broken glass, but deep instinct told him he was safe. Grey would not - and suddenly, shockingly, he was so hard he thought he would come where he stood.

Another sound escaped his lungs. A whimper of pure need, and that terrified him far more than the fangs so close to the life-thread in his throat.

"No," he croaked. "I don't want - " But he did. For the first time in his life he wanted a man - this man - and hungered for him as a starveling yearns for nourishment.

"Liar," Grey whispered, and Max felt a tongue-tip caress his skin. His knees weakened, and involuntarily he pressed his head back against the vampire's shoulder. Hands slid down his arms to circle his wrists, and he was held captive as surely as if steel cuffs had been locked on him. "There are things you need to accept," the vampire went on, "about yourself. Think about them and we'll - talk again." Then Max was free, adrift without an anchor, and Grey was across the patio, standing by the vine, almost invisible in the moon-shadows. "Go back inside. Go to bed."

Max retreated from him until he collided with the patio doors, and sidled unsteadily over the threshold. He slid them shut and pulled the drapes across, then groped his way to the bed and sat down. The backpack and the cache of jewels inside it was outside, and right then he did not care. Conflicting emotions churned in him, and the same turmoil was in his body. Fear and lust warred together, and there was only one thing he was sure of; he very much wanted to kill Aaron Grey.

This wasn't real. It was a - a trick of the mind - that fucking vampire was messing with his head. He did not get turned on by men, especially men who used their greater strength to hold him - heat throbbed in his groin and he moaned softly. This couldn't be coming from him - he was the strong one, he took care of his ladies - but Sophia was dead.

He'd failed to protect her, but he would not fail to avenge her, and if that meant involving every vampire in Begues and most of the cops in Barcelona, then so be it. No one dominated him. No one.

For a moment, Max was on the brink of storming into the living room and confronting the vampire there and then, but common-sense stopped him with his hand on the door. The important things right now were staying alive, and either getting her killer put away or killed. Preferably killed. Afterwards, he'd deal with Aaron fucking Grey.

* * *

Aaron folded out the larger of the two couches and made up his bed. The sweet-salt taste of Max's skin still lingered in his mouth and his blood sang pleasantly in his body in a way he had not felt for a very long time. But he hadn't solved the enigma of Max Lapeña, not completely, though he knew what the man wanted, even if he didn't know it himself, yet.

Max was determined enough to go it alone - too vehemently maybe?

He remembered the unthinking obedience that ran in tandem with rebellion, and smiled.

Farmyard cockerel, Aaron thought, but did not speak it aloud, flashing feathers and sharp spurs.

However, the circumstances weren't right for them to explore this potential relationship. Later, when it was over and the case solved, then maybe ... He frowned. Perhaps he had made a mistake, momentarily giving in to his impulse. It was unusual, not to say out of character, for him to be swayed by his own needs. On the other hand, if it meant that Max would more readily obey him, it would make his task of keeping the man alive and whole a lot easier. A stubborn, wilful witness was difficult to protect. Of course, it might make him more stubborn, more wilful.

Aaron sighed ruefully, and massaged the twin knots of pain in his temples. Fading two people into the background was far harder than one. That he could do without strain for a considerable space of time. Add another to the calculation, especially one as uncooperative as Max, and the effort was increased exponentially. But it was a necessary precaution.

It would be interesting to see how the man handled the sexual tension between them in the morning. Would Max pretend it had never happened, wasn't there, or would he rationalise it? One thing was certain; Aaron wouldn't find this particular assignment boring.

* * *

Max came out fighting. He sauntered from the bedroom, fully dressed in white tailored pants and close-fitting sea-green t-shirt that pointed up his musculature, his tan and eyes, and with his hair combed to styled neatness.

"Ground rules," he announced, arrogant and cock-sure.

Aaron, seated at the breakfast table, leaned back in his chair and prepared to watch the show. "Go on," he said.

"Yesterday you called me a courtesan. That's a fancy name for a whore. Which is okay, because it's what I am. So you want me, you pay the going rate. Just to give you an idea, a fast blow job will cost you fifty euros, whether I do you or you, me. You want me to fuck you, that'll cost you two hundred. You want me in your bed overnight, that'll be six hundred ees with specific acts extra. The only part of me that's not for sale is my ass. So," and he stood over Aaron, hands on hips, a knowing smile on his mouth, "if you can't afford the merchandise, keep your hands - and your mouth - off it!"

Aaron slowly drifted his eyes over the lean, taut body, appreciating every planed curve, the speed and strength implicit in that finely honed form. There was a bulge in Max's groin, and his scent was a heady blend of anger, nervousness and arousal. "Sit down," Aaron said evenly, ignoring his own heightened pulse, "your coffee's growing cold."

"The coffee isn't the only thing," Max said, and strolled to the fridge to help himself to orange juice.

A perverse delight grew in Aaron's chest, and he started to chuckle. Max's spine stiffened, but he didn't respond. "Get your jacket, then," the vampire said. "We're going for a drive." That got a reaction.

"I haven't had breakfast yet," Max protested.

"You can eat later."

"Fuck you!"

"For two hundred euros? No, thank you." Aaron stood up and headed for the front door, not looking back to see if Max was following. He knew he wouldn't, not yet.

Outside, the air smelt fresh and clean, and the light was dazzling to Aaron's sensitive eyes. He put on his sunglasses, and walked towards the car. He wasn't the only one about. A willow-slim young man with large doe eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair was standing by the blue Fiat next to Aaron's car. He was probably in his mid-twenties, but was aiming for the teens look

"Hi," he said as the vampire approached. "Great day, isn't it?"

"Yes," Aaron agreed.

"My name's Angelo." And he held out his hand.

"Good morning, Angelo." Aaron shook the hand with polite reserve.

Angelo, though, was not so circumspect. His fingers clung to Aaron's and he stepped closer, his smile all invitation. "You're new to Spain, I think," he drawled. "You should take care not to burn in the sun ... I have some excellent sun-block I would be happy to loan you." His gaze wandered over Aaron, clearly checking out the spread of his shoulders and muscled chest, and then moving lower.

"Thank you," Aaron said before there could be an offer to anoint him with the sun-lotion. "But it's not necessary. What are the best places to visit around here?" he added.

Angelo shrugged, his smile warm. "Depends on what you're interested in," he drawled. "There're vineyards, castles, beaches, bullfights, football."

"Vineyards and castles." Aaron smiled, and Angelo edged a little nearer.

* * *

Well, that could have gone a bit better, Max decided, but his principle feeling was one of relief. He finished his orange juice and started buttering a couple of slices of bread. Sooner or later the fucking monster was going to realise that he wasn't about to obey his fucking orders like some trained fucking lapdog. Where the hell did he get off being so fucking autocratic?

Angrily Max slapped a couple of slices of ham on one piece of bread and smeared mustard over its mate, then sandwiched them together. He glared at the tall man by the white car, just visible through the half-open door. Maybe he should have doubled his prices.

Then he looked again. Another figure had come into view. A fucking beach-blonde. Moving in on his fucking vampire like a - a bee to a honey-pot.

Max didn't stop to think. He was out of the door and shoving between the two men before he had time to reason it out. The blonde backed off, but Aaron didn't, and Max was conscious of his nearness and the non-human heat of him. If he leaned back only an inch or two, their bodies would touch ... He leaned. "Hi," he said into the blonde's face, smiling with all his teeth. "I'm Max and we're leaving now."

"Have a nice day." Blondie smiled as he turned away with a casual shrug.

Max snorted, and was tempted to speed him on his way with a swift kick in his too-rounded ass. Not much muscle-tone there, that was for sure.

"You thought your intervention was necessary, because?" Aaron murmured, the quiet velvet voice in his ear bringing him back to the here and now and what he'd just done.

Max jerked away from the vampire as if he was burned. Why had he been so fucking stupid - acting like a jealous - "Maintaining our cover," he said quickly. "Establishing us as a couple and making sure we don't get bothered by nosy neighbours." Or predatory ones.

"I see." There was no discernible expression on the pale face, nor in those two words, but Max felt his colour rising. "You forgot to shut the front door."

"Huh!" Max snorted again and strode back to the casita. He'd also forgotten his sandwich, so he took charge of that and an apple before closing the door and returning to the car.

Chewing on a mouthful of ham, he settled himself in the passenger seat. "Okay," he said, "where are we going today?"

"This is not a vacation," Aaron said coolly.

"No, but we have to act like tourists, so - "

"I want to send the disk to Rico, then we're coming back. There are some points I want to go over with you."

"You're kidding me!" Max groaned. "Fuck it, you just about bled my brain dry yesterday, you and that fucking cop!"

"Your repertoire of invectives seems to be limited," Aaron observed.

"So sue me!" Max slouched lower in his seat, sullen and rebellious. "What more can I tell you, for God's sake! You've got all I know about Sophia, her friends, her movements, habits, hobbies - everything."

"There may still be something you don't know that you know."

Max didn't answer. Instead he took a vicious bite out of his apple and scowled straight ahead.

* * *

They drove across country to Esparreguera and reached the town by mid-morning. Their first stop was at a souvenir shop where Aaron bought a wallet of tooled leather with the Cataluñan coat of arms embossed and gilded on the front. Back out on the pavement, he slipped the disk inside it, then headed for the small post office just down the street. He bought wrapping paper and tape, packaged up the wallet and posted it off to Aquilar.

Their next stop was at one of the ubiquitous street cafes for coffee and a snack for Max, who had become uncharacteristically docile and subdued. The main reason for this, Aaron guessed, was that Sophia Matas' death had hit the media, and every news-stand they passed was bannering the murder in screaming headlines. He bought a paper and read it while Max picked at his tortilla. To his satisfaction, nowhere in the articles was there any mention of a witness. Speculations as to motive, though, were rife and ran from the prosaic to wildly fanciful.

"I keep thinking," Max said abruptly, "who would want her dead? She knew the bastard. He might have been an old lover - she never talked to me about any of the men in her life, just her society friends. But why kill her that way? It doesn't make sense."

Aaron put down the paper and gave all his attention to him. "How close to her were you?" It was a question he had asked before, and had got a glib reply, but Max was in a different mood now. Aaron would have preferred to save it for their return to their apartment, but Max might not be so amenable by then. "Did you love her? Or she, you?"

"No, but ... " Max put down his fork and pushed his plate away. "I liked her. She was fun and alive and knew how to enjoy herself. She was fond of her husband, supported him politically, and I was an illicit pleasure on the side. An indulgence. Like the jewellery she bought." There was no resentment in the quiet voice, just a baffled sadness. "That was fine by me. I gave her what she wanted; she gave me clothes, gold, money to pay my rent sometimes, weekends away together in exclusive places. She was my meal-ticket." He was silent for a moment. Then, "She reminded me of Menchu. A lot younger of course. Menchu died. So did Lola. Now Sophia. Murdered, all of them." He looked up, and the hazel eyes were agate-hard. "This Raoul," he said. "I want him dead, Aaron. I want to do to him what he did to her. Four bullets, only I'll save the head-shot for last, maybe, let the murdering bastard suffer. Then I want the one who hired him."

"The Law," Aaron said, "will have other plans."

"Fuck the Law. I want justice."

Aaron let that pass for now. "Did you meet any of the friends she talked about?" he asked.

"No, only the ones who went to the Olympian, and they didn't know about us. She kept the two parts of her life strictly separate. But I've already told you all this. Twice, now."

So Aaron came up with a new question. "How important would you say she was to her husband, socially and politically?"

Max looked at him, startled. "Very," he said. "She did the society stuff, the high-publicity charity circuit, and she was independently rich. The day she died, she was supposed to be going to a working lunch with some useful contacts." He frowned. "He's a suspect?"

"The spouse is usually top of the list," Aaron said noncommittally. He'd already discussed the various scenarios with Aquilar, but he wanted to hear Max's take on it.

"Yes, but - no, he'd have too much to lose," Max said. "And whoever sent Raoul after her, wants him to lose it."

"Which brings us to politics or organised crime. I understand Rodriguez's platform is based on law and order issues."

