Prince of Twilight by MAGGIE SHAYNE

intrigued, while Lupe seemed puzzled and troubled.
    â€œSo the ring has the power to bring someone back from the dead?” Lupe asked.
    â€œNot the body,” Melina told her. “Only the soul.”
    â€œCreating what? A ghost?” Lupe asked.
    Stormy set her cup down. “It’s a soul-transferal. The dead spirit comes into the body of a living person. It…takes over.” She got a chill when she said it. “Correct?”
    Melina nodded. “That’s my best interpretation, yes.”
    â€œAnd by spiritual descendant…some sort of reincarnation?” Stormy asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.
    â€œBut wouldn’t a reincarnation already be the dead woman’s soul?” Lupe asked.
    Stormy shook her head. “Not necessarily. Some theorize that when we die, our soul returns to meld with a greater one. A higher self. All the experiences are shared, and the higher self spins a new soul from its parts. That’s the reincarnation. It’s part of the whole, but not the same whole that lived before. A new individual.”
    Lupe nodded, as if that made sense to her. Stormywondered how, when it had taken her sixteen years to wrap her mind around the notion. It had been explained to her by the hypnotist she’d seen in Salem, and she hadn’t believed it at first. Hadn’t wanted to believe that the enemy lurking within her was her spiritual ancestor. A part of her.
    Now she had a whole new nightmare to wrap her mind around. Elisabeta was Vlad’s bride. His wife. His dead wife, and she was already hiding in Stormy’s body, waiting for the chance to take over. And the ring he had in all likelihood stolen last night could bring her back to raging life in Stormy’s own body. It could give her full control.
    â€œSo the question is,” she asked slowly, “what happens to the living person? The rightful owner of that body? Does she just get…booted out when Elisabeta takes over?”
    Melina licked her lips. “How did you know her name was Elisabeta?”
    Stormy’s eyes flicked to hers quickly, then just as quickly away. “Come on. You said you’ve been observing my company for years. You must know vampires are an area of expertise for me.”
    Melina nodded but kept looking at Stormy for a beat too long. Then she sighed. “I don’t know what would happen to the rightful owner of the body. Butthe rite spoken of in this journal could very well be a recipe for metaphysical murder.”
    â€œNot necessarily, though,” Brooke said. “Some people, myself included, believe that two souls could conceivably co-exist within the same body, providing both agreed to it.”
    â€œIt would be like having a split personality,” Stormy said softly. “Constant conflict, fighting for control.” She was speaking, of course, from personal experience. “It could never be over until one of them died.”
    â€œI disagree,” Brooke said. “They could share. Perhaps even…meld, given time. Melina, does the rite say the person the soul resides in has to be a spiritual descendant?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s obscene,” Lupe said softly. “A slap in the face of the supernatural order, no matter how it works.”
    â€œExactly,” Melina said. “A lifetime ends when its time is over. That’s the way things are supposed to be. You cannot interfere with that and think there won’t be serious repercussions. And now…” She closed her eyes. “Someone has the ring.”
    â€œBut what about the rite?” Stormy asked. “Is the actual rite given in the journal?”
    â€œNo,” Melina said softly. And as she said it, her eyes met Brooke’s very briefly, then slid away again.“We don’t even know if the rite exists anymore. It could easily have disintegrated, as so many pages in this journal have