"I suppose it's better than nothing," Elvi murmured and turned to head toward the stairs leading down into the yard.

"Elvi?" Mike called, bringing her to a halt. When she turned back, he hesitated, and then asked, "Are you happier?"

She blinked in confusion at the question. "Happier?"

"Yes." Mike moved toward the fence. "Mabel once said that you wished you'd never gone to Mexico and never turned into a... er...

vampire. She said you were miserable."

"Yes, I did say that. Many times," Elvi admitted quietly, and it had been how she'd felt then. But then she'd thought she couldn't eat, had slept in a coffin, and avoided daylight like the plague. Things had gotten much better since the arrival of Victor and the others in her life. She supposed that was what everyone was hoping for and why the men had been invited.

"I'm sorry."

Elvi tore herself from her thoughts and peered at him with surprise. "What for?"

"For helping to pressure you into going to Mexico when you didn't want to," he explained. "The lot of us have felt horrible about it ever since Mabel explained what had happened at the town meeting Teddy called when you guys got back. We never would have pressured you so if we'd known-"

"Don't be silly, Mike. I know that," Elvi interrupted. She'd known for years that the reason everyone had been so accepting of her new status was because many of them had felt bad for talking her into taking that trip when she hadn't wanted to. Elvi had intended to cancel the trip to Mexico after the accident, but everyone from Teddy, Mabel, the Knights... even Dawn, the grocery store clerk, had all insisted she should go.

"We were hoping that Mabel's plan with the single's ad would help make things better."

Elvi smiled faintly and opened her mouth to tell him it had, then paused and glanced toward the driveway as the sound of a car engine caught her ear.

"Oh, Teddy's here," she said. "I'll talk to you later."

Giving him a wave, Elvi moved to the end of the deck and descended the stairs to greet Teddy as he got out of the car and retrieved a cooler from the trunk.

"How is she?" Teddy asked grimly as he stomped up the sidewalk toward her."She was sleeping when I checked on her," Elvi said, hurrying ahead of him to open the door. Teddy carried the cooler inside, slammed it on the counter, and whirled to face her.

"How could you let this happen? After all she's done for you?" he asked furiously.

"I didn't let anything happen," Elvi said quickly. "I wasn't even here. DJ turned her and-"

"Well, you should have been here," he interrupted with a snarl. "After the way she's looked after you for five years, doing all those things you couldn't anymore, you could have spent a little time looking after her for a change." He gave a snort of disgust. "But I suppose you couldn't tear yourself away from that damned Argeneau character long enough to be bothered."

"I-" Elvi began, only to be interrupted as Teddy's eyes narrowed.

"DJ did this to her?" he asked suddenly, apparently that part of the conversation just having made it through his anger. Mouth tightening, he snarled, "I'll stake him out like-"

"You will not!" Elvi interrupted sharply. "Mabel loves him, and he was only doing what she asked him to do."

"We'll see about that. I'm checking on her. Alone," he announced in a tone of voice that suggested she not argue.

Elvi watched him head determinedly upstairs, then shook her head and turned to head right back outside. She wasn't interfering. DJ could handle him. If he still wanted to yell at her after that, then he could just come find her, she thought furiously as she crossed the deck to the yard.

Elvi couldn't believe the man had turned on her like that, blaming her for Mabel's turning as if it were her fault. As if she'd been a bad friend and let it happen. The truth was if she'd known Mabel wanted it, Elvi would have stood by her decision. And Teddy had no right to stand in judgment, she thought as she stomped around the garden glaring at the damage done by time. That was all she'd intended to do today, but Elvi was so wound up and agitated by her run-in with Teddy that she decided she needed some physical exertion to help get rid of it.

Crossing to the shed at the back of the yard, she dragged the door open, and stepped inside. All her gardening tools were still there; hanging from their hooks and racks, in perfect shape, but covered with a fine coat of dust.

Muttering under her breath, Elvi walked along the implements, trying to decide what she'd need. She wanted to do something that took a lot of hitting or something. Something like cutting wood would be good, she thought. Unfortunately, she didn't have any wood to cut. They bought it all corded and split.