"Yes." Max nodded. "But before he can deliver on that, he'd have to clean out Police corruption. But if someone wants him out of the way, why kill her and not him?"

"To kill him would create a martyr," Aaron said softly, "and would strengthen his party's stand. As it is, he has become both victim and suspect. One weakens him politically, and the other is damaging him, if this paper is anything to go by. It could also be a warning. It will be interesting to see if Señor Rodriguez remains in politics."

"Fuck politics," Max said succinctly. "Can we go back now?"

"Of course." Aaron folded the paper and stood up. Max had made it a request, not a demand, so perhaps the truce between them might not be over.

* * *

Max was not given to introspection and self-analysis. But in the almost companionable silence as they headed back towards Begues, his thoughts inevitably turned inwards.

He'd made his decision as far as Sophia's killer was concerned. Now he must make one about the man at his side. Somehow he had to get through the confusion and contradictory emotions Aaron triggered and make sense of what the hell was happening to him.

The moment he'd felt Aaron's mouth on his neck scorched into his memory, and his body's response was immediate. His bones were slowly turning to sweet hot liquid, and it took a real effort of will not to reach out ...

No question, the vampire turned him on. But that was crazy and Max did not want to think about it, though he knew perhaps he should.

Was that what Aaron had meant, when he'd said there were things Max needed to accept about himself?

But that particular knife could cut both ways. What if Aaron wanted him and was not just messing with his head?

Max frowned and settled his sunglasses on his nose. Secure behind their mirrored screen, he studied the man's profile. Suppose Aaron did want him, well, it would be no hardship to go along with it, and while he probably wouldn't gain financially, he'd be even surer of Aaron's protection from the gunmen hunting him. He let his gaze drop lower to the strong pale column of neck, the crisp curl of dark body hair that showed in the V of the t-shirt's collar, and the layered muscles of his arms. No hardship at all - in a strictly business sense, of course. He'd play it the same way he did with any of the potential clients he was targeting: wait for that signal that said she - or he - was interested and available, then close in.

Max shifted a little to ease the growing pressure in his groin.

He would be in control of their next encounter, he promised himself.

* * *

Aaron was aware of being watched. His passenger's eyes were masked by dark glasses, but the weight of the stare was almost tangible. Max was doing some heavy thinking, and the outcome would be interesting, Aaron was certain.

But his ward said nothing until they were back in the casita, and Aaron was brewing coffee for them both.

"You expect me to trust you," Max said reasonably. "But I know next to nothing about you, so how can I decide?"

Aaron glanced at him. It was a valid point, and a scoring thrust.

"You've been a vampire since 1941," Max went on, "you're a cop and by your accent, you're from the Eastern Bloc, and you're working with the Cataluñan Police. That's it. More reasons there not to trust, in my book. Okay, I over-reacted badly at first, but ... " He shrugged. "What I'm trying to say is, can we start over?" The hazel eyes were wide, guileless as a child's and false as pyrites.

Aaron smiled, showing his teeth, and watched those eyes flicker and drop. "Yes," he said mildly. "What do you want to know?"

Max shrugged again. "Everything. Nothing. Whatever you can tell me." He hesitated. "I want to trust you," he added, and that, to Aaron's ears, sounded genuine.

"The feeling is mutual," Aaron said. Since Max clearly had an agenda, he'd let him run with it, see where he was heading. "Some of the restaurants looked good in Esparreguera. We could go back there tonight to eat."

"Great." Max smiled. "So you can eat real food."

"Meat, occasionally," he said. "If it's served rare. Very rare."

"That figures." And Max sighed. "So it's no use me offering you your favourite meal?"

Aaron kept his face straight with an effort he hoped did not show. There was an obvious answer to that, and he managed not to make it. "No use at all," he said instead, "but I appreciate the thought."

Max didn't speak for a moment. There was a layer of colour across his cheekbones, so it seemed likely the alternative answer had suddenly occurred to him as well. "What's America like?" he asked into the suddenly charged silence.

"Dark. Utilitarian. Paranoid. I'm glad to be away from the place."

"You're going back, though, aren't you?"

"Perhaps not," Aaron said slowly. "I am enjoying Cataluña."

"Yeah?" Max sounded pleased. "In spite of the sun?"

"I'm becoming used to it."

"Hey, you might end up with a decent tan if you're careful." Now he sounded enthusiastic.

"I doubt it. Besides, I do not relish the idea of lying around doing nothing."

"Okay, a fake tan, just to get you started. That would be the icing on the cake. Do you have any idea how many women would be giving us the once-over if you drop that cloaking thing you do? You could take your pick - "

"Max," Aaron interrupted, "I am on an assignment, not a vacation. And that assignment is your protection. We are not going on a trawl of the night-life just so you can seduce a rich woman into sex, profitable or otherwise. Dinner in a restaurant or here are the only options available."

"You," Max snapped, "have no appreciation of the finer things in life. Esparreguera it is, then."

* * *

The meal was excellent if Max's evident enjoyment was anything to go by. Aaron's steak was as rare and tender as he preferred and the wine was up to the same standard. In the calm atmosphere of a high-class restaurant, Max was relaxed, with all the poise of one in his natural habitat. Or, Aaron though with a slight smile, a courtesan in his element. The man could discuss art and antiques with knowledge and enthusiasm. Especially Gaudi, which was to be expected, perhaps. And since that artist's work was not to Aaron's taste, the discussion sometimes became heated on Max's part.

There were distractions, of course, and Max's eyes had a tendency to wander over the women who came into the restaurant; the young ones received no more than a cursory check-over, but the older women, especially the unattached, were given a more assessing examination. On the lookout for potential clients, Aaron thought, and was surprised at the surge of irritation that engendered. No question, this man was well and truly under his skin and burrowing deeper.

But he made no move to catch back Max's attention. This was neither the time nor the place to tighten the reins. Before he could do that, Max had to understand and accept their roles in each other's life. So Aaron signalled the waiter for another bottle of wine and requested the dessert menu.

* * *

The drive back to their casita was pleasant and informative. A few leading questions from Aaron, and Max was talking about his early life in El Raval. He glossed over a lot of it, turning grim realities into a series of amusing anecdotes, but Aaron could read between the lines and see the lonely, bitter child of those days.

But unearthing his past did not sour Max's mood. The combination of good food and wine had seen to that, and Aaron had opened another bottle as soon as they were inside the door.

Now Aaron was sitting on the couch, legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back against the cushions. Max was an indolent sprawl beside him, humming quietly to himself, eyes half-closed and a lazy smile curving his mouth. Their glasses and a half-empty bottle were on the coffee table, just in easy reach.

Aaron leaned forward and topped up Max's glass. While the man wasn't drunk, exactly, he was certainly relaxed and off-guard. If it came to that, Aaron acknowledged, he was a little mellow himself. Which perhaps was why certain aspects in the 'Max Lapeña - His Early Years' saga stuck with him.

"So you don't charge your ladies a fee, just the men," he said.

"Right. It's a different game, y'see." Max gestured with his glass and nearly spilt the wine. "Most women want the illusion of romance, seduction, so I'll give them flowers, chocolates, compliments, soft lights and sweet music, and hours of quality sex. They give me watches, jewellery, fashion clothes, and I sell what I don't need and make a good profit on the deal. Some men," he went on, scowling, "want to think they turn me on, but most just want to get their rocks off hard and fast." He shrugged. "I can do that."

"A man can't fake an erection," Aaron said, "or an orgasm."

"I don't have to. A mouth or a hand working my cock feels the same, man or woman," Max said dismissively. "Fucking a man's ass is no different to fucking a woman's. So a man buys me for an hour, I'm whoever he wants me to be. Physical stimulation and his imagination do the rest. Me, I just pretend I'm with one of my favourite ladies. Simple as that." It was said without bravado, just a casual matter-of-fact tone that spoke for itself.

"But the women still pay for your services, one way or another, yet you save your contempt for the men. Why is that?" Aaron leaned across and refilled Max's wine-glass.

"Because they only want the sex. Their own gratification." He said the word very carefully. "There's no ... " He paused, frowning. "They make sex a commodity and that's what I sell them. My ladies don't."

"And that makes the men contemptible?"

"Yes." Max leaned closer, expression earnest. "Y'see, they don't get any real pleasure from it, just the physical release. Some of 'em, it's like they're afraid of pleasure. But I suppose that's the way it is, between men. I mean, it's a contest, isn't it? About who's in charge. And it's me. Even when I'm on my knees, sucking their cocks, I'm the one who's in control, not them," he finished triumphantly. "S'different with my ladies. They know the way it is, and they trust me to take care of them."

"You're very protective of them," Aaron said quietly.

"'Course I am," Max said scornfully. "That's what it's all about, isn't it?"

"Yes," he agreed. "I ask you again, Maximo Lapeña, who takes care of you?"

Max blinked at him, eyes wide and oddly defenceless. "No one," he whispered. "I don't need ... "

"Don't you?" Aaron leaned closer, and brushed his lips over Max's cheekbone, moving gently down towards his mouth.

The kiss was gossamer-soft, almost passionless, but not quite. Enough to show Max there was fire beneath the cool control, if he wanted to find it. He feather-touched his tongue to Max's lips, tasting wine and crème brûlée, then drew back.

The man's eyes were closed, black lashes a fan of shadow against the tanned translucent skin. There was an expression of startled wonder on his face, and when Aaron kissed him again, his mouth opened with a gasp, inviting the vampire in.

Aaron deepened the kiss, finding a sensual delight in the slow plundering of that willing, responsive mouth. He needed this, he acknowledged, needed the compliance as much as Max needed to give it.

Carefully he gathered Max into his arms, aware of the accelerated beat of the man's heart, and alert for the first hint of resistance. It didn't come, instead Max's tongue slid alongside his, not seeking to contest the invasion, but encouraging him deeper.

Finally Aaron lifted his head, and Max's eyes opened slowly, heavy-lidded and languorous. He seemed dazed, muzzily confused, and aroused. It would be too easy to take what he wanted, force Max to a surrender he wasn't yet ready to give. But that would destroy the embryonic trust growing between them, and Aaron did not want that.

He could wait. So he ignored the silken hunger that coursed through his body, and smiled.

"It's late," he murmured, stroking through the man's tousled hair. "Goodnight, Max."

Max wasn't listening. "You're trying to seduce me," he announced. "Not supposed to happen like that."

"Oh? How should it happen?"

"Other way 'round," Max told him gravely.

"But I'm not one of your ladies."

"Huh." Max snorted, and began to snicker quietly. "I had noticed." His hands moved over Aaron's shoulders, and the vampire could feel the light touch exploring the planes of muscles over bones, then Max reached up to trace the outline of Aaron's mouth. "You," he said wonderingly, "are like no one I've ever met before and you scare the shit out of me, but ... "

"And I am not one of your male clients," Aaron went on, and won a scowl.

"Not a client," Max snapped. "Why is your mouth so hot?"

"I have a higher body temperature than you."

"Should be cold. Un-dead."

"I am neither." Aaron smiled. "Vampires are a natural mutation caused by a kind of infection, and - "

"And that's another thing," Max interrupted. "You're not drunk. You matched me glass for glass and you're sober as a-a-whatever."

"I have a high tolerance for alcohol. But you have no cause for concern."

"I don't?"

"No. I never seduce a drunk."

"Oh." Max sounded disappointed, and Aaron leaned in to kiss the sulking mouth.

"There's always tomorrow," he whispered.

"I'm not that drunk," Max said. "I know what I'm doing, and I know what I want."

"I don't think you do know what you want," Aaron countered. "Not yet. And half-drunk is not the best time to discover it."

"Okay, what do you want?" Max demanded, with the triumph of one turning the tables on an opponent.

"You," Aaron said quietly. "All of you, body and soul, willingly at my side. Obedient."

"Hah!" Max crowed. "Now I get it! Master-slave games. I can do that. For a price."

"Maximo," Aaron said, steel in his voice, "I don't play games. And the price may be a lot higher than either of us can afford." He stood up, knowing he had to put distance between them or his hunger for this man would slip its leash.

Max sat back. He was unsure and it showed. "I - huh - don't know what you mean," he muttered gruffly. But his eyes clung to Aaron's with an intensity that said otherwise. "I think I'll go to bed now." And he retreated to the bedroom.

