She sat on the bed for a long time thinking. She was about to unload her past, secrets she had never shared. Perhaps this was for the best. She could finally confront it, and, with a little help, she might even be able to mend the scars that ran too deep to be seen. There was a soft knock on the door, then it swung open.

"Lestat..." Her voice wavered and the rest of the sentence died on her lips.

"Cat's returned. I thought you might want to know."

"Could you..."

"Fill her in? Of course." He departed without a sound, leaving her alone with her past.

========

"Daniel! My patience is wearing thin. Where is Selena?"

"She's just not available right now, Cat. I'm sure..."

"I'll take over here, Daniel. Selena sent me to talk to you. Now if you'll just shut up for a moment, I can explain!"

"Look, Lestat. I want to talk to Selena. Something's wrong. The whole atmosphere of this house has changed and I want to know why."

Lestat grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her down into one of the chairs. "Selena's fine, I promise. And I think you'll understand everything once you let me show you what happened." Events of the past two evenings tumbled through Cat's brain. She saw what had befallen Louis, Selena's own fight with Lestat, and learned all that had come out as a result.

"Oh, my. I never imagined....well, okay maybe there were a few clues, but this!" She almost laughed. "I'm sorry. It's really not funny, but when Selena dose something, she really goes all-out!"

"She's going to tell us the rest tonight. In fact, I should go get our little lady-of-the-hour now. It's almost showtime."

"Oh, goody, story-time. I can hardly wait."

"Come now, is that any way to speak of a friend?"

"This is Selena we're talking about."

"Too true." He smirked.

=====

Everyone was gathered in the living room and as Cat glanced around, she realized what an outsider she really was. Before, it had been her and Selena, 'friends of the family' as it were. Except that this *was* Selena's family, and Cat was now alone.

"Never." Selena said, coming to sit next to her. "You couldn't be more a part of this family if you were my own fledgling. Now then," she said, addressing the group in front of her "shall we 'get down to business?'" Daniel snickered from his seat on the couch, but a menacing glare from Lestat silenced him. "I have to say, I'm a little at a loss as to where to begin. There so much....it may help if I just show you." She and Lestat had agreed earlier that he would forward any images she sent to Marius. She closed her eyes and let the memories wash over her.

