Serapha’s eyes widened in realization and she began to retreat from the white patch. Suddenly there was a sound, a whispering, moaning, hissing sound, and the whole length of the ravine floor heaved under the snow. The snow patch was almost fifty feet long, and every inch of it was in motion. Aidan started in horrified, helpless fascination as the fringed head of an enormous ice worm rose above the snow. It went up, and up, and up, and even as Aidan screamed “Run Serapha!” it came down again. Serapha spread her wings, trying futilely to get in the air, seeing she couldn’t possibly outrun the thing, but it was already too late. The fanged jaws closed around her, the worm actually large enough to lift her off her feet. It caught her around the waist, pinning one wing, teeth digging into abdomen and back, and Serapha screamed with the pain.

Aidan was screaming too, yelling and cursing the creature as he drew his long daggers and rushed forward. It saw, and with an animal cunning recognized the danger of an armed foe. It dropped Serapha to lie in a heap on the ground and darted forward at the diminutive vampire, a fifty-foot snake covered in dirty white fur, exuding a freezing miasma into the air with every breath. Aidan was half blinded with tears, but he didn’t care about anything else in that moment but seeing the creature dead. He leapt fearlessly at it, wings spread to help him make the distance, and landed on top of its head. It twisted around, momentarily confused, but it quickly realized where Aidan had gone and began to shake its head back and forth in an attempt to dislodge him. Aidan however wasn’t wasting any time, and only a second after he landed on the ice worm’s head he plunged both daggers up to the hilt in one ice blue eye. The worm shrieked and thrashed, but there was nothing it could do. Both knives had entered its brain, and though the rest of it might take a while to figure it out, it was dead.

Aidan left the daggers in the creature’s eye and jumped off of it, away from the thrashing body. He raced to where Serapha lay in a heap. His long-still heart tried to jump in his chest as he saw the blood pooling around her. The air was full of the smell of it. He knelt down next to her, afraid to look, afraid not to look.

He looked.

Serapha lay partially on her side, partially on her back. He couldn’t see the tooth marks that surely marked her back, but he could see the ones on her abdomen. There were two rows of hideous punctures, one just below her waist, the other across her chest. He could see the white of her ribs showing where the teeth had not only punctured, but torn. He heard a gasping, bubbling sound as she inhaled, and then she let out a moan of pain. He knew it wasn’t good, the sound meant the thing had almost certainly punctured a lung, but at also meant that she was still alive. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, her gaze pain-filled and unfocused. “Daddy?” She gasped again, tried to cough, and stopped with a whimper.

He moved closer, cradling her head gently in his lap, trying not to jar her, but wanting to hold her. “Oh Serapha…”

“I’m not going to make it, am I?” she asked, looking up at him, her face pale and spattered with blood, her breathing shallow.

He wanted to tell her no, to say of course you’ll make it, but he looked down at the mess of her torso and couldn’t. There was a chance that a good healer might piece her back together, but she would bleed to death long before any such could be summoned. And he didn’t dare leave her alone to go for help. The ice worm was more deadly than most creatures of the tundra, but there were scavengers in plenty that wouldn’t hesitate to finish off a helpless, bleeding girl.

“I…” he started and couldn’t say any more. He couldn’t lose her! He couldn’t! There had to be something… something he could do… and then he went perfectly still, a horrible, wonderful, insane idea coming to him. “No, you’re not going to make it,” he said after a long moment of silence. “But… there is still a way. There’s a choice. I never had the choice offered to me, it was forced on me and I hated it, but… most days I believe it’s better than dying. I can… I can change you, Serapha. But…” He paused again, the words coming with difficulty. “There’s a price for it, and you have to chose if you’re willing to pay it. Don’t chose to quickly. Even if you decide yes, it won’t work until after sundown. You have to hold on that long…” He stopped, looking at her again, knowing that the odds of her surviving until the sun had set were still horribly slim.

“Daddy…” she paused for several shallow, rapid breaths, “Daddy, I know you hate what happened to you,” pause again to breathe. “But it’s different with me. You were changed against your will,” pause, “your life was taken. Mine is suddenly gone already, and from you…” she stopped, catching her breath again, the pain evident on her face but somehow not in her voice. “From you it would be a gift. And I know what it’s like. I’ve watched you live as a vampire my whole life. I know what the price is and it’s not that bad. I don’t need more time to think, I’ve chosen. I want to live, if I can.”

“It isn’t exactly life, Serapha.”

“Isn’t it? You’re alive as far as I’m concerned. Dead men don’t father children, or raise them.”

He silently stroked her hair, having no answer to that, and a few more tears formed in his eyes, tracking his already tear-streaked face. He looked up at the sky. Already the floor of the ravine was in shadow as the sun sank toward the horizon, but there was still too much light. If he should share his blood with Serapha now, the shock of it entering her system would kill her, and the change could only take hold during darkness. The sun, even indirectly, would burn it out of her system faster than it could renew her life. “You just have to hold on Serapha, Shade, my Shadowfire. Don’t give up. Only an hour or so, that’s all.”

She smiled weakly up at him. “Only an hour…”

“Yeah. Not so long. Just don’t close your eyes, stay with me.” He spoke softly, keeping her attention, giving her something to focus on. He couldn’t remember afterward what he said during the impossibly long time he cradled her head and waited for sunset. He babbled whatever came into his head, and somehow, somehow his daughter’s eyes stayed open, she kept breathing, kept responding to his voice.