* * *

The substitute left its familiar bitter taste in Aaron's mouth, and he drank some of the hot coffee to wash it away. It was after ten in the morning, and there was no sound of movement from the bedroom, only the steady breathing of the sleeping man. It was easy to visualise Max's face relaxed in slumber, his long limbs quiescent and sprawling with a natural grace. To imagine lying beside him and watching him sleep, watching him waken, hearing his own name whispered with a drowsy smile of welcome to accompany it ...

Aaron sighed. Would Max recognise and accept the security he needed, or would he deny it and run? If he ran - his lips curled back from his fangs in an instinctive snarl, and Aaron cut off that thought. Max was not prey, even if he bolted like a panicked antelope. Vampires no longer hunted - he hadn't done so for many years, no matter that the instinct was still there, undiminished.

But there were more human needs alongside the vampiric in Aaron, just as strong, and equally inconvenient. Resolutely he turned his mind to another track. A shopping list; safely mundane. Still the memories of the previous evening came through to torment him; Max's tongue stroking his, mouth pliant and hungry, the scent of him laden with the intoxicating musk of arousal -

Too fast. This connection he felt with Max Lapeña had grown too quickly for endurance, and yet ... There was something between them other than lust and their mutual needs. Wasn't there?

The uncertainty irked Aaron. This was one aspect of his life that he needed to keep under control, and Max was very much a random factor. And another image came to him: Max, no longer compliant but resisting, refusing, knowing what he was doing and deliberately seeking to trigger vampire strength and Aaron's own need to master. Heat swelled in his groin and Aaron growled deep in his throat, the strength of his reaction taking him by surprise.

The ring-tone of his cell phone was a welcome distraction; the small screen displayed Aquilar's number.

"The package arrived this morning, which was a minor miracle," the detective said, "and a lucky one for us. In fact, it was damn-good timing on your part, Aaron, and more than opportune."

"Why?" he asked, frowning. "What happened?"

"My disk has gone."

"What?"

"I gave it to the Boss, and it's been taken from his desk over-night, before - of course - he had a chance to copy it. You must be psychic, my friend."

"No clues as to who took it, I suppose?"

"No, but I've got a bloody good idea," Aquilar said sourly. "The same source who had the fence on the lookout for him. And talking of him, how is our street-rat doing?"

"Fine. Co-operative at the moment." The bedroom door opened and the street-rat leaned against it, tousled and heavy-eyed, a damp towel draped loosely around his hips. A scowl took away some of the effect but not all. "He wants this man caught and dealt with as much as we do," Aaron went on, "plus whoever hired him."

"Good." Aquilar grunted. "He Who Must Be Obeyed is not happy, needless to say, though your disk cheered him up a bit. It's now been copied about half a dozen times and lodged with two judges, a lawyer, a bank deposit box and the Special Property store here at the station."

"You still haven't ID'd the killer?" Aaron said.

"Not for sure, but we have a couple of strong possibles. There is another thing." He paused, but there had been an undertone to the last few words that had Aaron wishing it was a vid-phone so he could see the man's face. "We need Lapeña alive, of course, but the Boss is prepared to risk him up to a point. And us. He wants to trap our rotten apple, and to do that he's aiming to file a comprehensive report, giving your location - "

"No," Aaron cut in. "That is not acceptable."

"Yeah, it gripes me too, but we don't get a vote. The idea is for us to watch Las Palomas, when we give you the signal, you get Lapeña out of there and we collar whoever comes to take him. Only you can't move until we know they're closing in."

"No," Aaron said again. "He will not be risked."

"I appreciate he's valuable, at least until he's identified the shooter, but - "

"There are no buts and no compromises," Aaron said, ice in his voice. "Max Lapeña is not negotiable."

"Aaron, don't be stubborn about this. The risk to his hide is minimal - you'll be moving him before the fun starts, so - "

"And leave an empty house for your apple to find? How very enterprising." There was no obvious sneer in his clipped tones, but Aquilar gave a hiss of annoyance.

"So it's not perfect," he snapped. "The Boss would be just as happy to have you and Lapeña still there - "

"Your trap will be baited," Aaron interrupted. "I'll be in touch." And he cut the connection.

* * *

The sound of the vampire's accented voice drew Max to the door. His head felt thick, the aftermath of all the wine he'd drunk the previous night, not to mention the tangle of erotic but formless dreams that had made restful sleep an impossibility, but it gradually dawned on him that Aaron was angry. There was an indefinable something to the measured cadences that spoke of temper held in on a taut rein. Frowning, Max leaned on the door-frame and listened, and didn't like what he heard of the one-sided conversation. Well, parts of it sounded good; Aaron was on his side, that was for sure, but -

"What was all that about?" he asked uneasily, hitching his towel a little higher.

"New developments," Aaron said briefly. "Someone on the inside stole the interview disk you did with Rico. That someone is almost certainly working with the opposition, and could also be involved with the Matas murder. The Inspector intends to set a snare."

The conclusion was obvious; the casita was to be the trap, and he was the bait.

"You believe him?" Max yelled. "It's a hell of a lot simpler than that! Your fuck-buddy cop is selling me out!"

"Rico isn't," Aaron said quietly. "Nor is De Quintana. Save your breath, we are leaving."

"No shit," he sneered. "Glad you haven't forgotten I'm your star witness and you have to keep me alive, even if they oh-so-conveniently have."

"I haven't forgotten."

"Great! You really think you can save my skin? Keep me alive for the trial?"

"Yes," the vampire said, but Max wasn't listening.

"And what happens afterwards? You can fuck off out of here, but I can't. I have to go on living in this fucking jungle! But what the shit do you care? Nothing! I'm just a tool, a means to an end!"

"Max." It was a warning, but he didn't give a damn.

"You think the case is closed when you get the killer? Yeah, sure, it will be as far as you're concerned, but I'm the snitch, the stupid bastard who gave him to you, and I'll still be a target, but who gives a shit about that? No one, like always!"

Suddenly Aaron's hand was about his throat and he was lifted, choking, his feet flailing and his hands clutching at the man's wrist.

"Shall I make it clearer to you?" the vampire said mildly. "Be quiet. Listen to me."

Max couldn't speak even if he wanted to. Just as his vision started to grey out, he was lowered to the floor, and he staggered free. It was a salutary reminder of Aaron's inhuman strength, and it goaded him to fury. He caught his balance and swung a punch, only to have the blow blocked and his wrist held in a vice-like grip. His arm was twisted behind his back and he was pulled against Aaron's chest, held here, their faces inches apart.

"Listen to me," Aaron said again. "I am going to take you to another place where you'll be safe. Then I am going to come back here and be the bait. They will assume you are still with me."

Max didn't reply, couldn't, and it had nothing to do with the bruising hold that had half-choked him; it was all down to the topaz eyes that gazed into his, the corded strength of the arms that held him and the higher than normal body-heat that seared through Aaron's thin t-shirt and burned into Max's gut. Maybe Aaron felt something as well, because when he spoke again, his voice was deeper, with a warm-satin huskiness that sounded almost like the purr of a great cat. "I gave you my word, Maximo Lapeña. That I would keep you safe. Do you remember?"

"Yes," he whispered, shudderingly aware that all he wore was a towel, and it wouldn't take much for it to slide free. He was virtually naked and vulnerable - "Aaron ... " He leaned across the small distance between them, eyes closing as he sought the addictive warmth of the vampire's mouth. For one wrenching moment, Max thought he wouldn't respond, and then the vampire took control of the kiss.

Any doubts Max might have held were dispelled by the avid mouth that fed on his, and the hardness that swelled in Aaron's pants. He was wanted, desired, and the knowledge surged through him in a joyous wave. He rocked his hips forward, sliding his own erection against Aaron's, finding a sharp eroticism in the brush of fabric on his bare flesh. His right arm was still locked behind his back, but Aaron's free hand moved down to push beneath the towel and clamp onto his buttock, pressing their bodies closer in a steady rhythm.

Stunned with pleasure, Max gave himself over to the sensations that pulsed through him, trusting to the strength that held him upright because his own bones had melted, knowing that Aaron would not let him fall. The warm hand on his ass moved a little and fingers slid between his cheeks, putting pressure on his entrance. Fear and lust escalated, the rub of towelling on his sensitised and leaking penis was almost more than he could bear, and then Aaron's lips moved from his mouth to his throat and Max felt the unyielding brush of teeth - orgasm convulsed him in an electric rush that tore a shout from his lungs. Shock and after-shock ripped through his body, and still Aaron held him close, held him upright, until Max hung in the vampire's embrace, spent and sated and utterly content.

Eyes closed, he had a vague awareness of being lowered to the floor, and cool air drifted over his sweating skin as the semen-wet towel was lifted away.

"You are beautiful," Aaron whispered, and his kiss was impossibly gentle - cherishing - on Max's mouth. "You are mine."

Max didn't argue either statement. "Mmm," he said, and it might have been assent, if he had been coherent enough to give it.

"We have to leave now."

"Wha - ?" Max's eyes flew open, and he clutched for shoulders bent over him. "No, not yet - "

"Now. Get dressed." It was an order, no compromise offered, but there was a promise in the golden gaze that drifted over him with obvious relish. And in the fingertips that stroked up his thigh to caress his limp penis.

"But you didn't come," he said, eyes drawn to the erection that strained against the pale denim of Aaron's jeans. "Let me do you." He rose to his knees and reached for the man's zipper. Aaron turned his hand away.

"No." His voice was implacable. "When I say so, not you."

Max sat back on his heels, hands clenched into fists on his thighs. "You don't want me?" he muttered, half-believing it.

"Oh, I want you," Aaron said quietly. "With a hunger you can't imagine. But the terms are mine, Maximo Lapeña. Always mine."

"And afterwards?" Max whispered, a cold knot forming in his stomach.

"There is no afterwards. It's all or nothing." Max stared at him, uncomprehending. "On your feet. Get dressed. I will not tell you again."

This time, Max did as he was told.

* * *

Another holiday apartment in another town. They were in Cardona, a place whose only entertainment, not so many years ago, had been the perennial arguments over whether it was a small town or a large village. Now it was definitely in the town bracket, with high-rise apartment blocks in the new River Quarter, and the usual tapas bars, restaurants and souvenir shops in every busy street.

It was afternoon and Max leaned on the balcony rail, soaking up the heat and looking down at the Cardona River far below. In the room behind him, Aaron turned on the TV, selecting a news channel by the sound of it.

Max sighed. Reality sucked. What he wanted right now was Aaron, up close and personal, interested in him, not the media's latest take on the Matas murder.

The drive to Cardona had been an uncomfortable one for Max. He'd been aware of Aaron on every inch of skin, on every nerve-end on his body. He'd ached for his touch, had wanted to reach out and put his hand on the denim-clad thigh, to feel the flex of those powerful muscles at every gear-shift.

He was still hyper-sensitive to the man. God, but he wanted him. He shivered, remembering the ecstatic release and yearned for it again. What the hell had Aaron meant? No afterwards? All or nothing? Word-games, mind-games - the fucking vampire was a master at them! Still, Max supposed, if you were close on to a hundred years old, you got to be good at stuff like that.

There were things he was good at, himself. Like blow-jobs, and he very much wanted to find out what Aaron tasted like. His warder had been turned on, back there at the casita. Max smiled a smug cat-and-cream smile, and let his imagination paint that picture differently: Aaron naked and cock erect, as hot for him as he was for Aaron. He visualised himself, on his knees, taking that leaking shaft into his mouth, and winning a crow of pleasure from his lov - no, client - no! Max straightened, scowling, image broken and scattered.

Aaron's cell phone rang again, and Max turned round. It had been doing that every hour on the hour since they'd left Begues for the roundabout route to Cardona, and each time Aaron had glanced at the screen to check the caller, then ignored it. Like now.

"Aquilar again?" Max said, and Aaron nodded. "He's a stubborn asshole."

"Yes," Aaron agreed mildly. "So am I. I'll call him when I'm back in the casita."

Which reminded Max that he didn't want to be left alone in this god-forsaken if high-class dump.

