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"Tess." Dante's deep voice startled her with its nearness. He was right behind her, close enough to touch her, even though she hadn't heard him approach.
With a cry, she ducked out of his reach and made another mad dash down one of the corridor's twisting lengths. There was an open, arched entryway up ahead of her. Maybe she could hide in the chamber, she thought, desperation making her grasp for any means of escaping the nightmare that was pursuing her now. She slipped inside the dim space--a cathedral of some sort, with carved stone walls lit only by a single red pillar candle that glowed near an unadorned altar.
There was nowhere to conceal herself in the small sanctuary, only twin rows of benches and the stone pedestal at the front of the room. On the other side was another arched doorway, opening into more darkness; it was impossible for her to discern where it might lead. It didn't matter, anyway. Dante was standing in the open doorway off the corridor, his muscular body never looking more imposing than it did as he stepped into the small cathedral and began a slow prowl toward her.
"Tess, we don't have to do this. Let's talk." His powerful stride faltered for a second, and he scowled, bringing his hand up to his temple as if he were in pain. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped a full octave in pitch, coming out of him in a dark snarl. "Christ, can we just... Let's be reasonable, try to work this out."
Tess backed up, inching closer to the far wall of the chamber and the arched hollow carved into the stone.
"Damn it, Tess. Hear me out. I love you."
"Don't say that. Haven't you told me enough lies already?"
"It's no lie. I wish it was, but--"
Dante took another step, and his knee suddenly gave out beneath him. He hissed as he caught himself on one of the low benches, his fingers digging into the wood so hard, Tess thought it a wonder he didn't crush it.
Something strange was happening to his features. Even with his head dropped down, she could see that his face was growing sharper, his cheeks seeming leaner, more angular, his golden skin stretched tight over the bones. He spat a curse, something she didn't recognize any more than she did the gravelly roughness of his voice.
"Tess... you have to trust me."
She moved closer to the archway, leading with her hand as she sidled along the wall. And then she was standing in front of the opening, nothing but pitch blackness behind her and a thin, chill breeze at her back. She turned her head to glance into the dark--
"Tess."
Dante must have sensed her movement, because when she looked back at him, he lifted his head and met her gaze. The warm color of his eyes had changed to a fierce glow, his pupils narrowing down to bare slits as she watched his transformation in stunned horror.
"Don't go," he rasped thickly, his words tangling on the lengthening sharpness of a spectacular set of fangs. "I won't hurt you."
"It's too late, Dante. You already have," she whispered, moving farther away from him, stepping back into the arched doorway. In the darkness, she saw that a flight of stone steps climbed steeply upward, toward the source of the cool air that drifted down around her. Wherever they led, she had to go. She put her foot on the first step--
"Tess!"
She didn't look back at him. She knew she couldn't or she might not find the courage to leave him. She climbed the first few steps tentatively, then began running, taking the flight as quickly as she could.
Down below, Dante's anguished roar echoed off the stone walls of the cathedral and the darkened stairwell, straight into the marrow of her bones. Tess didn't stop. She ran faster up what seemed like hundreds of steps, until she reached a solid steel door at the top. She slapped her palms against it and pushed it open.
Blinding daylight poured over her. A cool November breeze sent dried leaves spiraling up from the grass outside. Tess let the door close behind her with a bang. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and took off, running into the crisp, bright morning.
Dante thrashed on the floor, caught in the grip of his persistent, debilitating nightmare. The death vision had come on suddenly, intensifying as he and Tess argued.
It only worsened now that she was gone. Dante heard the topside door slam closed above and knew from the brief flash of daylight that shot down the long stairwell that even if he was able to break away from the invisible chains that held him, the sun's brutal rays would prohibit him from going after her.
He sank deeper into the abyss of his premonition, where vines of thick black smoke curled around his limbs and throat, choking off precious air. The shattered remains of a smoke alarm hung from the ceiling by its mangled wire guts, silent as the smoke collected around it.
From elsewhere came the angry crash of objects falling, as if fixtures and furniture were being overturned and thrown to the floor by a marauding army. All around him in the small white cell that held him, Dante saw upended cabinet drawers and files, their contents spilled everywhere, rifled through in haste.
In the vision, he was moving now, stepping through the debris and making his way to the closed door on the other side of the room. Oh, Jesus. He knew this place, he realized now.
He was in Tess's clinic.
But where was she?
Dante registered that he ached everywhere, his body feeling battered and tired, each step sluggish. Before he could reach the door and try to get out, it opened from the other side. A familiar face leered at him through the smoke.
"Look who's up and about," Ben Sullivan said, coming inside and holding a length of telephone cord in his hands. "Death by fire is such a nasty way to go. Of course, if you breathe in enough smoke, the flames will be just an afterthought."
Dante knew he shouldn't be afraid, but terror clawed at him as his would-be executioner entered the room and took hold of him in a surprisingly strong grasp. Dante tried to fight, but his limbs didn't seem his own to command. His struggles only slowed Sullivan down. Then the human cocked his arm back and nailed Dante with a blow to the jaw.
