“Vic, run!” Balthazar said, pulling Lucas off Ranulf. Vic took a couple of shuffiing steps, then finally accepted what was going on and ran like crazy toward his front door. Lucas elbowed Balthazar sharply, but Balthazar was able, with difficulty, to maintain his grip. He said to Ranulf, “Get him into the wine cellar. Keep him there until we can get him some blood. After I move the car, I’ll come help you.”

“Lucas?” I pleaded. “Lucas, can you hear me?”

It was like I didn’t exist. Lucas only wanted blood, and he didn’t care if he had to kill Vic to do it.

Ranulf dragged Lucas backward, struggling with him the whole way. All I could do was open the wine cellar door for them. In the distance, sirens blared, coming closer.

“Let me go!” Lucas raged, clawing Ranulf viciously in the side. Ranulf grimaced but held on. “Let me go!”

“You have to calm down,” I said. “Please, Lucas, get ahold of yourself.”

“He cannot hear you.” Ranulf managed to say as he wrestled Lucas toward a corner. “I remember the madness.”

Lucas roared, a terrifyingly animal sound. Every muscle of his body was flexed in his desperate need to escape, to kill and drink blood. Ranulf could hold him off, because of his great age and power, but after that battle, Ranulf’s strength had to be taxed to the limit. Seeing Lucas like this, reduced to an insane shell of himself, here in the little makeshift apartment where we had loved each other so much, nearly destroyed me.

The sirens got louder. Lucas roared again and smashed Ranulf backward against the wall with such force that the wine bottles rattled and Ranulf lost his grip. He leaped toward the door, and I started after him — but Balthazar came through.

Thank God, I thought. Balthazar can stop him, I know he can!

But then I cried out in horror as Balthazar brandished a stake and swung it, hard, so that it slammed deep into Lucas’s chest.