"When are you leaving?" he asked.

"Not for a while yet. I'll aim to be back there at about ten tonight. De Quintana will be putting in his report at nine in the morning, so I can expect visitors from then on."

"You don't have to go," Max said with a casualness he did not feel. "They can handle it without you. Aquilar can sit in the casita."

"No."

Max shrugged as if it didn't matter to him one way or another, and strolled back into the room. Aaron was perched on the arm of the couch, eyes on the TV screen. A politician was holding forth about Marco Rodriguez's stance on crime now his wife had been murdered, so Max tuned it out. Instead he concentrated on the vampire, on the intent profile and the sensual swell of the man's lower lip. He wanted to kiss those lips, suckle on the tongue that would come probing into his own mouth. He started to speak, but stopped. Instinct told him that demands wouldn't work on Aaron Grey. Nor would any overt seduction techniques. Aaron had to make the first move. Dominator and submissive. How far would he take it? Apprehension was a delicious curl in his stomach as he drifted to the couch and sat down not far from his guardian.

Carefully, calculatingly, Max yawned and stretched, luxuriating in his strength and fitness, displaying a body he knew to be close to perfect. It ought to be; he'd worked on it long enough for just that effect. Then he relaxed with a long sigh, head back to expose his throat since Aaron seemed to like to mock-bite him there. And waited.

He knew the picture he made: long limbs graceful, abandoned, thighs parted and erection obvious. Very obvious. He wanted to touch himself, but decided that would be too blatant. But if Aaron continued to ignore him, he'd go into the bedroom and jerk off rather than put up with the almost permanent hard-on he'd had since they'd left the casita.

"Max." There was amusement in Aaron's voice and he focused on the man's smiling face with difficulty. His own hand, he discovered, was cupping his crotch. Oh, well, so much for good intentions. He squeezed himself lightly and smiled up at Aaron, his expression as innocent as he could make it, as if he wasn't aware of what he was doing.

"Mmm?"

"The restaurant on the ground floor appears to have a good menu, if you're hungry."

They'd stopped for a meal before reaching Cardona, but Max gave it due thought anyway. Then he shrugged, not removing his hand. "No, thanks," he said, and yawned again.

"Well, since you are clearly bored," Aaron went on, "I think it's time we had a discussion."

"What about?" Max asked guardedly.

"You, staying here while I am gone, and not heading for the horizon as soon as I'm out of sight."

"I wasn't going to!" Max said indignantly, forgetting about self-gratification. Then, "Would you come after me?"

"You know I will."

"Well, then, what's the point of running?" For the chase, said something inside him, and the capture ... "Besides, I want this Raoul bastard, too, remember?"

"He isn't all you want," Aaron murmured, and Max's breath caught in his lungs. "Is he?"

He couldn't speak for a moment. "No," he managed, unable to meet the gaze of those too-knowing eyes.

"What do you want of me?"

"I - don't know." The honesty was dragged from him. "You - this morning, you made me feel it like I never felt before. You took me higher than I've ever gone, yet what we did wasn't much more than foreplay." He took a deep breath. "I want more," he whispered.

Aaron nodded. "So do I." His fingers trailed through Max's hair, and he resisted the urge to close his eyes and lean into the caress. "I've already told you what I want. I don't think you were so drunk you've forgotten. This morning you stood on the edge of it. The next step is up to you."

"And if I take that step, what then? What's the next one, and the one after that?" He hesitated, then heard himself ask the question he did not want answered. "What kind of time-scale are we talking about here?"

Aaron didn't answer it, not directly. "Maximo, if you commit to me, there will be no going back. You will be mine, body and soul, to do with as I wish."

"I can't do that." Max forced the words past the rising panic that choked him. "I can't." But he wanted to.

"I know," Aaron said. "Yet. It will be for another time. For now there is only the next step."

"You are so fucking sure of me!" Max sneered, stung to sudden anger. He jerked away from the light touch in his hair.

"Yes," Aaron said. "Because your need is as great as mine. I will only take what you give me. But I do not let go that which is mine. Nor do I permit it to be taken from me. That is my commitment."

The quiet words sank into Max's consciousness and resonated there, as if they were branded into his bones. No matter what happened from now on, he would never be able to say he didn't know what he was letting himself in for.

"I don't want to think past today," he muttered.

"Then don't." Aaron smiled.

"Live in the moment?" Max frowned at him. "How does that fit in with your control freak philosophy?"

"It doesn't. Not mine, but yours." He was still smiling and it lit up his face, transforming him to something beyond handsomeness that stopped Max's breath.

Live in the moment. He could do that. Wordless, he slipped off the couch and onto his knees in front of the vampire. Taking one of Aaron's hands, he placed it at his throat and tilted his head back.

He watched Aaron's features become still, solemn, and fingers that were strong enough to tear his head from his shoulders caressed the skin over his carotid artery. The possessive, gentle touch struck straight through to his genitals, and Max had to force himself not to react.

The next move was Aaron's.

Aaron's smile widened to show his fangs. "Yessss," he said softly, predatory and at the same time acknowledging the gift.

Having given over control, a curious kind of peace stole over Max. It didn't stop his heart beating hard and fast against his ribs, but it settled the fear that churned in him. Awareness of the outside world faded away. Aaron was his sole focus, and Max waited in a calm limbo to know his will.

"Take off your clothes." It was a quiet command, and Max obeyed without hesitation. He stood up, but he didn't hurry. Instead he kicked off his shoes and then made the removal of his t-shirt and pants a flaunting display, finding the appreciation in the vampire's topaz eyes an incredible turn on.

"Be still," Aaron murmured, and he froze, only his eyes moving to watch the vampire as long as he could while Aaron walked round him, studying him from every angle. Except he didn't walk, he prowled, gliding with the silent, fluid grace of a hunting beast. Max had never seen anyone move in quite that way - maybe it was a vampire-thing, or more likely an Aaron-thing. Whatever it was, the implicit dangerousness of the man was there to the fore and an anticipatory shiver ran through him. He didn't have to pretend that Aaron was faster, stronger than he was; this was no make-believe fantasy encounter thought up by a client. This was real, in the here-and-now, and this semi-mythic creature had locked its hunting instincts onto him. He was prey and prize, desired, needed, and it felt intoxicatingly good.

A fingertip trailed across one bare shoulder, then drew a line slowly down his spine from the nape of his neck to his tailbone. He arched into the touch, eyes slitting with pleasure, craving more but knowing it would be a mistake to demand.

He heard a rustle of fabric and guessed Aaron had shed his t-shirt. Then the vampire's arms were about him and he was eased gently back to lean on the bared, hard-muscled chest.

The care Aaron was taking with him exhilarated Max, and it fed a need deep in the hollow places of his heart, but it wasn't quite what he wanted right then. The heat of the man's skin seemed to scorch him, but he was more aware of the denim-covered erection that pressed against his buttocks. He could not resist the impulse; he moved his hips in a slow sensual twist, and was rewarded by a sharp intake of breath.

"I said," Aaron whispered close to his ear, "be still."

Max laughed deep in his throat and pushed back against the hardening swell in Aaron's jeans. "No," he said huskily. He moved again, part enticement, part mock-struggle. He didn't even come close to breaking Aaron's hold, didn't succeed in turning round and he wanted to see Aaron's face, wanted to see him as naked and aroused as he was himself. He was possessed by a wonderful, terrifying madness and he didn't care. Crazy delight was rippling through him, and he heard quiet laughter drift past his ear.

"You're playing with fire," Aaron murmured, his arms tightening until Max could scarcely breath.

"So burn me," he managed. "Do you want me to beg? I'm begging - on my knees if you want - "

"No contempt, Maximo?" Aaron drawled. "Or are you a better actor than I thought? What fantasy are we playing? Which lady are you thinking of now?" He freed one hand and cupped Max's balls, closing thumb and forefinger in a tight ring around the base of his straining cock. Max threw his head back and yelled, hips bucking. "What's her name?"

"No lady." Somehow he managed to find coherence through the surging pleasure that was threatening to soar out of control. Again. "Aaron - " He gazed down his body at the muscular arms that held him prisoner, pale marble against his tanned skin and as unyielding. His penis was erect, throbbing and glistening in Aaron's hold, and the image was of a wanton carnality. It struck a chord that vibrated through every nerve-end he possessed. But he was pent so close he could no longer move his hips back or forward to find the friction he needed. Which was both intensely erotic and frustrating in equal measure.

Panting, Max became still, relishing his captivity, secure in Aaron's strength and drunk on desire.

"That's better," Aaron murmured, and kissed the nape of his neck. Then he fastened mouth and teeth on Max's shoulder, hard enough for him to feel the sharpness within the moist heat, but not enough to break the skin. He moaned his delight, and Aaron chuckled as he lifted his head. "Find some lubricant and lie down on the bed." And Max was freed.

Max shivered. He wanted to remind Aaron that his ass was not part of this arrangement, but the words would not come. He had a strong intuition that refusal was not an option on his part.

The lubricant was not a problem; it was one of the tools of his trade, after all, a permanent occupant of his wash-bag. He sat on the edge of the bed in what he hoped was a nonchalant pose, the tube clutched in his hand. Anticipation and anxiety warred in him and had the inevitable affect on his erection. But then Aaron was walking through the doorway and Max's doubts began to evaporate.

The vampire was naked, and his body was as good as Max had guessed it would be - better than good. The afternoon sunlight poured a swathe of gold across the room and it made of Aaron a living, moving statue. Power and grace combined in him to create a form that classical sculptors had long since made the ideal, and Max certainly found no fault in him. Unless it was his pallor, and the stark contrast between it and the black hair that furred Aaron's chest and genitals. But even that had an exotic appeal. More immediately appealing was the erect penis that rose from its nest of silky dark curls, and Max's own flesh hardened and lifted in response.

* * *

Aaron took off his clothes and folded them, placed them neatly on the couch. He drew a few deep breaths to steady the leaping hunger in his blood, and walked slowly into the bedroom. Max was perched on the edge of the bed, ostensibly relaxed but his trepidation showed in his widened eyes and in his body-scent, and in the flaccid penis that lay against his thigh. But it didn't stay that way for long. As Aaron approached the bed, Max's erection returned.

Yet Aaron knew that despite the man's sexual history - or maybe because of it - this was going to take a lot of patience, self-control and care. They were poised on the edge of a commitment they both needed and wanted, and he could not afford to make a mistake now.

He smiled reassuringly and held out his hand, palm up. Max dropped the tube into his open hand and Aaron tossed it onto the bedside table, his gaze not leaving Max's face. "Maximo," he said, "all you have to do is trust me."

"Yes," Max said. "I know. I do." His voice was husky, still unsure, and Aaron's smile widened. Max was not always a good liar.

"Then lie back."

Slowly Max obeyed, and in a smooth movement, Aaron joined him on the bed. He leaned over him, one hand spread over his chest, pinning him down, and kissed him. It was a slow, deep exploration of Max's mouth, underscoring his dominance, and Max did not contest it. He gave a breathy moan, welcoming Aaron's tongue, body beginning a slow writhe that sought closer contact, his fists clenched on the fabric of the quilt.

Aaron traced sure hands over Max's skin, caressing, exploring, taking his time. This could not be rushed. Too much was at stake. He began to lay a trail of kisses from lips to throat to collarbone, teasing, nibbling, licking along the hard line of bone under skin. Salt-taste, Max-taste, and the seductive beat of the blood-vessel so close to his teeth were a heady combination. Maybe Max's instinct told him the same, because he turned his head on the pillow, exposing more of his throat. At the same time, he finally initiated caresses of his own; his arms slid around Aaron's ribs, his hands seeking out the pattern of muscle and bone of his back. Then Aaron closed his mouth over Max's nipple and sucked, letting his teeth graze the sensitive knot. Max cried out, hips thrusting, spine arching, fingers digging into Aaron's tensed muscles.

Aaron fought back the temptation to bite a little harder, to draw a fine thread of blood. He turned his attention to the other nipple, dusky pink against the tan. Then slowly he traced a pattern of kisses across Max's heaving abdomen to his navel.

