Couldn't take her on a picnic to the beach. Couldn't wake up in bed beside her with the morning rays streaming through the window to light her face like an angel's. And now I knew I couldn't make love to her. I wanted to tell her all of it, but I couldn't take that chance. I was a killer and she was the law. And a G.o.ddess.

"Are you into something illegal? Is this a side effect of some kind of drug or something?"

I thought about that for a moment, long enough to make her even more suspicious. "It's not a drug. It's more about...what I am."

"Give it up. Whatever you're into, give it up." Her tone was demanding. To her, you either wore a white hat or you wore a black one. There was no gray headwear in Connie's mind.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Out the window I could barely see the river as it ambled east toward the Atlantic. The sun was about to rise; the first of the colors that signaled its arrival gleamed just over the horizon. "It's hard to explain, but I can't ever change-what I am. I would if I could. I'd do anything for you. But it's impossible."

I turned back to Connie and my throat constricted at the sight of the tears welling in her eyes. I opened my mouth to say more, to explain somehow, but no words came. None that would make sense to her anyway.

Connie's face registered alarm and confusion. Now was the chance to make my getaway, before she started asking questions, but first I had to get her to return Melaphia's charm. I couldn't bear to have to come back again.

"What-" Connie began. I cut her off. "I need that charm. The one I gave you to wear to the party. It belongs to Melaphia."

Dumbly, Connie opened a drawer in the lamp stand beside the sofa and handed me the ugly voodoo gris-gris, the one that had helped protect us from at least some of Reedrek's evil.

"Tell me the rest of it. What is it that you keep insisting that you are and that you can't change? Tell me now."

I opened the door and was halfway through it when I turned and choked out, "Please. Don't hate me. I couldn't stand that."

"If you go out that door, we're finished."

I left, shutting the door behind me.

I paused outside Connie's apartment and caught my breath. The fresh burn on my hand was agonizingly raw. I looked around the hallway, hoping to see a planter with water in it, or anything liquid I could put on the burn. Then I looked at the charm in my other hand. It was an ugly thing, with chickens' beaks and claws and who knew what else strung on some kind of gut string. What the h.e.l.l. I held it against my ruined hand.

No sooner had it connected with my skin than I felt a soothing coolness. The fire was leaching out of the wound as surely as I was a son of Satan. I looked up to see a mist rising to the ceiling. It was dark gray at first and then lightened until it looked like clear steam. It didn't coalesce against the ceiling but disappeared completely. Within thirty seconds, the mist was gone and the pain was easing.

The relief from my healed hand soon gave way to heartache, though, as I thought about how the scene with Connie had just played out. I gazed back at her door one more time. The door's peephole caught my eye, and I saw something that ordinary human vision probably wouldn't have spotted through the distorted gla.s.s. A dark eye peered at me in surprise, disappearing when I met its startled gaze. Connie had seen.

I was in an interior hallway, but I knew the sun was already up. I descended the steps to the tunnels ' murky dankness and headed toward my garage.

I would spend a sleepless day tossing and turning on the couch in my windowless office, thinking about the love I had just lost.

Three.

William I awoke early. Sleep had been sweeter and deeper than at any time in recent memory, which for a vampire could mean decades.

But I wanted to get on with the night, the first night of the rest of our lives, as the moderns would say. It 's a corny saying, but accurate. Waking with Eleanor in my arms was almost enough to unfreeze the last glaciers of hate that weighed down on my crystalized heart.

Eleanor... I whispered, mind-to-mind.

With a contented hmmmmm she stretched, arching her spine, pushing her beautiful backside against me. She remained lost in her now immortal dreams.

"We have lessons to learn, sweet," I said aloud. "You need to hunt-"

She sucked in a quick breath, pulled back from the dead by hunger. Yes, she would hunt. A shiver of antic.i.p.ation sizzled under my skin.

