“You know, you never answered my question, Chastain.” “And what question was that, de León?” “When your dark mother and pale mistress set you this task … did you think she was locking me in here with you, or you in here with me?” Gabriel’s fist closed about the vampire’s wrist, silver-swift. And with a speed belied by the four bottles he’d downed, he seized hold of Jean-François’s throat. The vampire’s eyes widened, and he opened his lips to shout, but that shout became a scream as the marble of his flesh began to blacken, and the blood within his veins to boil.