Max was panting, whispering his name in mindless repetition, and when Aaron caressed his hand up the man's inner thigh, his legs parted without hesitation. Slowly, Aaron drew the seeping cock into his mouth. Max's breath crowed in his throat and he shuddered, hips jerking. Aaron took him deeper, his fingers playing with the crêpe velvet testicles, cradling them. He tormented the urgent flesh with tongue and gentle teeth, tracing the throbbing vein and shaped glans, and probing the narrow slit. Max yelled his name, and more pre-ejaculate coated his tongue. He savoured the taste that was uniquely Max, and then he feather-stroked a finger along Max's perineum toward his anus, repeating the simple caress over and over again while Max's hips rocked to the same tempo.

Aaron didn't command, he didn't ask, just increased his attention to the pulsing cock in his mouth and waited. Then Max flexed a knee, offering easier access, and Aaron pressed his finger lightly against the tight-locked ring of muscle that defended the man's entrance.

Max whimpered, but did not protest.

Carefully Aaron reached for and found the tube of gel, and let Max's cock slip from his mouth. That got an objection.

"No! Don't stop!"

"Quiet," Aaron murmured. "It will get better." He took the cap off the tube and squeezed a good amount onto his left palm, aware of Max's eyes on every movement. Then he closed his hand around the fingers of his right hand and coated them, pumping his fist slowly and deliberately as if he was working a cock. Max's tongue tip flickered across his lips, and his gaze became avid.

"What are you going to do?" Max whispered.

"Prepare you. Slide my fingers into you and slowly stretch you until you are ready for me."

"Oh, God ... " He groaned, but it was not a refusal.

"And while I'm doing that, I'll be carrying on where I left off," he added with a smile, and bent his head to Max's penis again. Max's fingers clutched in his hair, importunate. Aaron chuckled quietly and took him to the back of his throat, swallowing him. At the same time he slipped his finger between Max's buttocks and pushed at the sphincter again. The man's hips bucked, and the tight ring gave a little. He eased past the constriction and paused, giving Max time to get used to the sensation of being penetrated. As he did so, Max froze, then slowly, experimentally, began to move again, pushing up into Aaron's mouth, then cautiously down onto his finger.

An exultant satisfaction rippled through Aaron's belly. Max was as good as his, but he didn't allow complacency to grow. He let Max set the pace; let him impale himself deeper with every rock of his hips, then Aaron changed the angle a fraction until he found that small node - and Max juddered, jolted out of his rhythm.

Aaron added another finger to the penetration, sliding them in and out in a faster tempo, hitting the prostate at every push. Max was convulsing, mouth open in a silent scream, and Aaron felt the cock in his mouth jerk and thicken. Quickly he drew back a short way and wrapped his other hand around Max's penis. He didn't want Max to pump his semen down his throat, he wanted it in his mouth, the better to savour the essence of him. He suckled strongly on the throbbing glans and Max howled, body spasming. With a humming purr of delight, Aaron milked him with mouth and tongue and hand, until the shudders eased and Max was collapsed on the bed in a boneless sprawl.

Then Aaron knelt between his spread legs and reached for the gel again. He covered his swollen penis, finding a pleasure in the coldness of the stuff against his heated flesh, and looked up to find Max watching him through slitted eyes. There was a smile on the sculpted lips; the man looked sated, debauched, and utterly content. Nor did his face change when Aaron lifted his legs and leaned them on his shoulders, but when Aaron guided the blunt head of his cock to the slick entrance and pressed slowly inside, his expression became one of confused awe.

Even with the careful preparation, Max's channel was tight. Aaron did not push deeper. Instead he caressed his hands over Max's ribs to his chest, and lightly rolled his nipples between finger and thumb. Max sighed, eyes closing, and Aaron moved, easing back and forward, sliding a little deeper, deeper, until he was hilted to the base of his cock in Max's body. And Max was matching him, thrust for thrust, blind ecstasy on his face as Aaron's engorged penis slid across his prostate.

Exultant, Aaron speeded up his thrusts, control almost lost in the flood of exquisite pleasure. Max was incoherent, gasping his name, pleading and demanding in turn, features transfigured. Orgasm gathered and struck through Aaron with surging force, and he pummelled hard into the willing vessel, dimly aware that Max's legs were locked around his ribs, heels digging into his driving buttocks, urging him on.

Supporting his weight on braced arms, Aaron let his softened penis slip from Max's body, and stretched out beside him. He didn't ask if he'd hurt him; there was no sign of blood on his cock, and Max was as relaxed and satiated as an overfed cat, if his smug grin was anything to go by. Aaron leaned over and kissed the smirk, and Max turned into his embrace, burrowing close.

"That was - incredible," Max said softly. "The best sex I've ever had. If I'd known it was that good, taking it in the ass, I might have let someone do me years ago. On the other hand," he went on thoughtfully, touching his fingertip to Aaron's mouth, "I'm glad I didn't. You are - " He stopped, colour rising.

"I am - ?" Aaron prompted.

"Pretty good at fucking." Max edged closer, nuzzling into Aaron's neck.

"Coming from a professional like yourself," Aaron drawled, "I'll take that as a compliment."

Max chuckled and yawned. "Mmm," he said.

"Maximo," Aaron said quietly, "who takes care of you?" There was no answer, but the sudden tension in Max's spine spoke clearly enough. "I want you to wait here until I get back. Will you do that?"

That got him a one-shoulder shrug.

"I want your word that you will stay here until I return," Aaron said, this time with a cold edge to his voice. Max muttered something into his collarbone, and it didn't sound complimentary. "Your word, Maximo."

"Okay! You've got it. Can we fuck again now?"

* * *

He didn't think Max was asleep, but Aaron carefully loosened the arms and legs wrapped around him and eased out of the bed. He did not want to do this. The sex they'd shared had exceeded his expectations, and afterwards the intimate companionship of simply lying close together with Max's head on his chest was an unexpected bonus. But there was a killer to hunt and Max would not be truly safe until that killer was dealt with.

Aaron showered and dressed, then he paused in the doorway and looked back at the bed. Max was a languorous sprawl, promiscuous as a pagan effigy, eyes dark in the dim light. His smile was a somnolent invitation.

"Don't go," he whispered. "Let Aquilar bait his own trap."

"No," Aaron said. "Stay here, be careful and discreet, and I'll be back in a couple of days at the most." He didn't remind him he'd given his word.

"That long?" It was almost a pout. "I might get bored." Slowly Max stroked his hand down his body and teased his semi-flaccid penis. It hardened under the clever fingers, sight and scent combining to make the enticement very difficult for Aaron to refuse. "Stay with me?"

"I'm sure you'll find a way to pass the time," Aaron drawled. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Okay." Max shrugged casually.

Aaron shut the door and walked away, willing his own erection to subside.

Leaving the apartment was...difficult. Once he had been initiated into the pleasures of being on the receiving end of anal sex, Maximo Lapeña had continued to be an enthusiastic sensualist, with, as far as Aaron could tell, no inhibitions whatsoever now. Time would tell whether he was also obedient. But for the moment, he could only hope that Max would do as he was told and stay in the apartment, although Aaron would not be placing any bets on it. He was uneasily aware that it was too soon in their fragile relationship to leave Max alone. He should be there with him when he came down off his sexually-charged high, cementing the dynamics into place and strengthening the growing bond. Winning his total trust.

The very act of preserving Max's life could well cost Aaron the man himself. He set his jaw and walked out to his car.

* * *

The weather was not good for the drive back to Begues, and it took him longer than he'd planned. But it did make his return easier. With a thunderstorm in full swing, filling the night with sound and fury and torrential rain, there wouldn't be any inquisitive eyes to notice that only one person got out of the car and disappeared into the casita.

Once inside, Aaron locked the doors, closed the drapes and switched on the lights. Then he phoned Aquilar.

"Rico," he said. "The bait is in the trap."

"Glad to hear it, though I was beginning to wonder." There was a definite edge to the detective's voice, and Aaron allowed a smile to surface. "It didn't go down too well with He Who Must Be Obeyed, you not answering my calls."

"I told you the trap would be set," Aaron said mildly. "Lapeña was not impressed with your plan, but that's been resolved."

"He's still co-operating?"

"Yes. I persuaded him it was in his best interests. To discuss the arrangements with you in the meantime would have been counterproductive as far as he was concerned. He has a tendency to bolt under pressure, if you recall. So what are the arrangements?"

"From just before dawn, there'll be a team in Las Palomas itself, in a room with a clear view of the front of the casita. I'll be with them. Another couple will be watching the back from the olive groves, and there'll be more keeping an eye on the approach road. We aim to have everyone in the house evacuated by nine at the latest, and our teams will be in place by eight. You'll probably be okay during the day, but don't take any chances."

"I don't intend to." Aaron assured him. "We won't be leaving the casita."

"Good. I haven't finished breaking you in yet." Aquilar chuckled. "I'd hate for you to get your head blown off."

"So would I."

Aquilar gave a snort of amusement. "Then make sure you stay low. Listen, I have some news for you. We have a possible ID for the Matas shooter, based on Lapeña's description. We're pretty sure he's Raoul Menendes, a contract hit-man who normally works out of Madrid. His usual front is freelance photographer, and we've got at least one witness who can place him at the same fashion preview as Matas, taking photos and chatting to her, no less. As soon as this dance is over, I'll put some mug-shots in front of our boy, just to get his confirmation. All we need now is who hired Menendes and why. Oh, and him, of course."

"Of course. And your rotten apple, any information there?"

"Just some circumstantials." The detective sighed. "We're damn-sure who it is, we just need solid proof. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so I'm hoping he'll show his hand when the Boss submits his report. From 0900 hours tomorrow - no, this morning - you better be prepared for anything, my friend."

"I am," Aaron said. "Good hunting, Rico."

"Likewise."

Aaron cut the connection and gazed slowly around the living room. There wasn't anything left to be done; he was armed, had spare clips of ammo in his pockets, and Max was safely in Cardona. So he changed into dry clothes, choosing a dark shirt and pants, and settled in for the long wait.

* * *

The day was overcast and afflicted with frequent squalls of rain, and the casita wasn't the only place to have its drapes closed and the lights on throughout the day. At midmorning, Aaron made a phone-call to the apartment in Cardona; as he half-expected, it wasn't answered.

Aaron folded the cell phone away, distantly surprised by the depth of the pain that knotted in his chest. Of course, it was possible that Max was in the shower or still asleep, but something told him he was no longer there.

No matter. He'd found him once; he would find him again.

* * *

Dusk came early, brought down by the storm-clouds, though the rain had stopped for a while. Aquilar had phoned through updates on a regular basis; now he called to finally report impending action. Aaron was more than ready for it.

"Incoming," the detective said. "Feijoo the Apple, on his own in a black Fiat. Don't leave yet, we want to know what angle he's playing. Tuck Lapeña out of the way somewhere and leave your cell phone open in your pocket, we'll be recording everything he says. Of course, if you'd answered my calls earlier, we could have got a wire on you," he added.

"And run the risk of him learning about it beforehand?" Aaron countered. "He is your apple in your barrel, Rico."

"Huh. The only thing worse than a smart-ass is a pedantic smart-ass. He'll be with you in about five minutes. Watch your back, my friend, and be prepared to duck. The opposition will know you're a vampire and they might well have taken precautions."

"I am aware of the possibility," Aaron said imperturbably. "Watch out yourself, Rico."

"You bet - hold on - " There was a pause, and then the detective came back online. "Two more cars are heading this way. Menendes is in the second one. Two BMWs, one blue, one red. Aaron, get Lapeña and yourself out of there now."

"The trap still needs to be baited," Aaron said, and tucked the phone into the front pocket of his jeans. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes." His reply was faint, but clearly audible to vampire ears. "You're an idiot, Aaron Grey. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"It has been mentioned," Aaron admitted, and his keen hearing picked up the sound of an approaching engine. "A car is approaching."

"Got it. A black Fiat. That's him. The others aren't far behind. I'm coming down."

