Iban got out of the pa.s.senger seat of the Lexus and came toward me. "Is he still alive?" he asked, his dark eyes blazing.

"Who?" I hopped out from behind the wheel and went to face him.

"You know d.a.m.n well who. The murderer."

"He's still undead as far as I know," I said.

"Not for long. William led me to believe that Will was about to die, making my ripping his throat out an empty gesture. Then I realized that if I could be cured by the voodoo blood, Will could as well."

"You can't possibly imagine we'd let Will feed off Melaphia in her condition!"

Lucius had gotten out of the driver's seat by then and came to stand between us. "What about her daughter?" he said accusingly.

"Don't even go there. Renee is off-limits. If Hugo ever got ahold of our baby girl, she'd wind up just like the goose that laid the golden egg."

"So you say," Iban said coldly. "However, I'm skeptical that William wouldn't use anything or anyone at his disposal to save his only son. No matter. I'm going to end Will's suffering myself and avenge Sullivan in the process." He took a step back toward the vehicle. "Wait," I said, and Iban stopped and turned back to me. "You're forgetting something."

"What?" he asked impatiently.

"Sullivan's body is lying in William's vault. Don't you think the least we could do is give him a decent send-off?"

"I intend to take him back to California."

"Without Tobey's rig, it's going to be difficult enough to get yourself back to California in one piece, let alone an undoc.u.mented dead mortal body. Besides, there's n.o.body to invite to the funeral." There was my famous tact in action again.

Iban looked like I'd punched him in the gut, but obviously saw the truth in what I said. "What do you propose, then?"

"I propose we bury him in the family cemetery at the plantation." I was flying by the seat of my pants now, but I tried to sound like I'd thought everything through. "I was just on my way out here to talk this over with you. If you give me until tomorrow night, I can have all the arrangements made. You won't have to worry about a thing. Just show up at the plantation an hour after sunset tomorrow."

Iban seemed weary and undecided. Lucius put an arm around his shoulder. "Jack is right, my friend," he said, giving me a meaningful look. "You need some rest. There's plenty of time for vengeance. Young Will has an eternity to rot in h.e.l.l after he finishes rotting on this plane of existence. If you see your friend buried in a suitable grave with a service to honor his memory, you'll have some closure and the knowledge that you did right by him."

I silently thanked Lucius, an unlikely ally, for his help. He could be downright diplomatic when he wanted to be. Maybe he was using his powers of enthrallment on Iban like he'd tried to use them on me. If so, I was grateful this time.

Lucius's sentiment seemed to buoy Iban's spirits, if only a little. "All right, Jack. We'll go back to the house to wait for your call."

Man, that was close. As soon as I saw Lucius turn the Lexus around, I headed the 'Vette into town.

William, I called out to him.

Nothing, like n.o.body was home. Maybe he'd finally stopped communicating with me altogether.

William!

What? he finally answered. Make it quick.

Iban and Lucius were headed there to kill Will. I got them to go back to the Isle of Hope house by telling them I was arranging a funeral there at the plantation for Sullivan. I bought you some time. My advice is to kill Hugo and get it over with, then move Will and Diana into your vault and lock them in. Meet the rest of us tomorrow evening at the plantation for the funeral and see if you can get Iban to calm down. I'm going to pick up Sullivan's body and arrange for a coffin and a backhoe.

I understand, he replied. Make it so. I'll deal with you later.

Then he was gone and I breathed a sigh of relief. Deal with me later? Maybe I'd scored enough points with my sire to keep him from wringing my neck over the Reedrek slipup. Or maybe not. I'd be able to judge that better when I saw him.

I started making mental notes as to what all I had to do before sunup. First order of business-take a dead man on a road trip.

William "Get away from her, you b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I growled as I grabbed Hugo by his hair and twisted him from Diana's side. I'd been momentarily distracted by Jack's frantic message but a few particular words resonated. Kill Hugo and get it over with. A splendid idea.

"You told Will he was immune-that both of you were immune to this pestilence." I clamped an arm around his neck. "Let's test the truth of your words." I bared my fangs, and jerked his head to one side to expose his neck. He struggled with the strength of a bull, nearly shaking me off.

"Don't worry-" I managed. "I won't kill you now: I'd rather watch you rot. Already, I can feel the virus in my veins."