Muttering about the stupidity of men, Elvi picked up the shovel, thinking that slamming it in the ground a couple hundred times and jumping up and down on it to dig it into the earth would be good.

She'd started back toward the door when it suddenly slammed shut. Pausing, she blinked in the darkness. There was no light in the shed, no window even to allow natural light in, not even enough light for her eyes to use. Something she'd found annoying on other occasions, but which was almost scary now. It had been years since she'd been in the shed and where-at one time-she would have known exactly where everything was and been able to move through it easily enough, now she couldn't and there were several dangerous items in the shed.

There were sharp items everywhere; on the floor to trip over and fall on... against the wall for her to walk into. Elvi wasn't at all sure she could find the door without skewering herself.

She should have leaned something against the door to keep it open before entering, Elvi realized, and berated herself briefly for not thinking of that before the wind had blown the door closed. And then she paused to sniff the air as something wafted past her nose.

Was that smoke? Elvi sniffed more deeply, frowning when she got a good nose full of the scent. It was smoke.

Aware of creeping light in the back corner, she turned slowly and stared at the flames licking their way up the back wall.

"Well, hell," Elvi muttered.

Chapter Eighteen.

The sound of shouting made Victor scowl as he opened Elvi's bedroom door. DJ and Teddy Brunswick's arguing had woken him earlier and he'd crawled out of bed to break it up. It had taken several minutes for him to convince Brunswick that Mabel was fine and DJ hadn't done anything she hadn't wished. By the time the officer had finally left, Victor had been wide awake. Knowing it would be useless to go back to bed, he'd headed off to take a shower. Now he was dressed and ready to face the day, but the shouting had started up again.

Victor's immediate reaction was irritation, but that turned into surprise and then concern as he stepped into the hall and realized it wasn't DJ and a returned Teddy doing the yelling, but Harper. Just then, the German came crashing down the stairs from the third floor, and charged by shouting about something being on fire in the backyard.

Victor stared after the man with amazement... until his brain digested what the man was yelling about.

Something on fire? In the backyard?

"Where's Elvi?!" Victor roared with sudden panic, and immediately chased after Harper. He was positive that if there was trouble, that was where he'd find Elvi.

He raced out onto the deck, pausing at the sight of the small shed at the back of the yard on fire. One whole side was a wall of flames. He heard a muffled shout and several thuds and felt his blood run cold. Someone was inside the burning shack. It didn't take two guesses to know who it must be.

Not bothering with the stairs, Victor left Harper to wrestle with the garden hose and charged, leaping up and over the railing that ran around the deck. He was at the shed door in barely more than a heartbeat. There was a shovel jammed against the handle, blocking it closed.

Victor kicked it aside with his foot even as he reached for the handle.

He pulled the door open and started to step in, only to grunt and stumble back as a smoking bundle crashed into his chest. It appeared Elvi had decided to rush the door just as he opened it. Unprepared, Victor lurched several steps backward, his arms closing around her even as he did. They both cried out as he crashed into the birdbath and sent it tumbling as they crashed to the ground.

Victor grunted as his back slammed into the dirt, cursed in pain as Elvi came down, her knee landing bull's-eye on his groin, then simply whimpered like a baby when she realized what had happened and quickly slid off him, only to have the still flipping birdbath finish its own fall by allowing the base to take her place, crushing his testicles.

"Victor?" Elvi's anxious voice sounded by his ear. "Are you all right?"

Stars exploding behind his eyes and body racked with pain that radiated out from his groin, Victor lay completely still and merely groaned, amazed that he was able to do so. He followed that with a moan when water began to pour over him.

"No, Harper!" Elvi cried by his ear. "You have to set it to jet! It isn't reaching the shed! You're getting us! Set it to jet!"

"What the hell happened here?"

Victor recognized Teddy Brunswick's voice, but didn't bother to open his eyes or look around. He just lay where he was, waiting for his body to stop protesting the abuse it had received.

"Victor?" DJ's voice sounded anxious as it neared. "Are you all right?"