"Stay where you are!" Aaron snapped. "You can do no good - " But there was no reply. "If I'm an idiot, Ricardo Aquilar," he said aloud, "what does that make you?" He made a brief detour to the bathroom and turned on the shower to feed the illusion that Max was with him. He left the bathroom door open a crack, then as steam began to wisp out into the living room, a car pulled up in front of the casita. Moments later a sharp rap sounded on the front door. He opened it.

Casimiro Feijoo had a tired, grey face that reminded Aaron of a world-weary rat. Thin dark hair was plastered across his scalp, and the large drooping nose and stooped shoulders reinforced the image. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip, and the after-storm humidity had nothing to do with it. Aaron could smell his fear and desperation; he was on a very short fuse.

"Inspector Feijoo, Barcelona Police," the man said crisply, flashing his badge. His other hand remained in the pocket of his beige coat. "You are Señor Grey? Good. I've come to collect Lapeña." He took a step forward but Aaron did not move aside to let him enter, and he faltered to a halt.

"You have?" he queried, voice mild. "I've heard nothing from Inspector De Quintana."

"Events are moving swiftly, Señor. It has been decided at the very highest level that Lapeña needs to be in secure accommodation. We have reason to believe he has been traced by the man who killed Sophia Matas. You have done an excellent job so far, but now he must have more protection than one man can provide."

Aaron nodded. "I understand," he said. Against the usual custom, the yard was in darkness. Just outside the gates of Las Palomas, two cars waited, nearly invisible in the deepening night, their engines idling. "Of course we'll go with you to - where, exactly?"

"Ah, there we have it." Feijoo showed yellowing teeth in a bright smile. "We need you to stay, so they'll think Lapeña is still here." He glanced around Aaron's shoulder. "Time is short, Señor."

"Of course," Aaron said again, and started to turn. Then stopped. "But - forgive me, Inspector, where is your escort? You've already said one man isn't enough."

"They're in separate cars," Feijoo said quickly. "Señor, I must insist - "

"Is that them? In the BMWs over there?" Aaron asked innocently.

"Yes. Señor - "

"Good. I'll get him out of the shower, then. Max!" He called over his shoulder. "Finish up and get dressed. Plans have changed. So, Inspector," he went on, lounging against the doorpost and effectively blocking Feijoo's view and way. "There has been progress, you said? You've captured the killer?"

"Yes, an ex-lover, but he has powerful connections. It is imperative Lapeña is safe."

"I agree." Aaron smiled, showing his teeth and Feijoo paled visibly. "Who is he?"

"Who?"

"The killer, Inspector."

"Uh, Raoul Hernandez," he said, taking out a handkerchief and mopping his brow. It had all the hallmarks of a signal, and Aaron tensed. "He's taking his time. Get him out here, now, Señor." There was a hard edge to the man's voice. Corner a rat, even a world-weary one, and it will turn.

"Yes, he is. Go and wait in your car, inspector, I'll bring him to you."

"No," Feijoo snapped. "I'll take him now, with his clothes on or naked."

"No," Aaron said mildly. "I don't think so."

Feijoo swore, his breath coming fast and shallow, and shoved past Aaron. He strode across the living room and flung the bathroom door wide. He cursed again, and ran to the bedroom door, kicking it open. Then the kitchen got the same treatment.

For a moment, Feijoo sagged. "Where is he?" he demanded quietly.

"In a safe place," Aaron answered, "a long way from here."

"I see. Señor, this is not a smart move. Just tell me where he is, or even better, take me to him, and we can resolve the matter. Give me Lapeña, that's all I ask."

"I can't give you what I don't have. Lapeña is not here, Inspector."

"Don't be a fool!" Feijoo shouted, his voice breaking with desperation. "Just give him to me! I don't want a blood-bath, for God's sake!"

"Neither do I," Aaron agreed. "But - "

"Fuck you, I wanted to avoid this!" Feijoo snatched his gun from it's belt-holster and shoved the muzzle against Aaron's belly. "This is loaded with silver bullets, Grey," he croaked, "and so is every firearm in those cars over there. You and I are going to walk out of here, nice and slow and friendly, and you are going to take me to him."

"No," Aaron said serenely. "Everything you have said to me has been recorded, and you are under arrest."

For a split second, Feijoo's expression was one of appalled shock, and then he pulled the trigger.

* * *

For a long while after the door closed behind the vampire, Max lay in a complacent half-drowse, and planned. Apart from a sore ass, he had never felt better in his life, and even the hot, filled sensation between his buttocks wasn't exactly painful. In fact the more he thought about it, the more he liked it. He'd have some fantastic memories of this day, and they more than counter-balanced the horror of Sophia's death. He yawned and stretched luxuriously, then bounced out of bed and headed for the shower. He had a lot to do before morning.

Clean and shaved and wearing his most expensive cologne, Max upended his backpack over the bed. He unwrapped his cache of borrowed gold and spread it out over the scattered clothing. Only the once, he recalled, had Aaron asked him about this hoard, nor had he tried to take it from him. As if it wasn't important - or at least, of lesser importance than Max himself. Which was fortunate, because it gave Max his ticket out of there.

Quickly he sorted out the chains he'd previously decided were untraceable fund-raisers. He added more, selecting some rings to thread onto the chains, and bracelets to link together to form longer ropes of gleaming metal. Now jewels added their sharp sparkle to the gold. Satisfied, he fastened them around his waist and over both shoulders, bandolier-fashion. Although street-value wasn't anything near their true value, at a rough estimate, he judged that he was wearing about fifteen thousand euros-worth in negotiable stock, and still had just under a thousand in his wallet - more than enough for his needs. He hoped.

Straightening, Max caught a glimpse of himself in the cheval mirror by the dressing-table. Collared and draped in gold, he looked - exotic. Archaic. And thoroughly fucked. His eyes were heavy-lidded with sex and sleep and his mouth was still swollen from Aaron's kisses. He looked like a favoured slave from a Moorish seraglio. He was branded, too; the small bruises of love-bites marked his throat and collarbones, and his breast. He touched each one, remembering, and watched his reflection's penis thicken and lift.

Aaron, who'd made him give his word to stay. Who wasn't here. He smiled wryly at the mirror, and struck the Michelangelo David pose. "Eat your heart out, Aaron Grey," he drawled, picked out tailored black pants and a dark red silk shirt, and dressed.

Changing the gold into money was his first priority, and for that he needed a source. Okay, he didn't know Cardona from a hole in the ground, but the man behind the bar on the ground floor would.

Max's confidence was not misplaced. The man claimed to know the town inside out, and was only too pleased to point him in the direction of the red-light area, telling him which parts to avoid, and which would cater to someone of Max's obvious wealth and good taste. Max thanked him with a smile and a generous tip, and strolled out into the night to make for that less salubrious area.

He knew he was taking a chance, but the risk was worth it - if it paid off. What Max didn't expect was the vague feeling of vulnerability without Aaron at his side, doing that cloaking thing he did. He scowled, and one girl who was about to approach him, backed off fast. Max ignored her. This was the kind of place he'd grown up in, where he had survived and succeeded on his own terms long before Aaron fucking Grey had shown up to turn his life on its ear. Okay, so that wasn't strictly fair. The one who'd done as much disruption was Raoul Godknowswho. Besides, Aaron fucking Grey had given him several hours of the most incredible sex -

Impatient with himself, Max pushed the vampire right to the back of his mind and built a hefty wall around him. He had other things to think of right now, and he couldn't afford to be distracted. He paused on a street-corner and looked around. The young women on parade did not get more than a single glance. He wanted a particular type - and found it in the form of a middle-aged woman with a lush body and an over-painted face, and a confident, cynical smile.

Her name was Aurora, she said, and she took him back to her room, a dingy place of dim lighting and the smell of stale sex and cigarette smoke. He lounged against the door and smiled at her.

"I'm in the market for information, not sex," he said.

"Yeah?" She looked him over, and then stared him in the face. "I've already got a pimp," she announced. "I don't need another one, even a pretty like you."

"I don't have a stable and I'm not looking to start one," Max countered. "I want a fence."

"Who and why?"

"Who is why I'm asking you, sweetheart. Why is none of your business. I need to move some goods and I need a gun. Who in Cardona will give me a good deal?"

"The way I see it," she countered, moving away from him, "you're either working for a cop or running from them, and there's no way I'm getting involved."

"A good guess." Max smiled at her. "I have five hundred euros in used notes, unmarked and untraceable, for a name and an address. Sell me out and I'll cut your breasts off and shove them up your cunt. Your choice, aunt," he said, giving her the street honorific from a young whore to an older one.

She didn't answer right away. Instead she studied him, and gradually her expression changed from scorn to doubt to fear.

"A thousand," she said.

"Five hundred." Max kept his voice soft, inflexible, the same tone he'd heard Aaron use with such good effect. It worked for him, too.

"Arturo Villoro," she said. "The Madrid bistro, just down the street from here."

"Thank you." He held out the money, waited while she counted it. "It's a pleasure doing business with you."

She didn't answer, just clutched the notes and watched him leave.

* * *

Villoro was sitting in a corner of the bar, nursing an almost empty bottle of beer and smoking a cigar that smelt like tarred rope. He was not quite what Max was expecting. He resembled a peasant farmer more than anything else; a small, wizened elderly man who looked as if he'd blow away in a strong wind. His hair was a coarse white tangle against his brown skin, and his eyes were obsidian-dark. He bought two bottles of the same beer Villoro was drinking and put one in front of the old man.

"I've been told you're the man to see," he said quietly. "I need money, a car, a gun and ammo. I have smuggled jewellery to stand as trade."

"Smuggled?" Villoro queried. His voice was thin and reedy but Max did not make the mistake of underestimating him. That flat-eyed stare belonged in a scaled face above a forked and flickering tongue.

"From Africa," he said. "Can we deal?"

"Possibly." Villoro drained his beer and picked up the new bottle. "Come." He got to his feet, moving with surprising ease, and led the way through a swing-door into the kitchen, and then out into a narrow alley. "Who sent you to me?"

"A whore," Max said. "I'm on the level, Señor, and in a hurry. I have to be out of Cardona tonight."

Villoro gave a hoot of sardonic amusement. "Why aren't I surprised? The young are always in a hurry. You should learn patience, boy. You'll live longer."

"Sure," Max said. "Where are we going?"

"My storehouse." He turned off the alley into a tiny back yard, and unlocked a heavy wooden door. "Come on in." He turned on a light and closed the door behind Max.

There was very little free space. Shelves lined the walls, loaded with anonymous wooden boxes. In a central area was an old-fashioned kitchen table and two chairs. Villoro sat in one, and leaned his elbows on the table. "So," he said, "You want a car and a gun. And money. Show me what you have to trade."

"There is one thing. If I come back in a few days, how much would it cost me to buy back the gold?" Max asked. He'd thought about it for a while, weighing up the pros and cons. In the end he'd decided that it would be better to keep the right side of the law and Marco Rodriguez as much as possible. If he could.

"You want a money-lender, not a fence." Villoro snickered, and took a swig of beer. "You're from Barcelona by your accent, boy. Trying to get back there or further away?"

"Away," Max said impatiently. "Well? What do you say?"

"I say let me see the merchandise."

Max took off his shirt and the old man's eyes widened. "Shit," Villoro said. "You've got more gold on you than the Holy Magdalene's statue."

"My patron saint," Max said grimly. "She was a whore, too." He stripped off the chains and spread them on the table. Last of all, he unfastened the necklace Sophia had given him and laid it across the rest. "I know what all these would raise in Barcelona, but I don't expect the same value in Cardona. I do expect a fair price, though. And a good reliable car, and an untraceable handgun with ammunition."

"Don't want much, do you?" Villoro snorted. "Give me a minute." He fished an ancient magnifying glass out of his pocket, and inspected every piece of jewellery. It took a lot longer than a minute. Then he sat back and met Max's eyes. "What kind of gun? Revolver? Automatic? Semi?"

"Semi," Max said. "9mm."

"Okay. I got a Walther PPK, Beretta, S&W and a Browning Hi-Power, all of then guaranteed unknown to the cops."

"S&W." He picked the name at random: his knowledge of guns was not vast. "And a box of shells. What about the car?"