I pushed open the coffin lid and sat up, gently pulling Eleanor along with me. A dog 's head appeared over the edge. Warm brown eyes gazed at Eleanor with an emotion that could only be described as idolatry. Deylaud looked as though he hadn't slept a wink-guarding our new treasure with canine teeth. Instead of moving away, he shyly licked her hand.

"h.e.l.lo, sweet boy," she said, sliding fingers over his head and between his ears. At the touch, Deylaud betrayed a low moan of ecstasy.

For some reason his pleasure annoyed me. "Enough," I snapped. "Move and let us get up."

He backed away obediently, without meeting my eyes. That 's when I noticed Reyha, perched like an Egyptian queen on her barge-or in this case, my leather ottoman-glaring in our direction. No love lost there. As I helped Eleanor from the coffin and into a silk wrapper, Reyha reluctantly came to sit next to Deylaud. I tugged on my own robe and belted it.

"Good morning," I said, resuming the same voice, the same manner, I 'd always used. The echo in the quiet room sounded different today, even to me. Rather than showing the usual exuberance for another night spent together, Reyha and Deylaud stood transfixed.

Just then Melaphia bustled into the chamber, looking tired and harried, her arms full of fresh clothes, with her daughter, Renee, skipping behind her. Mel stopped, surprised to see us up and about.

"The sun is still shining," she said. Turning to her daughter, she asked, "What time is it, Ren?"

Without consulting a watch or clock, Renee answered, "Four thirty-eight, Maman."

"Thank you," Melaphia said, then looked toward me with a questioning gaze. "Everything is fine," I answered. "We've got things to do, that's all." I slipped an arm around Eleanor's waist. "Renee, you remember Miss Eleanor, do you not?"

"Yes, Captain," she answered, using Melaphia's method of addressing me. (I'm not as fond of being called "Uncle" as Jack seems to be.) Renee curtsied. "h.e.l.lo, Miss Eleanor."

The newly made vampire, Eleanor, paused to take in a long slow breath, as though she were smelling dinner on a stove somewhere. Then she smiled like the human she used to be, "h.e.l.lo again, Renee."

Melaphia set the clothes on the nearest table but kept her gaze on Eleanor as she spoke to Renee. "Okay, honey-girl, you may as well take these two out to play since everybody is stirring." She didn't sound too pleased about the change in schedule.

"I'll race you to the kitchen door!" Renee called, and took off running. Reyha sprang up in pursuit, but Deylaud hung back with a whine of divided loyalty. He stared at Eleanor.

Before I could respond, Eleanor said, "I'll be here when you get back." Without a backward glance in my direction, Deylaud sprinted after his sister and Renee. I was still puzzling over his behavior when Eleanor leaned into my arms to speak in my ear. "I could eat my weight in filet mignon-raw." In demonstration, she politely nipped my ear with her teeth.

"Soon, sweet. We'll go hunting in a while."

Melaphia, facing Eleanor's back, gave me a look that spoke volumes: Be careful what you wish for.

I ignored it and changed the subject.

"I'd like you to set up some basic lessons concerning voodoo. Since Eleanor and I, along with Jack, are of the blood, it 's time we looked further into our strengths and weaknesses. Oh, and I suppose we should include Werm as well."

Melaphia sniffed at the sound of his name. "That boy shoulda been put out of his misery," she grumbled, hands on hips. "Not a lick of common sense. He's almost too stupid to exist-even in the regular world."

"Yes, I know." I sighed and Eleanor pulled me closer, as if her body could separate me from Melaphia.

"How do you know you can trust him?" Melaphia persisted, but her gaze was on Eleanor now.

I didn't have to read her mind to know what she was truly worried about: my trusting Eleanor too much. It couldn't be helped, however. I'd made my bed, so to speak, and now would gladly lie down in it.

"I must trust him," I said with more than a little urgency. "We have to be ready with all our strength in the likely event someone comes to avenge Reedrek." I have more to protect now. I won't be surprised again.

