"Why didn't you contact me?" I had to know, even if the answer broke what remained of my splintered heart. "I would have come for you."

She looked at me then, some surprise in her gaze. "I would ask you the same."

"I didn't know-"

"Didn't you, then?" She tilted her head and I felt the wispy touch of her mind reaching out to mine. She thought I was lying. I opened my mind briefly, allowing her to probe the grief I'd felt at losing her. She sighed and shook her head.

"Reedrek used to visit us often," she went on. "He told me about your conquests, your strength. He said with an entire world of open thighs at your disposal, you didn't want me anymore."

Reedrek ruining my life in yet another way. Somehow I'd hoped to overcome Reedrek's lies. I had the urge to free him from his hidden tomb of a prison and kill him outright. But killing him quick would be a mercy; even my accidentally freezing him into stone must have been a relief from his suffering. The last thing I would ever offer Reedrek was relief or mercy. "He lied," I said.

"As simple as that?"

"Yes, as simple and as traitorous. He swore he would allow you and Will to live if I became his monster. Then I had to watch him kill you. I would've traded my soul all over again for you if I'd known you survived."

Still unsure, she ignored my declaration. "The only part of you I managed to keep is Will." She gazed down at our suffering son.

"Hugo could not refuse me. And when the time came, Will chose to live as I do." She glanced at me. "As we do."

"He doesn't seem excessively happy with his choice. He informed me that Hugo hoped I would kill him. Will himself didn't seem to care one way or the other."

Diana's features hardened. "Hugo is like any male lion who takes over a pride. He wants to eat the young. His condition for making Will was my promise to never tell my son about his real father.

"I should never have agreed. I wasn't as strong then, and I couldn't stand the thought of losing Will after losing you." She gazed at me as though she was looking across the years. "Never in our world is a very long time."

I couldn't argue with her about that.

"Then you know what I've lived with-thinking I'd never have you again. Never know the man Will would become." I moved closer to her, forcing her to look up to meet my eyes. "Have you missed me at all?" I asked, crowding in on her. She would have to step backward to get away.

She placed a hand on my chest but didn't push.

"Even a little?" I whispered, leaning close to her mouth.

Her chin came up until our breath was mingled, lips almost touching. But still she didn't reply.

Warming to the game, I stayed close. "Answer, or you'll have none of me."

I felt more than saw her draw in a breath. Indignation? Desire? Anger? I had no way to know. I sent a tendril of memory from my mind to hers: a kiss shared five hundred years before. The melding of a husband and a wife. I could feel the liquid fire of her s.e.xual power flow into me. Female vampires grow stronger from s.e.x, sucking power from their male partners in return for ultimate pleasure for both. The depth of Diana's well of pa.s.sion reminded me that she and Hugo had been building s.e.xual bonds for as long as we both had been soulless. Her capabilities for pleasure and pain were far stronger than I'd ever experienced.

Some inner voice whispered, Danger.

"Yes..." she breathed into my mouth. Her hand rose to the back of my neck, pulling me down, dragging my lips to hers. The pleasure, however, was fleeting.

Will, as though he'd sensed the shift in her attention, moaned and pushed down the covers.

Her mouth retreated. "Our son-" she mumbled. I could feel her confusion. Then Diana, like any doting mother, tucked the blanket back around Will. "What is this...plague your friend Gerard found in Will?"

The change of subject forced me to collect myself. Her withdrawal had affected me more than I liked. At first, I thought better of scaring her with the truth, but then I remembered her attack on Hugo. She was no wilting flower who needed anyone's protection.

In a few pa.s.sing seconds of thought, we'd become strangers again. "It's something we've never seen before, a creeping rot that eats a body from the inside out."

"But our bodies heal-" "Not from this. It takes longer for us to die, yet die we will, if left untreated."

"What is the treatment?"

I saw a potential trap. In reality I suppose I didn't trust her any more than she trusted me. I kept all thought of Melaphia out of my head and told a half-truth. "Gerard is a geneticist. He's working on a vaccine but doesn't know how long it will take or if it'll work."

"Then he's seen this before? In California?"

"Yes, thanks to your-" The scene in my own bath suite flashed into my brain. "-your lover. He knows more than he's told us.

He immediately recognized the danger."

She frowned. "If he knows, then I'll know in short order. I've been remiss in not paying attention to his plots with Reedrek. In truth, I didn't care as long as I had Will." She looked down at him. "I've been a fool-but no more." Her gaze met mine. "No more."

Plots with Reedrek. I remembered the warnings Reedrek had given me about Hugo. I'd thought them only the ramblings of the doomed. Reedrek had said Hugo was coming; he'd told me Diana was alive, but I hadn't listened. Although I could happily spend all of eternity without ever hearing his h.o.a.ry old voice in my ears, perhaps another short conversation was in order. I would let him brag about his treachery. I made my excuses and left the room.

The sh.e.l.ls transported me directly across town. The metal coffin smelled as sour as I remembered. But Reedrek, the doomed, remained frozen in place. Floating above him I rested an invisible hand on the center of his chest, the cold feel of touching a tomb, and called on Ghede, the trickster.

"Wake up, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" I ordered Reedrek. The stone beneath my palm shivered but he did not transform. "Here's your chance. Wake up and face me."

A high buzzing filled my ears, as shrill as a scream. The sound lowered in tone and I could make out a word.

"Heeeeeelp."

It sounded like true distress. The mere idea of discovering a weakness in my sire made me smile. I was determined to make him afraid of what I might have in store for his foreseeable future.