"I can let you have a Toyota with a full tank, the gun, the ammo and two thousand ees. You come back in seven days, you can buy back this cache of lights for twenty thousand. Non-negotiable," he added as Max opened his mouth to bargain.

"Okay," he said. Rodriguez had just lucked out.

"Then we got a deal," Villoro said with a yellow-toothed grin. "What's your name, boy?"

"Max."

"Okay, Maxito, take a seat and drink your beer while I get the hardware."

Half an hour later, Max had collected his backpack and was heading out of Cardona at the wheel of a nippy little Toyota. He had a loaded gun in the waistband of his pants, two thousand euros in his wallet, and a fiery determination in his heart.

* * *

Aaron moved with inhuman speed the instant he read the intent in Feijoo's eyes. As it was, the bullet scorched a groove across his abdomen. He ignored the pain and took the Inspector down to the floor, kneeling on his thighs and snapping the man's own cuffs on his wrists.

At the same time he heard the two BMWs accelerate through the gateway, and a barrage of shots rang out.

Staying low, Aaron got to the door and ducked outside, using his car as cover. Feijoo's car was at an angle in front of his, blocking the way. One of the BMWs was across the entrance gates, cutting off any escape that way, and the other was heading straight for him. He threw himself to one side just as it struck his Ford and pushed it up against the casita's door.

Crouching behind Feijoo's Fiat, Aaron sighted carefully on the car in front of the gates. Whoever had made the decision to use it as a barrier hadn't picked the smartest move in the book. Ignoring the fusillade that hit his shelter, Aaron shot out all the tires he could see. The BMW wasn't going anywhere if he had anything to do with it, and the gunmen were effectively trapped.

Four men ran from the stranded car, three heading for the casita and their pals, the other in the opposite direction towards the front of Las Palomas. One man, at least, had decided discretion and absence was the better part of valour.

From the house, a Police loudhailer sounded, calling for surrender. The only response it got was a bombardment, and glass shattered in the house. The Police returned the fire, and a man dropped. The others dived out of sight behind the bullet-riddled cars, and battle was joined.

Aaron found himself pinned down. Taking a chance, he left the dubious shelter of the Fiat and retreated to the corner of the casita. Stone walls were more effective than metal and fibreglass, whether the bullets were silver or lead. He didn't want to be hit by either.

Aquilar appeared briefly in the side door of the house, gun held steady in a two-handed grip. Floodlights came on suddenly and without warning, lighting the whole area in their cold white glow. Shadows became ink-black, and beyond the circles of light, the Police began to close in, all but invisible to those caught in the beams.

One of the gunmen stood up, empty hands held above his head, and after a long pause, another followed his lead. Aquilar stepped cautiously out of his cover and Aaron hissed his annoyance. More police left the house and spread out across the yard, guns trained on the hit-squad.

"Throw your weapons out here," Aquilar yelled. "Do it!"

Some of the gunmen obeyed, and the detective came closer to kick the fallen guns further away from their erstwhile owners. Then Aaron saw one man still kneeling behind the BMW, a pump action shotgun at his shoulder levelled at Aquilar. "Rico! Down!" he shouted, snapping off a shot as he threw himself between the two men with all the speed he could summon.

The blast took him in the left side, and the ice-cold crush of silver hammered him into oblivion.

* * *

At dawn, Max pulled off the road and followed what looked like a cart-track up a ridge. Once over the crest and out of sight of anyone driving by below, he parked the car in a scatter of wild olive trees and made himself comfortable on the back seat. He had a lot of sleep to catch up on.

By dusk he was on his way again, hot and sweaty and in need of a long shower. He was also very hungry. It did not improve his mood: yet more counts to add to the tally against Sophia's killer.

Finally, Max approached his destination, and slowed to a halt. A kilometre ahead and a little below him, all seemed peaceful. But the lights in the house were all off, even the floodlights around the entrance as well as the pool and terrace. That was not a good sign, he decided. If he was sensible, he'd turn the car around and run for it. He had enough money to get away from Spain and Europe - Australia was sunny, and he spoke enough English to get by. But if he did that, Sophia would not be avenged.

Taking a deep breath, he switched off his own lights and the engine, and released the brake. Gravity and the weight of the car took over and he coasted down the last stretch. Then he turned off the road, the car bumping over the rough ground, and came to a halt close to the wall.

Quickly Max slid out of the Toyota, gun in his hand, and flattened to the ground under some bushes. He waited, but there were no sounds but the ticking of the cooling metal, night-insects, and in the near distance, the muted purr of car engines.

Dust was smooth as powdered silk against his cheek, and the dry herby scent of it tickled his nose. His heart was thundering under his ribs, and for a moment, Max could not move. Once he did, he knew he was committed to the next step; he could either get back in the car and put as much distance between him and Cataluña as he could, or go over the wall and risk life and limb and everything he had to - what? Avenge a dead woman? Or be with a man who was already risking his life down there? Or both? Except it wasn't just Sophia. In a strange, aching kind of way, it was Lola and Menchu as well. As for Aaron Grey - he couldn't even begin to assess what the man meant to him. He simply did not have the words.

Decision made, Max came smoothly to his feet and climbed onto the Toyota's roof. From there he gained the top of the wall and rolled over, dropping down into the night-shrouded shrubbery that carpeted the ground on the other side.

The main house was in complete darkness. The Police would have almost certainly evacuated the place; it was as still as a mausoleum, and he prayed it would stay that way.

Moving as silently as he could, Max edged between the bushes and palm trees that bordered the swimming pool. It was not easy. Without any light-source but starlight and the sky-glow from Begues, he too often stumbled and had to wait without moving in case someone with a gun came to investigate the noise he made. He was all too aware that he would be in danger from either side, creeping around in the dark. But no one came, and gradually he made his way towards the front of the house.

The sudden crack of a gunshot made him jump like a startled deer, and he froze in the shadows. Then all hell seemed to break loose - or at least, World War Three. Car engines roared, tires and brakes squealed, metal impacted on metal with a deafening rending crash, and over it all was the rattle of gunfire. Closer to hand he could hear running footsteps, and he froze again.

The man was glancing over his shoulder as he ran, and as he did so, the garden floodlights suddenly came on. Max was temporarily blinded, but as his vision sharpened, he recognised the gunman.

Exaltation filled him, and without hesitation, he raised the S&W and pulled the trigger. It was a shot taken by instinct, without thought or deliberate aim, and the 9mm bullet took the man in the belly.

"Hello, Raoul," Max said, stepping out of his tree-shadow as he folded over the wound. The hit-man wavered on his feet, but brought his own gun up and fired. Something laid a lash of fire across Max's forearm, passing between his arm and body. He took no notice of it, all his attention on his quarry. "That was for Sophia," he said. "So is this one." Closer now, he put the next shot a little higher, just under the killer's ribs. "You don't look too happy, Raoul. It looks like you can't take what you hand out." Raoul was on the ground now, writhing and bleeding, mouth stretched in a grimace of agony. "I've got two more for you," Max said conversationally, "but don't worry, I won't give you a head-shot." He squeezed the trigger again, and Raoul began to howl. Blood welled from the new wound low in his belly, and Max stepped close for his fourth and last shot. He didn't want to miss this one He took careful aim and fired, and Raoul screamed as the bullet tore into his genitals.

Sophia's killer didn't stop screaming until he died. It took him four, maybe five minutes, and Max cradled his injured arm and watched him for every second of it. Then he went looking for his vampire.

And found him just as the shotgun boomed.

Max shoved his gun into his waistband and sprinted towards the fallen man, his wordless yell of denial echoing back from the walls. His own pain forgotten, he crouched at Aaron's side and reached out for him, appalled by the gaping wound the shotgun had torn in his chest.

"No!" Aaron croaked, and shoved at him so hard Max was sent flying backwards. He started to rise, but Aquilar ran past him and pushed him down again.

"No," the detective panted. "You're hurt as well. His blood in that hole in your arm could infect you - stay there."

"Infect?" Max gasped. "But - you mean - " Aquilar wasn't listening.

"Aaron? Come on, damn you, stay with me!" He took off his shirt and wadded it into the wound. "Fuck it, you shouldn't be bleeding like this! You should be healing!"

"Silver ... " Aaron's voice was so faint Max barely heard him.

"Oh, shit," Aquilar groaned. "Hold on, Aaron. I'm going to send a car to Renaissance. There'll be someone there who'll know what to do for you." He left at a run, and Max edged closer. Aaron's eyes were closed, and his breathing was a harsh bubbling sound in the night. He was drowning in his own blood.

Max didn't think it through. The decision he made was reached on the levels of gut instinct and impulse; he sat down beside the vampire and lifted him into his arms, making very sure that the wound on his forearm was hard against the blood-drenched fabric of Aquilar's shirt. "You're going to be okay," he said. "Rico's gone for help. Raoul is dead. I shot him," he added with immense satisfaction. "Four times in the gut. He bled to death, screaming."

There was no reply, of course, but he hadn't expected one. Yet Aaron's breathing seemed a little easier since he'd moved him, so he settled the heavy body more comfortably in his embrace and rested his cheek on the man's hair. It was sticky and matted with blood, and the smell of it made Max feel sick. So much blood, a steady flow that trickled over his arm and burned in his own wound more fiercely than Raoul's bullet. How much could a vampire lose before - or was it the silver lodged in his body that was slowly and surely killing him? "You can't die," he whispered, tightening his hold. "You can't." The words choked in his throat, and he closed his eyes, all his concentration given to Aaron, sharing the battle for each indrawn breath.

Time was relative, measured by a faltering heart and the labouring of a single lung. "You can't die." It was a mantra spoken over and over again, a plea that begged for more than the simple words: Don't leave me, I need you. I need you to need me ... "Aaron, that question - ask me again? Please! For God's sake - " Max felt Aaron struggling to draw in another breath, shuddering with the effort, and let it out in a ragged sigh, then thought he heard - He strained his ears, listening.

"Who ... takes ... care ... of ... "

"You do?" he whispered shakily, and cursed himself for the uncertainty in his voice. "Aaron - ?"

* * *

An age of the world later, a hand closed on Max's shoulder, the dry more-than-human heat of it no real surprise. "We will tend him now," the vampire said. "We'll take him to Renaissance. Come with us, if you wish."

"He can't, Doc," Aquilar said from behind them. "Not yet. He has a murderer to identify and a statement to make."

Max didn't argue. Two vampires bent over him and lifted Aaron from his arms, leaving him cold and bereft in the night.

"You're a piece of dumb shit," Aquilar said, crouching at his side. He took hold of Max's wrist and lifted it. The deep gouge showed black in the moonlight, no longer bleeding and crusted over. "I warned you. Only about twenty per cent of us are immune to the vampire infection, and I'm one of 'em. What are the odds against you, Lapeña?"

"He was dying," Max said tonelessly. "Couldn't breathe through the blood. He saved my life - protected me. So I owed him, didn't I? So do you." A fire-storm of anger hit him and he came to his feet, staggering as numbed limbs were forced to support him. "So do you, you fucking asshole!" He lunged for Aquilar, fists flying, and got in one good strike on the man's mouth before someone came from behind and pinned his arms to his sides. "He took that blast for you! Your head would have been blown off if he hadn't put himself between you and that shotgun! I hope to God you're worth it!" Aquilar gave him a strange stare, frowning.

"Let him go," he said quietly, and Max was released. "You're going to the hospital, Señor Lapeña. You'll need to have that bullet-hole cleaned and dressed, and your condition monitored for the infection."

The anger burned out as quickly as it had come. "No," he said. "I'm going to Renaissance."

The detective shook his head and made a brief hand-signal. Immediately, a handcuff snicked onto Max's uninjured arm. "Not yet," Aquilar said, taking the empty cuff and fastening it to his own thick wrist. Then he relieved Max of his gun. "You can ID your Raoul for us, and anyone else you recognise, and then you go to the hospital for needlework. After that, depending on what the doctors say, I'll get you to Renaissance if you still want to go. In the meantime, I'll keep you up to date on Aaron's condition. He should be okay, once they get the silver out of him. Vampires are very hard to kill. Unless you know how," he added pointedly, "and every cop in this part of Cataluña knows how, Señor Lapeña, just in case you're thinking the mutation will help you break the law, if you happen to catch it."

