The Vampire's Betrayal.

by Raven Hart.

Letter from Jack, a Vampire

My name is Jack McShane, and I am a vampire in a world of hurt. First, I hear that the love of my life, a lady cop named Connie Jones, is a vampire slayer. And if that's not enough of a kick in the fangs, next I find out that she's talked a voodoo queen into opening the door to the underworld so she can dole out some vigilante justice to the ex-husband from h.e.l.l. Or rather, the ex- husband in h.e.l.l.

Now, you might think that a person in h.e.l.l was suffering enough. But that's not the way Connie sees it. She's out to personally kick his a.s.s. Sounds like overkill to me, if you'll pardon the expression, but whatever cranks your tractor.

Problem is, once you get to the underworld, whether you belong there or not, it's a little bit tricky to get yourself back out.

Vampires like me can travel to there, but since we did a U-turn out the first time around, our cosmic get-out-of-h.e.l.l-free ticket's already been punched. If the man in charge down there catches me, he might just decide to keep me forever.

See, my sire, William, once voluntarily went to h.e.l.l to save somebody he loved, and he almost didn't make it back. Now I've gone and done the same thing, and it seems like I might be stuck down here. I aim to bring Connie back if it's the last thing I do. But I don't know whether I'll be able to find my way home again like William did. He has a lot more experience dealing with h.e.l.lish dilemmas than I do.My friend Melaphia-that's the voodoo queen-says that if I don't let Connie go, my Latin lovely will slay me someday. There will be no escape for me. All I can say is: if my destiny on this earth is to be staked by a vampire slayer named Connie Jones, so be it.

For now, all I'm going to think about is getting my woman and flying out of here like a vampire bat out of h.e.l.l. As far as the Slayer business is concerned, I'll think about that tomorrow, as Scarlett O'Hara used to say.

One problem at a time.

Letter from William, a Vampire I, William Cuyler Thorne, am already dead, a blood drinker for some five hundred years. I have suffered losses that would make most mortals beg for death. They say that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but I will not be blessed with more strength. My strength arose from an infernal source, not from the supreme being who gives both suffering and salvation to the living.

I am a vampire. I'm on my own.

My comfortable world, carefully built over many human lifetimes, is falling apart like the proverbial house of straw. My loved ones are in the deepest peril. In order to save the child of my heart, Melaphia's daughter, I was forced to slay one of my own. I had made my offspring Eleanor for myself, thinking that she would be my loving mate through all eternity. To kill her felt as if I'd had my soul ripped from me all over again.

I loved her. Contrary to popular belief, vampires can love. Pa.s.sionately. I hungered for her, and her absence cuts me like cold steel. The whisper of her final breath as I drained the last of her blood will haunt me until I am returned to dust.

Now my first offspring, Jack-more a son to me than the male child of my own flesh-is in mortal danger. As I did, he has gone to save the woman he loves-a woman whose very nature is poison to him, and to me as well.

If I have to, I will descend into h.e.l.l to get him back. Only the devil knows if either of us can return.

Even if we do make it back to our Savannah home, our problems will have only just begun. For powers vastly greater than those wielded by my little Savannah family are bearing down on us like h.e.l.lhounds unleashed by Satan himself.

One.

William

I stood in the bas.e.m.e.nt vault of my home and stared at the lifeless bodies of Jack McShane and Connie Jones. They were lying peacefully. Little altars surrounded them, bearing flickering candles and strewn with fragrant herbs.

Melaphia, the foremost voodoo mambo in this hemisphere and my adopted daughter, teetered on the brink of madness. The confusion in her eyes made me want to take her in my arms and comfort her, but first I had to find out what had happened to Jack and his lady friend. Jack still had his corporeal form, so he might not be truly lost, and Connie had the blush of life on her cheeks.

Whatever was wrong, it might not be too late for them, but I knew I must act quickly.

I had just arrived home with Melaphia's nine-year-old daughter, Renee, after rescuing her from kidnappers. When Renee was stolen Melaphia had gone catatonic. I had hoped that the child's return would restore Melaphia's sanity, but I could see now that I'd been foolish in thinking it would be that simple. Whatever had happened in this room only served to further traumatize her. The only thing she'd said since we'd reached the vault was Everything is fine. I have much to tell you. Clearly, whatever she had to tell me, everything was not fine.

"What has happened here?" I asked, willing the panic from my voice. "Tell me all of it. Focus, my dear. You must, for Jack's sake." Melaphia licked her lips and squinted at me. "She wanted to see her son."

I glanced at Connie, who was dressed in a flowing white gown. "Connie has a son? Where is he?"

"Dead," Melaphia whispered.

My heart sank. "The underworld?"

"Yes."

My mind raced ahead of Melaphia's explanation, and I didn't like where it was going. I knew Jack had discovered that Connie possessed some extrahuman powers and Melaphia had been helping to investigate the specifics. No matter what Connie turned out to be, I found it hard to believe she could have crossed over from the world of the living to the world of the dead by herself.

Melaphia, on the other hand...She was a voodoo pract.i.tioner of the highest order, and the ways of the dead and the land they inhabited was her birthright.

"Melaphia, did you help Connie cross over?" I put my hands gently on her shoulders and turned her to face me when she tried to turn away. She met my gaze again and nodded. "Why?" I demanded.

