In the weeks that followed Lafayette's departure Carpenter began Holly's training. He taught her how to move at night without being seen and to move as softly at a cat. She had demonstrated that she knew how to jump down from high places, so now he taught her how to leap up. They practiced in woods surrounding the Indian burial grounds all night long.

They also spent a few nights in the cave digging an escape passage in the event of a cave in and they also mined more gold. As the weeks passed Holly now felt stronger and more confident and would go into town more often to see her old girl chums at the saloon. She even invited some of her friends out to the ranch on their night off.

Her friends marveled at the splendor of the interior of the ranch house and soon there was talk of holding a Fall party there. Carpenter had no problems with that, but there was one more lesson she had to learn. He waited until a night when one of her friends lingered after the others had left.

The girl's name was Colette. She and Holly started working the saloon at the same time and were about the same age. Carpenter waited until Holly had gone into the other room to fetch another of bottle of wine before he used his mental powers and placed the girl in a deep trance. Holly returned and poured her friend a fresh glass and slid it in from of her, but the girl didn't react.

"Colette, what's wrong?"

Suddenly Carpenter was behind her and began to throw chains and ropes across her body and the chair. She snapped the ropes quickly but could not budge the chains.The hooked ends of the chains went through a hole in the floorboards and were fastened to the foundation of the house. He had done this weeks ago without her knowledge.

When she could not free herself she began to yell at Carpenter to let her loose. He gagged her so the sound of her distressed voice did not alert the ranch hands .

"There is one important skill that you must master," he said as he slipped behind Colette.

Carpenter took Colette's arm and then using a small knife nicked the flesh on the underside of it and almost immediately the blood began to flow. Holly stopped struggling in her bonds and stared with her eyes tinged in red. Carpenter removed her gag and she let out a hiss and her fangs were clearly visible and she attempted to lunge in the direction of the flowing blood.

"You must learn to keep yourself calm. There would be no explaining away this reaction to blood in a public place."

She strained against the chains over and over again Carpenter knelt beside her and placed an arm across her chest and patiently repeated the instructions she needed to calm herself.

It was an effort but Holly finally willed herself to calm down. When Carpenter noticed that her fangs had vanished and her eyes returned to their normal color he released her. Carpenter then released Colette from her trance and Holly noted that she was fine and unaware of what had happened and blamed her momentary lapse in memory on the amount of wine she had consumed.

Colette departed around 1:00 AM and after she left Carpenter examined the chains he had used to bind Holly, some of the links showed stretching.

He called Holly to his side and showed her and she was stunned."You are getting stronger, the only thing you lack is discipline."

"As I said earlier your system will do what is necessary to satisfy your blood lust."

"I'll try harder."

"I know you will," he answered as he took her in his arms.