I raised my hand, then struck him over his dead heart. "Wake!"

With much creaking and crumbling and many clouds of dust, Reedrek began to lose his stony appearance. When he was at least half humanlike, I issued orders.

"Tell me of this plague you and Hugo cooked up."

Reedrek tried to speak but the movement caused his lips to crack like ancient plaster, then bleed. He was part vampire, part cornerstone. He sputtered and drew in a long slow breath.

"Hugo..." he whispered. "He has come..."

"Tell me about the plague."

I could feel him uncoiling his power, testing its strength. Looking for a way to me. "Where are you?" he asked.

"I'm anywhere I wish to be. Right now I wish to be here so you might enlighten me. Tell me what you 've done, or I'll shut you up for eternity."

He swallowed, glancing around the confined s.p.a.ce. "How many have died?" He raised an arm to feel along the lid of his coffin as though he might touch my voice...or grasp my throat.

"Too many," I answered truthfully, then added the lie I'd come to implant. "Will is dead and Hugo is infected-a worm banquet.

If you're waiting for him to save you, you've made a fatal error."

"But-"

"But what? Did you think to have a care with such a dangerous organism?"

This confused him. Then he seemed to gather some of his former bl.u.s.ter. "You lie. We had a biochemist-foremost in the world.

He said Hugo and I were immune-"

I laughed in his astonished face. "What is this? You believed him? Tell me the whereabouts of this chemist, or there will be no one left to remember your existence."

Reedrek went silent for a long moment. "He's well hidden, in the Old World. You'll never find him." His mind, more awake, probed further. "How have you been spared?"

"Perhaps I haven't. Perhaps I'm a ghost who takes pleasure in haunting you."

His expression soured. "There's no pleasure in death for a blood drinker. And ghosts have no need for cures."

"Then I must live still since our little chat is so diverting to me."

"f.u.c.k you."

When I didn't rise to the bait he settled back. "So you found your son only to watch him die again. How delicious." Then he seemed to recall our last encounter. "I wonder that you didn't try to save him with your New World magic."

"And what would that be?"

"Voodoo..." he snarled. "The tainted blood of savages running in your veins."

I let him talk.

"Why do you need our cure when you have your own?"

Gerard returned shortly after sunset. During the daylight hours Diana and I had taken turns watching over Will as he slipped deeper into the illness. Once, when I'd been alone with him, he'd opened his eyes.

"Do I know you?" he asked. "I feel like I should know you."

I nodded. "William Thorne, lately of Savannah. We hunted together last night."

He stared at me for a long time. I could see small shifts under his skin, pockets of rot that hadn 't yet broken through to the surface. "We're friends, then?" At the moment the answer seemed important to him.

"Yes. Friends."

"Good. A bloke can't have too many friends..." His voice trailed off as he fell into unconsciousness once more. I felt Diana move up behind me, followed by Gerard.

"He's getting worse," she said. Not a question.

"Yes," I agreed.

"He doesn't deserve this; I feel sure he was tricked by Hugo."

"He wasn't tricked into killing Sullivan," I snapped.

She ignored me and turned to Gerard. "Is there anything you can do? Have you found the cure you were looking for?"

"Not for certain, madam. I'm waiting for results of the latest tests. " He cleared his throat. "May I speak to you outside, William?"

"Of course."

Diana watched us leave the room with a look of concern, probably wondering what Gerard would have to discuss with me that she couldn't hear. As we pa.s.sed through the parlor, Hugo spoke.

"Does he still live?" He looked a good deal better after his day's sleep. His wounds had closed and the bones in his jaw had knitted. He still wore bruises like a mask over most of his face and he moved gingerly, half sitting, half lying on the settee.

"Yes," I answered. "But he deserves to die for his part in bringing this pestilence. And when he does, you 'll follow shortly thereafter."

Hugo carefully pushed to his feet. "May as well get it over with."

The thought of Hugo offering to face me when he was clearly at a disadvantage stopped our progress through the room. "Are you in such a hurry to die, then?"

He didn't answer other than to square his shoulders and curl his hands into fists.

Then it struck me. He was more afraid of facing Diana if Will died than he was of me. "You're afraid of her," I said in astonishment.

"Not of her," he answered. He swung one arm out. "Of this. Of her past."

Of me. Not death, but loss. A hopeless love.

"Tell me Will's part in your plan."

Hugo slowly crossed his arms over his chest. For a moment I thought he 'd decided not to answer. But then, after glancing toward the hallway where Diana now stood, he said, "He didn't know anything. He was only supposed to feed the virus to the human bloodline and thus get it into the blood the clan would drink. I told him not to touch them otherwise."

"Was this Reedrek's plot or your own?" Diana asked, moving into the room.

Hugo looked down. "We had a pact. I would send Will to California, and Reedrek would come here and kill-" He raised his gaze to me.

So we'd both had a surprise at the harbor. He'd expected Reedrek to meet him with good news.

If I never had to speak of Reedrek again it would be a relief. I had no stomach to recount the ways he'd injured me and mine.

Nor could I stand to look at Hugo. Better for me to be outside with Gerard. I turned on my heel and left Hugo to his misery and to Diana.

"You and I both know there is no vaccine. Not yet," Gerard said in a low voice.

We were standing on the veranda, out of earshot of the others.

"Pure voodoo blood is the only cure at this point," he continued, "and Melaphia was severely weakened by Iban. She cannot give anything more to help this new case."