"I'll see to it, then. We'll begin tonight after moonrise. Please tell Jack to be here at midnight."

Another surprise. Melaphia and Jack were usually thick as thieves. Why would she ask me to speak to him? She cut short the opportunity for me to ask by turning and leaving. I heard her mumbling to herself all the way down the pa.s.sageway. Summarily dismissed, I understood a bit of how Jack must've felt in the past. I had the unusual urge to shout, You're not the boss of me! after her. Instead I nuzzled Eleanor's neck and thought about where I might find her filet mignon.

Jack After leaving Connie's, I'd made it to the garage through the tunnels and found it locked up tight, just as it should have been.

Midnight Mechanics was open from dusk to dawn, supposedly to specialize in automotive emergencies. My human partner, Rennie, had gone home to get his own beauty sleep, so I could spend the day there without being bothered. It's hard for a vampire to get a good day's rest outside a coffin. When a vampire sleeps during the day, it 's like he's well and truly deceased-croaked, snuffed, drawn down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. Don't ask me why. That's just the way it is.

But it's even harder to rest when your undead heart is broken. Why oh why hadn't I listened to Mel? Now my chance to be with Connie had gone up in smoke, almost literally, and she thought I was a freak. Make that knew I was a freak.

I don't know how long I lay on the vinyl couch in the office and stared at the ceiling, my last conversation with Connie running through my head. Every time I thought I was about to drift off, the image of her face-angry, hurt, and confused-flashed onto the movie screen of my mind again, kicking my b.u.t.t with guilt and sorrow.

After tossing and turning for hours, I finally got to sleep.

I was standing in the mist. The corona of light surrounding the nearest street lamp cast a dim pallor on pavement that was shiny with the dampness of cold drizzle. All the lights were out in the houses along the square. It wasn't a night fit for the warm-blooded.

I saw a slender figure approach me. When he was still only a silhouette I knew I hated him. You had to hate anybody who walked like that. It was a go-to-h.e.l.l kind of swagger, the c.o.c.ky walk of someone who has never lost a fight, not with the mortals he liked to prey on, anyway. I knew he was a vampire.

When he got to the street lamp, he stopped and took a drag on his cigarette, looking me up and down, taking my measure. He was lean and lanky, dressed in black jeans, a navy peacoat, and heavy s.h.i.t-stomping boots. His light hair looked almost orange, like it had been rinsed with blood. He let out a lungful of smoke and laughed. His laughter was as arrogant as his walk. My fangs ached.

"Something funny, punk?" I asked.

"You, mate," he said in a working-cla.s.s English accent.

A limey. It figured. Me and my Irish ancestry just loved those guys. Especially the ones who laughed at me. "Why don't you let me in on the joke?"

"You're the joke. That's all. Here you stand, all ready to try and protect Savannah from me and my kind. And you just a pretender to the throne."

"Throne? What throne?"

"Why, the Thorne throne." He chuckled at his own joke.

His crazy talk was something right out of one of those ridiculous dreams everybody has now and then. I shook my head. But if this was a dream it was the most lifelike one I'd ever had. I could see every bloodshot line in the whites of his feline-green eyes. I could smell the human blood on his breath at ten paces. He'd just fed.

"Stop talking nonsense. What do you want from me?"

His smug grin disappeared, and he flicked the cigarette away. "I want your friggin' heart on a pike, mate. And your sire's as well. I think I'm gonna like being king of America."

My fangs extended to their full length and I could feel my eyes dilate, taking in all available light, giving me a better view of my enemy. He shed his coat, and his dirty V-neck T-shirt revealed an ugly, knotted, hand-high scar starting at the hollow of his throat-a scar in the form of a cross. d.a.m.n, that must've caused some serious hurt. But not as much as I was about to give him.

"King this," I said, launching myself at him, swinging with my right. He ducked and danced away, bouncing on his toes like a boxer. The c.o.c.ky grin was back. I circled him, waiting for an opening. I felt the muscles in my back and shoulders became thicker and stronger. I was turning into the soulless animal I'd hidden for so long. I hadn't gone into full vamp-out mode in a while. It felt downright liberatin'.