She was in a dark place, a cavern. The Roman coven. Dirty faces loomed over her asking her questions. She was confused. Why was she here? Who were these beings so like herself? They kept asking the questions over and over. Did she know that she was a child of Satan? That she must always do His bidding? She nodded. If they told her it was true, it must be. Did she promise to always serve Satan as he was meant to be served? To shun the places of light? To always return to sleep in the grave? Yes, she did. They told her that she must forget her master, that he was damned even amongst the fallen. He would burn forever for living amongst mortals, for defying the Dark Ways and the Dark Rites. She spent her nights swept up in the chaos of the Sabbat, and, unlike Armand, she has believed. The lesson had been pounded into her by the Coven Master of the time, Demetrius. In the beginning, she had wanted nothing but to forget all that had happened to her. All she wished was to close her eyes and imagine she was still on the island, watching the moon rise over the Mediterranean waters. Demetrius would find her daydreaming, would beat her, cut her. Even now, she wanted to close it all away, to forget. But she went on, letting them all see her as she has been then, dirty, weak and confused, and above all, frightened. All the while Demetrius would yell at her, shouting that such fancies were not for the 'chosen of Satan'. But the blows, that early pain, were nothing compared to what came later. There was one rule that she could never manage to abide by, no matter how she tried. They were not allowed to sing. The shrieks and chants of the Sabbat, those were allowed, yes. But nothing more. Demetrius would not even allow her to hum quietly to herself. The punishment was severe when he caught her, and sometimes he would do it without any provocation at all. His favorite thing to do was to slit her throat and laugh as she gasped for air, blood gushing and bubbling out of the wound. He never let her feed enough, so that, half starved, it would take a week or more for the cut to heel. Once, he caught her sketching in the dirt, and crushed her hands. His cruelness was saved almost exclusively for her. He was punishing her for the brief time she had spent outside the coven, she knew that now. But then she had known nothing. She stared at him, sometimes, at his disheveled brown hair, at his hard gray eyes that seemed to spark like live wires. She let all of it consume her again. Reliving every torment, from mere slaps in the face to being chained in the wall, a living skeleton barely clinging to the last shreds of her sanity. In time the memories of her past life, her past lord, faded. There was only the coven, and the serving of Satan, and that was all there has ever been. She had learned her lessons from Demetrius well. She became the most skilled at all the Rites and Ceremonies, all of the Dark Ways. She could have led the coven herself, but for Demetrius. *He* was her lord as surly as Satan was. Selena relaxed for a moment, gathering the strength to continue. The others were studying her, looking at her face and hands in undisclosed horror. She knew what they were seeing, the faint scars that barely stood out now that they knew what to look for. The map of every torture that had been visited upon her, now faded with time. Even Armand seemed surprised by the brutality of what she had described, and she took it to mean that the Coven had not been the same when he had been there some four hundred years later. It didn't surprise her at all. By then, she and Demetrius had left. They had continued to reign, moving from coven to coven, punishing those who had fallen lax in their beliefs. They moved onward into Russia where they built up a coven of their own. They became legends as others were, the fear with which they held their coven in sway told of in whispers. They lost contact with the other covens as time went on. Even to Selena the Dark Ways began to lose their meaning. Then, as the world changed, as beliefs changed, they lost their power. In a final fit of anger, Demetrius drove every last one of their followers into the flames. Selena saw Armand wince, remembering his similar act of desperation. That had been the last straw for Selena. In truth, Demetrius hadn't ruled the coven in a long time. He had become so obsessed and diluted with his quest for power that she has run everything behind the scenes. She was physically more powerful than Demetrius, and he could do nothing when she left, and emerged into the world of 18th century Europe. Hopelessly adrift in this new age, she wandered, trying to find a way to anchor herself. She had seen the Th��ter des Vampires in Paris, had read the writings of a young vampire named Lestat (of whom all the vampires in Europe were talking) searching for the legend, Marius. Marius. the name had been vaguely familiar to her then, but it had taken her nearly a century to link it to the hazy memory of the one who had made her. The recollection of those lost time had come, finally, in the form of dreams that plagued her death-like sleep. Dreams she could scaresly recall upon waking. No matter how frustrating they were, though, she preferred them to the nightmares of the cruelty Demetrius had inflicted on her, no matter how hard she tried to forget. They had confused her for a long time, and to put it frankly, she didn't really *want* to remember. It was in Italy, the place where her nightmare-ish life had truly begun, and almost immediately after her reemergence, that she met up with Dorean. He was a lovely thing, with his light brown hair and ever-changing hazel eyes. He had been brought into darkness in the Roman coven a short time after she had been placed there. He was gentle and soft-spoken, and had comforted her and helped her through Demetrius' cruelty. She had hurt him terribly when she had departed. Some of that old sadness was still there, but he tried to help her through her confusion. It hadn't been enough, so they parted ways once again. She made her way full circle back to Russia. It was there she first saw Cat. It was her sheer hight that had first attracted Selena's attention. She had never seen a woman so tall. It fascinated her. And Cat was very beautiful, as well. She wanted this one, wanted to take her out of the filth she lived in and into the bright new, enlightened age. "The rest of this, at least for a time is Cat's story to tell. I think that she should be allowed to speak."

"Of course. Cat, if you please?"

"All right. Where to begin. I suppose I should start with the first time I ever saw Selena. At the time, I was living on a farm in Russia, as Selena said. There was myself, my two brothers, and my father all in a tiny house that barely kept out the weather. I was called Eskaterina then, Katya by my father. I think he would have liked to let me go, to let me live my own life, but there was too much to do on the farm. Needless to say the life was a hard one, but very dull. Every day was the same, every night I went to bed exhausted, that is , until one night in late spring..."

End Part IV