"Noooooo!" Diana shouted, and flew at us. She pushed my face away while at the same time pulling Hugo free of my hold. We wrestled, careening against the breakfront, knocking chairs askew. Still she managed to get between us. "Run!" she ordered, shoving him toward the door. "Go back to the ship, anywhere! Get out!"

She might just as easily have staked me through the heart. Even though Hugo had sold out her and our son, she still wanted him in her world.

Hugo disappeared into the darkness, and a few seconds later I heard one of the cars I owned start and race down the driveway.

Diana stood in the open doorway facing me.

"Why?" I asked. But her newest betrayal riled my anger beyond conscious control. Blood began to seep from my bare chest.

"Why?" Red mist burst forth, spattering everything in its path with my tainted blood.

Diana blinked the mist out of her eyes and touched the blood on her face with a shaking finger. She looked horrified. "He's my-Will's sire. If you kill him we'll lose his power." She swallowed back a sob. "If Will dies-if you die, I'll be alone." Not the answer I was expecting.

Slowly she sank down until she was sitting on the floor. "You said there's no cure. Now we're all going to die."

All except her lord, Hugo. I'd had enough of this intrigue: his time would come. "I won't die," I announced, and proceeded to call the mist of my fleeing anger back to me.

Diana had tears in her eyes now. "What do you mean?"

"Because there is a cure."

She just stared at me.

"Pack up what you need. We're moving Will into town."

Jack I'd managed to make all the arrangements-all I could think of, anyway-on the cell phone on the way to the mansion in town.

Tarney was delivering a nice antique coffin from William's collection in the warehouse. Rennie, after I'd managed to wake him up in the middle of the night, had promised to get the backhoe on the trailer and start to the plantation with it ASAP. Then I called Connie, Tilly, and Werm, and invited them to the service. They all said they would come.

I ticked off the funerary necessities in my mind. Coffin-check. Hole in the ground-check. Guests-check. Speakers-William and Iban could do the honors with the eulogy-check. What else did you absolutely, positively have to have for a funeral?

One stiff, coming up.

I just hoped he wasn't too chatty. What is it with me and dead people? Other than the fact that I am one, I mean. I guess it's just a gift, like William and Melaphia said. This is one gift I sometimes wish I hadn't unwrapped. It can be just downright creepy. Melaphia had, by accident, helped me out with the flowers. She'd left a plastic bag of herbs sitting beside Sullivan's body and, after I lifted the blanket, I saw she'd sprinkled some directly on him as well, in his hair and over his eyes. In each hand he held a bundle of dried sweet shrub blooms. I hated to disturb the arrangement, but I had to get the funeral guest of honor on the road. I picked him up, took him out to the Corvette, and sat him in the pa.s.senger seat. Rigor mortis had come and gone, so he was fairly easy to manipulate.

I briefly considered putting him in the trunk, but I remembered that I like to have never got little Huey in there. The trunk of a Corvette is too small to hold a whole normal-size body, and I didn't think Iban would appreciate me dismembering his buddy after I'd failed to protect him from getting murdered in the first place.

So I propped him up in the front seat and leaned his head against the headrest. If I got stopped by the cops I could always say I was driving my buddy home after he pa.s.sed out from a night of hard drinking. That is, if they didn 't notice that gaping hole in his throat. I went back into the house and found a cashmere scarf somebody had left in the hall closet, then tied it carefully around his neck. Yeah, that was the ticket. Problem solved.

I returned to the driver's side and hopped in.

"Aren't you going to put the top up?"

Oh, c.r.a.p. I looked all around me, searching in vain for a living, breathing being that voice could have come from. Finally I said, "Sullivan, is that you?"

"Do you see anybody else here Sherlock?"

"You don't have to get snippy," I said.

"Oh, yeah? Why don't you try being dead?"

I looked at his corpse and smirked. "Yo. Vampire."

"You know what I mean. At least you're animated."

"Look, dude, I'm really sorry. I had no idea Will would attack you. I flew right over there, but it was too late."

"I know. Don't sweat it. That's what I get for hanging out with the evil dead. No offense."

"None taken. But what do you mean?"

"What I mean is, I always knew there was a danger in living among vampires, even the more gentle ones. They attract their own kind, and not all the bloodsuckers they attract are going to be benign. I was probably living on borrowed time anyway."

I'd never thought of it that way, but he was right. William and I had lived charmed lives for a long time before the evil ones- Reedrek, then Hugo, and who knew who was next-came for us. That didn't bode well for the humans we loved-Mel, Renee, and Connie. It was a depressing thought.