"Fuck you!" Max spat at his feet. "You don't know me or anything about me! Don't you judge me, asshole! You want Sophia's killer, you can have him. Come on." He walked away, jerking on the cuff that anchored him to Aquilar. His damaged arm felt as if it was on fire. Tendrils of fever-heat were snaking from fingertips to shoulder, but he pushed it all away. "This is him," he said, stopping at the body. "He came running at me, shooting. So I shot him."

Aquilar stood a scant inch away from the pool of blood on the paving slabs. "You sure of the ID?"

"I'm sure. One hundred percent," Max said quietly. He was exhausted and giddy and vaguely nauseous, and didn't give a damn whether the detective believed him or not. "This is the man who killed Sophia Matas."

"Fine. But now he can't tell us who hired him."

Max shrugged. "You've got prisoners, haven't you? Including your bent cop? One of them will talk, sooner or later."

"I hope so, or you've let him get away clean."

"You'll find him. Or Aaron will. He doesn't give up on a trail. If he lives ... "

"He will. Okay, now where is the jewellery you stole?"

"Most of it's in my backpack in my car. It's the other side of the wall behind the pool. The rest is somewhere else, waiting for me to redeem it. I needed to buy the car to get back here."

"And the gun?" Aquilar drawled.

"Of course the gun," Max snapped. "Do you think I was going to walk in on a potential fire-fight without a weapon?"

"Why walk in on it at all?" the detective countered. "If Aaron left you in a safe place, why leave it?"

Max raised his eyes from the corpse and met Aquilar's gaze, and didn't have the energy to lie outright. "You saw Sophia's body," he said simply.

Aquilar nodded. "I didn't hear you say that," he said. "Take my advice, Señor Lapeña, and don't repeat it. Now, we have a collection of bad guys back there, in various stages of repair. Come and look them over."

* * *

One of the dead men and two injured prisoners had looked familiar to Max; he was fairly sure they had chased him through El Raval the night Aaron had found him. But he knew no names to pass on. Aquilar hadn't pressed him. Instead he'd put a field dressing on Max's arm and driven him to the Santa Maria Hospital in the southern outskirts of Barcelona.

It was a modern complex, built some ten years previously, and in a gleaming white and chrome isolation ward, Max discovered the hard way that they had a small research team dedicated to the vampiric mutation. And that he was their first potential victim.

Not that he gave it much thought. Fever escalated through him, a dry burning that drained his energy and ached in every joint. Muscle cramps struck without warning, the lights were too bright, sounds were too loud and his head felt as if someone had sunk an axe into it, splitting his skull in half. Unconsciousness, when it finally came, was a welcome relief.

* * *

Max came to gradually, grateful for the subdued light that seeped through his eyelids. He opened his eyes on a pale ceiling and discovered he was hooked up to monitors and on a drip of some kind, his uninjured arm strapped immobile in case he pulled the needle out when the spasms hit. A doctor was at his bedside, injecting fluid into the tube. She was a handsome woman with improbably red hair and a warm smile.

"You're lucky," she said, touching her fingers to the pulse in his throat. "How are you feeling?"

Max gave it some thought. "Disconnected," he said. "Lucky? As in I haven't got it?"

Her smile wavered. "Uh, no. As in the blood to blood infection is a gentler, slower mutation than ingesting it. I'm afraid you are showing the early stages of transition, but ... "

He closed his eyes and tuned her out. This was what he wanted, wasn't it? Never to grow old, never to have his body fail him, never to be ugly, weak - never to be away from Aaron Grey's side. Except Aaron Grey wasn't there.

" - Renaissance," the doctor said brightly. "He is our liaison with the community there and he's helped us tremendously in our research."

"Who?" he demanded.

"Doctor Cortes. He will give you all the help and support you need over the coming weeks and months."

"Oh." Weeks. Months. "How long have I been here?"

"Only thirty-six hours. Please try not to worry. We're fairly sure you're over the worst now, and we are doing all we can to make you comfortable. We ... "

Max tuned her out again. He didn't want to be comfortable. He wanted his vampire. Who wasn't there. Who maybe would never be there because he was dead. Or because he was no longer interested. Right then, Max didn't know which was worse.

"That blood substitute," Max said abruptly, cutting in on her little speech of encouragement. "How soon before I have to take it?"

"You're already receiving it, in small doses through the intravenous drip," she answered. "According to Doctor Cortes, it will be some months before your system won't be able to handle an omnivorous diet."

"That long? I thought it would be faster."

"If you had ingested the infected blood, yes. The mutation is apparently greatly accelerated by the action of the digestive enzymes, and the side-effects are correspondingly more traumatic."

"The traditional way," Max whispered, remembering Aaron's words.

"Well, yes. But - "

"I want out of here," he interrupted. "Now."

"I'm sorry, but that wouldn't be wise."

"Am I a prisoner?"

"No, of course not! But - "

"If you're scared I'll go on a blood-drinking rampage, give me a supply of that gunk and I'll dose myself. But I am leaving." He reached across and eased the needle out of his flesh, then peeled off the contacts stuck on his forehead and chest. "Where are my clothes? My backpack?"

"Señor Lapeña," she said sternly. "It is in your own best interests to stay here where we can help you. Señor Aquilar said you might be difficult, and he told me to tell you that Aaron Grey is well."

A message from the fucking cop, but not from the fucking vampire. "My clothes," he repeated, not letting the wrenching hurt show in his face or voice. "My backpack."

"Very well. I'll call him to come and collect you."

"Fine. In the meantime, unstrap me and let me get dressed."

"As you wish, Señor, but you should reconsider. There is so much about the transition and its stages that we know only by theory and what Doctor Cortes has explained. The temperature swings have eased, but it will be some days before they level off. You will need our help."

What Max needed was to get away, go to ground somewhere and rebuild the walls around the emptiness in his gut. "If I do, I'll come back," he said coldly. "Maybe."

The doctor sighed and nodded. "I'll send someone with your belongings," she said.

* * *

The someone she sent was Aquilar. Max glared at the detective as he came into the room. "What the fuck do you want?" he snapped.

"And here's me thinking I'm doing you a favour." There was a sardonic smile under the heavy black moustache, and Max hated him for it. "I thought you'd want a lift to Renaissance," he added, dropping the backpack on the bed.

"You thought wrong." He took out clean jeans and t-shirt, and shed the hospital gown. "Did you find out who hired Menendes and why?"

"Oh, yes. Feijoo and a couple of others have plea-bargained and they're singing like the proverbial choir. Her husband has given us some interesting stuff as well," he went on cheerfully. "We're talking a Police chief and a couple of judges here; they wanted to derail Rodriguez without making a political martyr out of him."

"Surprise." Max grunted.

"They contracted Menendes to get close to her and find out who else she'd been screwing," Aquilar went on. "They were going to smear her and her lovers all over the tabloids, turn him into a laughing-stock if he didn't back off on his Clean Up The Law platform and retire from politics. He thought they were bluffing and called it, so they killed her. I've just finished up with him, and Aaron's taking Feijoo's statement right now. You know, I love to watch that man work. I swear he can put the fear of God and Satan into a crook with just a lift of his eyebrow."

"Well, he is a fucking vampire," Max snarled. "What do you expect?" He pulled on the jeans and tugged the t-shirt over his head, straightening it with a vicious jerk.

"How's the arm?"

"Sore," he said bitterly.

"Ah-huh. So where do you want to go, if not Renaissance? We can always go and get back the rest of Rodriguez's jewellery."

"Sure. Have you got twenty thousand ees on you?"

"No," Aquilar said cautiously. "That's what it'll take?"

"That's what the man said. Go get it, and you can ferry me there. Or Rodriguez can. Your choice."

"Okay," the detective agreed. "You got a deal. I'll be back in half an hour at the most."

"I'll be here," Max said, and left the hospital five minutes after Aquilar.

* * *

'Go to the last place anyone would expect,' instinct told him, so Max did just that: his old home, the small castle on the edge of the valley where Lola had died, and her uncle - and that sad old queen, César. Julia Daro hadn't put it up for sale, nor was she living there. Maybe there were too many ghosts for her to do either, Max reflected in a rare flash of empathy. But there were no ghosts there for him, just an all too familiar solitude as he wandered through rooms as empty as failed hopes and aborted plans.

Retreat and regroup. Again.

Alone. Again. Far better that way. Can't trust anyone except yourself: a lesson he'd learned the hard way many years ago as a child in the Chinese Quarter. An ungainly, awkward child with impossible dreams, never content with the hand-to-mouth existence he'd been born to. The odd one out, the loner.

Now - he turned to confront his blurred reflection in a dusty window - no longer ungainly, no longer awkward, his body was that of an athlete and the difficult bones of his features had settled into a striking masculinity that was beyond mere prettiness.

His ladies saw that face - the pride, the self-confidence of the male animal. Then another thought slid into his mind. What did Aaron Grey see? The collared hound? The bridled stallion? Memory supplied the illustration caught in another mirror; his own eyes half-closed, lips swollen and parted, drowning in the pleasure of unconditional surrender.

Slowly he raised his hand and touched his fingertips to the reflected mouth. The glass was cold, and if he focused beyond his image, the night-wrapped gardens slowly grew from phantoms to reality before his eyes.

Aaron Grey. Would he follow? And did he, Max, want him to? An ache grew in Max's chest, a hollowness like nothing he'd felt before. He leaned his forehead against the glass, welcoming the chill touch on his overheated skin. "I'm tired, I want to rest," he whispered to himself, to that other Max, speaking aloud the deepest secret of his heart. "I just want him - someone...I want to be safe ... "

"I know." It was a quiet voice, deep and still as shadows in a well, and Max felt a tension he hadn't known was there drain from his muscles. He let out his breath in a shuddering sigh and turned round. Aaron stood in the doorway, beyond the window's mirrored reach. He wore dark tailored pants and a v-necked sweater, and the sight of him filled Max's vision.

"Did your cop tell you?" he said. "I'm infected."

"He told me. He also said he thought it was deliberate. Was it?"

"Yes," Max admitted.

"Why?"

Max shrugged and looked away, not wanting to admit his need. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he said huskily.

"Does it still?"

"That depends."

"Look at me," Aaron ordered, and he met the vampire's steady gaze. "I have something for you." He took something out of his pocket and held it up; it was a heavy curb necklace, and the gold of it caught what little light there was, gleaming with its own special lustre in the dimness.

Anger and hurt soured in the back of his throat. "Keep it for the next sucker," he snapped. "I don't want your gifts."

Aaron smiled. "It isn't a gift," he said quietly.

Frowning, Max took another look at the necklace. The clasp looked odd. Then he recognised what it was; a small padlock, no wider than a centimetre, had been put in place of the usual ring-bolt. It was not so much a necklace as a collar. His heart lurched in his chest and he felt it difficult to breathe.

"Come here," Aaron commanded.

All uncertainty was banished. Without hesitation Max walked to him, and slid his arms about the vampire's waist. He dropped his head to the broad shoulder but didn't press closer. He wanted to, needed to, but it was like embracing a statue. There was a fine golden chain around Aaron's neck, he realised, and suddenly knew that a tiny key of precious metal would be threaded on it. "I'm sorry," he whispered, not altogether sure what he was apologising for. "Please ... "

Time stretched out and Max held his breath until his lungs ached. Finally Aaron looped the collar around his throat and fastened the little padlock. Then his left hand settled firm on Max's hip, right hand cupping his skull. Proprietorial.

"You are mine, Maximo Lapeña." The statement of fact, spoken without heat, but with every gram of the vampire's will behind it, sank into Max's body and soul with the inevitability of Holy Writ. "You belong to me, now and for as long as we both shall live. Never doubt it, never doubt me. And if you run from me again, I will make you bleed. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Max sighed, pleasure surging through him. The hand on his hip stroked round and down over the curve of his buttock and he was compelled closer. He leaned in, feeling the hard strength of the vampire along the length of his body, and he revelled in it. Not alone, never again; cared for, sheltered - home ... "I belong to you."

*****

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