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back quickly enough but Mannus’s claws were already raking down his other arm, taking all the strength from it. Austin screamed but held his knife; there was something in his eyes, a fury that she had never seen before and it kept him standing.
    Rebecca was trying to make sense of what she was seeing in this memory; she didn’t understand. Austin should have died that night. His fighting arm was wounded and if he tried to switch hands then Mannus would be on him. He didn’t have a chance anymore. She could hear the other hunters fighting, but they were still far enough off that they couldn’t help him in time. How had he survived the fight to drive Mannus off?
    The sound of metal tearing snapped all their attention back to her father. Her father still had his mouth on the thrall’s neck as he stood up. Grabbing Austin’s knife from the thrall’s shoulder with one hand and tossing the thrall aside with the other, her father lunged at Mannus. He moved with all the blinding speed of any vampire and slashed the knife down Mannus’s chest. Mannus roared as a small amount of smoke started to rise from her father’s knife hand and he struck again. This time Mannus dodged the blow, but now the vampire was outnumbered, and Austin stuck from behind, driving his knife into Mannus’s shoulder. Blood poured out of his chest wound and Mannus slashed at both of them with his claws. Turning around and running through the room, he jumped through the window and escaped into the night.
    Rebecca could feel the vision begin to end as Mannus regained control of his mind in the present world, but Rebecca steeled her concentration and remained in the memory vision. Nothing had happened like she expected. She needed to know how it ended.
    She moved closer to Austin and her father. The smoke was rising more rapidly off his hand now and was clearly burnt. He handed the blade to Austin.
    “Here, finish me off, before it’s too late,” he said.
    “I … I can’t. Another hunter can do it. Rebecca would never forgive me,” said Austin.
    Rebecca moved around to stand in front of her father.
    “You don’t understand, that thrall was my first kill. Mannus killed the other one. I can feel the beast devouring my soul. You have to finish me now while I still have a chance.”
    Rebecca looked to see her father’s face more clearly and it was his eyes that broke her heart. Human eyes that were rapidly turning into the cold, killer eyes of a vampire. His soul was being eaten in front of her. She turned her head to see Austin look at her father in horror. Shaking his head in refusal.
    She saw her father begin to cry his last tears, the light of his soul almost gone from his eyes and she knew what she would have done. She looked at the vision of Austin.
    “Pleeeassseee,” she said.
     
     
    Mannus had reasserted himself in the present and the vision began to fade as she saw Austin drive the knife through her father’s heart then fall to his knees in tears over his body.
    The vision had lasted only a heartbeat in real time and her blood was still spilling out into Mannus’s mouth. She had no strength to fight back any longer. Her shock was too deep. The vampire finished the turning and then hit her across the face.
    “Never invade my mind again.”
    He turned away and headed up the stairs.
    Rebecca sat alone again. Everything she had believed was wrong. Austin killed her father out of love and hope that he could still reach heaven. She hadn’t listened, didn’t even give him a chance to explain. Now it was too late for them and any life they might have had together. She would become a vampire and he was going to die. He was coming to save her in a hopeless rescue mission and when he was captured he was to be her first kill to complete the turning. They’d be listening to her upstairs, but she didn’t care as tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks.

Chapter 5
    He made it by dusk and Austin parked the beaten up Ford Escape that he was