"Live by the fang, die by the fang, that's all I'm saying," he said. "So, seriously, can I get you to put the top up?"

"Why?"

I heard him sigh. "Because this is a hundred-dollar hair-style and I don't want to go to my maker with my hair standing out like I stuck my finger in a light socket."

If things were different, I would've been laughing my a.s.s off right about now, but I wasn 't in the mood for much frivolity.

"There's no time." "Hey, buddy, I got nothing but time. Where are we going anyway?"

"Your funeral. You don't want to be late for your own funeral, do you?"

"I guess not. But I don't want to have bad hair either."

I leaned over and redid the scarf so that it went over his head and tied under his chin. It still covered the gaping hole in his neck.

"There," I said. "All better."

"I suppose that'll have to do," he said. "You have a way with accessories. Are you sure you're straight?"

"Thanks, and yes, I'm sure."

The herbs Melaphia had used on him were probably the same ones she'd used to spruce up Huey and Shari. He looked-and smelled-presentable enough for an open casket service if that's what he wanted. I pulled out into the street and headed for the plantation.

"So, where's my final resting place to be?"

"The plantation's family burial ground. It's right next to the woods. You'll like it there."

"It's as good a place as any," he said wistfully. "Iban is the closest I have to family, so I might as well be planted somewhere nice even if I don't know anybody there. How is Iban anyway? Is he still..." His voice faltered.

"He's all well again," I said. "Melaphia let him feed on her, and her special blood cured him. It was Gerard's idea."

"Thank goodness," Sullivan said.

"Listen, I've got to know something. Why did Will attack you that night? I saw you talking and then all of a sudden he went for your throat like a junkyard dog." I stopped for a red light and he kept on going, bouncing his head off the dash. I propped him back up and straightened his jacket, which was still stained with blood. If only Chandler was back at the plantation we could get him to clean it. Chandler is a wiz with bloodstains.

"Thanks, man," the spirit said. "Yeah, I nearly forgot about that. I'm glad you can hear me, 'cause this is important. It was Will who brought us the virus. I've spent the last few hours piecing it together in my mind and I'm pretty sure I've figured it out."

"I was afraid of that. How did he get into your colony?"

"He sweet-talked the vampire who was on security one night. We built our own gated community, you know. It was supposed to protect us from curious humans...and predators."

"I heard that," I said. "William said you guys thought of everything."

"Obviously not everything. Evidently, Will charmed his way into our midst without baring a fang. I only saw him once and had no reason to mistrust him. In fact, I'd forgotten about him until the night he ripped my throat out."

The last time, I thought. "Why didn't Iban recognize him?"

"As far as I know Iban never met him. As for me, I only saw him from across the room at a party at the colony. Someone pointed him out to me as the new vampire in town, but I never got the chance to introduce myself. We started on the road trip out here the next day and I promptly forgot about him."

"So how did he spread the virus, and how did you get it?"

"I had it?" the ghost said, shocked. "How do you know?" "Because Will got sick right after he bit you."

"It couldn't happen to a nicer vamp. I hope his b.a.l.l.s rot off." Sullivan thought a minute and then continued, "It must have been the swans."

"Swans? So the vampires got sick feeding off the infected swans."

"Do you remember the name Typhoid Mary?" Sullivan asked. "Biological warfare in its simplest form."

"So how did you get infected?"

"What does it matter now?" Sullivan sighed. "I'm dead anyway. In fact it's just as well we're both dead the way you're driving.

Good grief, are you trying to set a new land speed record or what?"

I gritted my fangs. Have I mentioned how much I hate it when people complain about my driving? I was getting more and more agitated when I thought about the time Sullivan spent with Connie. I had to know if she was at risk.

"I'll tell you why it matters," I said. "I need to know if you've infected Connie. Now I'll ask you again: How could you have contracted this plague?"

"You want to know if this can be spread by having s.e.x," Sullivan said. "I only have s.e.x with human women, but I do-or I used to-let the vampires feed on me sometimes. What can I tell you? It's a rush. I let one of the girl vamps suck my blood at the party the night I saw Will. So I must have gotten it that way. And as far as giving it to Connie goes, you can relax. We didn 't have s.e.x.

She wouldn't even kiss me. She's too hung up on you, man."