He flew at me then, leaving the ground as if he'd been shot out of a gun. The lean, corded muscles of his arm flexed as he balled his fist and threw a punch. I dodged and the blow caught me on the shoulder but not hard enough to spin me around. I squared up again immediately. There was shock in his eyes that he hadn't hurt me. I hauled off and punched him in the jaw so hard that he flew six feet backward and nearly wrapped himself around the pole of the street lamp. His head connected with the cast-iron and it rang like a church bell. You'd think he'd at least be a little dazed, but he wasn't. This was an old and powerful vamp.

He came at me again, fangs first, aiming for my throat. I lowered my head and caught him in the midsection with my shoulder, flipping him up and over my head. His back slammed on the pavement, and I was on him in the beat of a human heart, pinning his shoulders to the ground, going at his neck with my fangs. I could almost taste his blood and the power that came with it, but it wasn't thirst that made me want to kill him. I knew in my dead heart 's core that this vampire was a threat to me. A threat to my existence and my place in this city, in this world. I don't understand how, but I knew it as well as I knew my own name. My lips pulled back, unsheathing my awful teeth completely. But before I could sink fangs into flesh, a hand gripped my neck from behind.

It was William.

"Not this one," he said. "This one is mine."

I woke standing straight up and sweating bullets. So it had been a dream. Nice time to find out. The couch I'd been sleeping on was turned over. All the papers from the desk were on the floor and the desk chair was broken in half. I 'd tried to kill another vampire in my sleep, which was a first in the roughly century and a half of my existence as a blood drinker. In the process I 'd managed to trash the office-Rennie was gonna be p.i.s.sed. Before I could get the couch right side up again, the phone rang.

"Yeah?" I muttered.

"Jack, it's Olivia."

It was our vampiric English rose, who'd been with us when the struggle with my grandsire Reedrek went down. She'd been back in Jolly Old for weeks now. What could she want?

"Honey, I'd love to chat, but do you know what time it is over here? It's full daylightthirty. Before you called I was dead to the world," I lied.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but I'm in an awful way. There's something I have to get off my chest."

And what a chest it was, I recalled. "Now?"

"Yes. Please. I've got to talk to someone."

c.r.a.p. What was it with me and other dead people? Not just vampires, but ghosts, corpses, newly dead, moldy-oldy dust-to- dust dead. They loved to confide in good old Jack. I couldn't walk through a cemetery without an invitation to chat. Other vamps didn't seem to have this problem. I flexed my sore hand. On top of being burned, I 'd punched out the couch with it. Olivia and I had been through a lot together in just a short time, so I guessed I owed her this much.

"Okay, darlin'. Shoot."

I heard her draw a shaky breath before beginning. "Do you remember I told you once that there were consequences-dire consequences-to breaking your word or lying to a master vampire?"

"Uh-huh." Oh me. Already I didn't like how this was starting off. Whatever hole she'd dug for herself, I knew she was about to try and drag me in with her. I was on the edge of telling her I had a quart of O positive on the stove about to boil over, but I wasn't fast enough.

"I've misled William."

d.a.m.n. Here it came. "Olivia, I-"

"I sort of lied to him, and I 'm suffering the consequences. I can't sleep. I can't feed. I'm shattered, Jack. You've got to help me."

"You what? How can I help?"

"I'm not sure it'll do any good, but I've got to tell someone. You're his offspring; maybe sharing it with you will lessen the pain."

Oh, that was just great. Want to spread around some pain? Just call Smilin' Jack. "Olivia, I've got my own problems here-"

"Please, Jack! It's not as if you were the one who lied to William. Perhaps you won't suffer any consequences at all."

"If you tell me a secret William needs to know, and I don't tell him, it'll be like I'm lying to him every stinkin' day!"