"What happened?" Edward asked.

"Was anyone hurt?" Alessandro's question almost had Victor opening his eyes in disbelief, but it seemed like too much effort, so he stayed as he was.

"I've got it! Out of the way!" That voice belonged to Mike Knight, the fire chief and Elvi's neighbor. Recognizing it, Victor didn't immediately open his eyes. It wasn't until he heard the hissing sound that followed the man's authoritative shout that Victor popped his eyes open to see Elvi's mortal neighbor was the only one who had been sensible enough to bring a fire extinguisher to the party.

A disappointed sigh to his side drew Victor's gaze to Harper to see the immortal standing, shoulders slumped, the dripping garden hose in his hands. The hose itself was a tangled mass straggling between the deck and where he stood. It seemed in his rush to be of assistance, he'd somehow tangled up the hose and hadn't been able to reach the back of the yard with the spray.

That explained the small shower he'd got, Victor supposed.

A rustle at his side drew his gaze to Elvi as she sat up beside him to watch Mike finish putting out the fire. Her face was streaked with soot, and her hat and clothing a bit singed, but she appeared all right otherwise. However, he'd already expected as much. Her voice had been strong both times she'd spoken since their crash landing.

His gaze shifted to the birdbath still lying on top of him and Victor grimaced. It had done some real damage. If he were mortal, there would be some question as to whether he would ever have more children. Fortunately, he wasn't mortal. Victor reached down and pushed the birdbath off.

Elvi immediately turned to peer at him. Managing a worried smile, she leaned over and placed one hand on his cheek as she asked, "How are you? Are you all right? I think you got the wind knocked out of you."

Before Victor could respond, Teddy appeared behind her, his wrinkled face grim as he peered down at them. "What happened?"

"What are you doing here?" Victor asked instead of answering. "You left a good fifteen minutes ago."

Brunswick's eyebrows rose at the question, but he answered calmly enough. "I was almost back to the station when I realized I left the blood bank cooler here. So I turned back and saw the smoke about two blocks away. I hit the siren, radioed the fire department, put my foot down and pulled up just in time to see you and Elvi crash over the birdbath."

Victor narrowed his eyes, concentrating on the man's thoughts, but relaxed when he found Brunswick was telling the truth. He wasn't the mortal who had set the fire. That left- "It's out," Mike Knight announced, approaching the small group gathered around Victor and Elvi. "It's still hot, though. I'll have the men give her a spray down when they get here just to be sure she doesn't start back up. There they are now," he added, glancing toward the driveway as a red fire truck pulled in, siren blaring.

Victor didn't glance toward the driveway. His attention was now focused on Mike's thoughts, sifting through his memories of the last few minutes to find that Elvi's neighbor had been inside changing his clothes after spilling weed spray on himself when his wife had yelled from the kitchen that Elvi's shed was on fire. The fire chief had tugged on a T-shirt as he ran from the room, stopping only to grab the fire extinguisher before running around the two fenced properties to get to the backyard and the burning shed. He hadn't set the fire either.

Victor relaxed back where he lay, frowning over who it could have been, but stilled when he saw the way Elvi was eyeing him.

"Why don't you go find Father O'Flaherty and read his mind too?" she asked sarcastically, obviously guessing what he'd been doing. "The church is just up the street."

When Vincent's eyes sharpened with interest at this news, she threw her hands up with disgust and hissed, "It was an accident."

"It wasn't a damned accident," Victor snapped.

"Of course it was," she insisted. "No one in Port Henry would want to hurt me."

"She's right, son," Brunswick informed him. "Everyone here loves Elvi."

"See?" Elvi said with a smile for Teddy for backing her up.

Victor merely scowled and turned his gaze to the fire chief. "Knight?"

"Well, I'm sure no one would want to hurt Elvi," he agreed, and then shifted uncomfortably. "But I smelled gasoline while I was putting it out."

"Gasoline?" Elvi asked with dismay. Apparently, she hadn't noticed the pungent scent, but then she'd probably been a bit distracted with trying to get out, he acknowledged."I'm afraid so, Elvi," Mike said, and then muttered that he had to speak to his men and hurried toward the driveway as several uniformed firefighters jumped from their trucks and began to unravel their hoses.

