The Phantom

He sits quietly in the London theater, mulling over his past as "The Phantom of the Opera" plays out on the stage before him. He knows the story-the real story-all too well. He is Enlil, sometimes called the Phantom, and he is millennia old. In all that time, he has loved only one soul.

In the aftermath of his daughter's recent marriage, Enlil feels conflicted. He's happy for her, but her very happiness reminds him of Ishianna, the wife he met in 11549 BC. He lost her only to find her reborn in nineteenth-century Paris-a reunion that inspired the musical playing out before him. And now, maudlin and nostalgic, he's jolted out of his reprieve by a woman on the stage-a woman he knows he's seen before.

Charlie's intrigued by the scarred but handsome stranger watching her performance so intently-her friends tease her, calling him her personal phantom. They have no idea how right they are, or how he will affect Charlie's life.

Jumping from modern-day London to nineteenth-century Paris and the dawn of human civilization, "The Phantom" continues Tamara Zeegers's enthralling Vampire Chronicles, begun in "Love Reborn."