"Now will you admit that someone is out to get you?" Victor asked wearily.

"But no one would want to hurt me," Elvi protested. "It had to be an accident."

Victor's eyes popped back open. Incensed by her continued denial, he roared, "Goddammit woman! Someone doesn't jam a shovel against the shed door to lock you in, pour gasoline down the side wall, and strike a match by accident. Someone is trying to kill you."

Elvi's eyes widened at the explanation for why she hadn't been able to open the door, but before she could say anything, he went on, "And you can stop glaring at me for reading your friends. Of course I suspect them. It's a mortal attacking you."

Elvi's mouth tightened. "You don't know that for sure."

"Yes, I do," he snarled. "Only a mortal would try to kill you by shooting an arrow through your back. And, only an idiot mortal could fail at killing someone who was so eager to throw herself into danger."

Elvi stiffened. "Some of my best friends are mortals, Victor, and they are not idiots. Besides, coming out to work in the garden is hardly throwing myself into danger."

"The hell it isn't!" he snapped, and then added, "You shouldn't have been out here in the first place. You should have been in bed. Mabel nearly took your head off last night. You had a terrible wound and lost a lot of blood. And you took an arrow in the back not long before that! You shouldn't be doing anything but recuperating. But are you? No, not Elvi Black. You have to hop out of bed and rush out here and try to get yourself killed again!"

"Now just a cotton pickin' minute here." Brunswick glanced from Victor to Elvi and back before settling on Elvi as he asked, "Mabel ripped your throat out? Someone shot you in the back? What the hell has been going on around here, Ellen Stone?"

"Ellen Stone?" Harper echoed with confusion.

"It's her real name," DJ explained, obviously having learned this from Mabel. "She was born Ellen Black, took her husband's name Stone when they married, then reverted to her maiden name after the turning."

"Then why does everyone call her Elvi?" Edward asked.

"I'm asking the questions right now," Brunswick barked, and then raised an eyebrow at Elvi. "Why the hell didn't you tell me what was going on? I'm the police captain here. You should have told me."

"She should have stayed in bed where she was safe," Victor snapped as Mike rejoined them.

"I'm afraid I have to agree with Victor, Ellen," Edward said, emphasizing the name. "You have a dreadful tendency to get yourself into trouble. I really think the best place for you is indoors until we men solve this matter."

"There is no we" Brunswick said coldly. "I'm the cop. This is my town. You're just visitors here. I'll solve it... Now that I know it's happening," he added with another glare at Elvi.

"If you'd at least told me what was happening, Elvi, I could have kept an eye out for anyone skulking around," Mike added.

Elvi peered at the angry male faces surrounding her for a moment and then stood up and pushed her way through them, muttering, "I have some pies in the oven I need to check on."

"Well done, gentlemen," Harper murmured as they watched her make her way into the house, her posture defeated. "Attacking the victim is always very effective."

Victor glanced at the German sharply, and then let his head drop back to the ground with a sigh as he realized that was exactly what he'd done. Worse yet, he hadn't just attacked her, he'd blamed her. He hadn't meant to, but the whole thing had terrified the hell out of him.

When he'd realized that Elvi was trapped in the burning shed it had been Marion all over again. Victor hadn't been there to witness his first wife's death, but he'd heard about it and had nightmares ever since. He couldn't lose Elvi to fire too. He couldn't lose her at all. She had become the most important thing in his life. He wouldn't lose her now.

"Well, hell!" Brunswick ran an agitated hand through his thinning hair. "I suppose we owe her an apology."

"I'd say so," Harper agreed.

"Well, come on then, Argeneau," he said, turning away. "We may as well get it over with before she gets herself upset enough to start crying or some other female thing. I hate a crying woman. Elvi isn't usually like that, but she's been through a lot lately and..." Brunswick paused and turned back as he realized no one had followed him. Victor still lay on the ground and the rest of the men were staring at him silently.