"Because I know what it is like to lose a child," she said. "My baby was gone. I would have done anything to be at Renee's side, even if she'd been in h.e.l.l. Connie begged me, William."

There was more she wasn't telling me. Much more. "You have to tell me everything."

"Uncle Jack..." Melaphia said, kneeling to touch his alabaster cheek. He was as still as a statue. Indeed, the pallor of his skin and his exquisite masculine bone structure made him look as if he had been rendered in marble by some master sculptor. The only thing that looked lifelike about him now was the blue-black sheen of his wavy hair.

I felt as if my emotions were being whipped this way and that by an epic storm. No sooner had I gotten Renee to safety than I'd discovered Jack, my first-born and best-loved offspring, in this gruesome tableau a la the ending of Romeo and Juliet. It grieved me to see this powerful bear of a man so helpless.

Jack had remained more in touch with his own humanity than any other blood drinker I had ever known. He moved in and out of the human world effortlessly and maintained a bevy of human friendships. He had risked his immortal well-being for his mortal friends more than once.

Hanging on to his erstwhile humanity was a trait I had unconsciously encouraged, never objecting to his relationships beyond a casual warning to be careful. Not that I could have stopped him from doing as he d.a.m.ned well pleased anyway. I couldn't help but think that my inattention to his dalliances with humans might now have contributed to his destruction.

"Help me," I said. "Help me to help Jack. We have to get him back before he wanders too far for us to reach."

Melaphia straightened up and appeared to be making an earnest effort to focus her attention on me. "Yes. We have to get him back. But not her. She must stay."

Jack d.a.m.n, it was dark. And worse, I didn't sense Connie anywhere. While I waited for my super-duper vamp vision to adjust to the unnatural blackness, I breathed in deeply, hoping to catch the scent she always wore. She smelled like lilacs. My sense of smell, as sharp as my vision, didn't pick up anything as sweet as flowers. Instead, it smelled like...h.e.l.l. The stench of decay, and nastiness I couldn't even identify, made my nose twitch.

I tried to remind myself that there were good places to be in this land of the dead as well. Heaven, if you want to put it like that. I remember William telling me about helping Shari-a poor girl who wanted to be a vampire but didn't make it-into one of those better places. That's where Connie was headed. She wanted to see that her little boy was fine. That his soul was at peace, you might say. How in the world would she find her way? And how was I going to find her so I could make sure she got back home?

It occurred to me that I should have thought of these questions before I'd gone off half-c.o.c.ked and used voodoo to get myself into this pit. These souls in eternal torment produced noises that ranged from piteous whining to ferocious snarling. It was enough to make my hair stand on end. There's not much that scares a vampire. I'm pretty much the scariest dude you could ever run across topside. Hey, if it's true it ain't bragging, as they say. But I had a feeling that here there was a whole slew of creatures that could kick my behind.

My eyes were as accustomed to this infernal darkness as they were going to get, but I could still only make out shapes. The slithering, scaly, slimy sliding sounds of ghoulies in motion made me almost glad I couldn't see. If I was scared and grossed out, how must Connie feel? My first instinct was to call out for her, but I hesitated because I didn't think many of the denizens of this dark place had noticed me yet, so they might not have noticed her either. If I started yelling, they might figure out that we were both down here.

But what if something else found her first? Connie is a tough lady. That's one of the zillion or so things that makes her so awesome, but for all her experience catching bad guys, nothing in her background would help her with what she now faced.

As I stood and wondered which way to go and what to do, it struck me how great things had been just a few hours ago. Connie and I had just had s.e.x for the first time. The earthmoving, toe-curling, eyes-rolling-back-in-your-head variety of s.e.x as a matter of fact. And I was as close as a bloodsucker can come to cloud nine. Then I'd realized that the lovemaking was Connie's way of saying good-bye. By the time I figured out what she'd done and where she'd gone, it was almost too late to follow.

Oh, h.e.l.l. If I was going to find Connie before she got too far away from me in this darkness there was no way around making enough noise to let her know where I was-and wake the dead at the same time, no doubt. "Connie," I called. Immediately I sensed that I had the full attention of the other citizens of the underworld. They thought I was calling them. To me.

Oh. My. G.o.d.

I suddenly remembered my little gift, as William liked to call it. I was so focused on getting to Connie I'd forgotten the effect I have on dead people. Dead people other than myself, that is. Ghosts, zombies, and everything in between. It's like they're attracted to me. h.e.l.l, they love me. Jack McShane, corpse whisperer.

Savannah's full of dead people, and not just in the cemeteries. The city's history is full of wars, piracy, great fires, epidemics, you name it. In battle, people were buried where they fell. In the fires and yellow fever epidemics, their bodies were burned and their ashes scattered to the four winds. Brigands and cutthroats robbed and killed men unlucky enough to cross their paths and the bodies were stashed in the tunnels under the city and in hidey holes along the riverbanks.

Those spirits reach out to me as I go about my business by night. They reach out for solace, for confession, for someone to talk to.

This doesn't happen to other vampires, and I don't know why it happens to me. What can I say? I'm a popular guy.

Now the dead were coming toward me from all sides. Something bony grasped my shoulder, and I shook it off. Something wispy and filthy-smelling brushed my hip, and I stepped away. I was being surrounded, and I wasn't going to hang around to see what they would do to me when they got me completely hemmed in. I sensed that this bunch wanted more than conversation.

Since I couldn't locate Connie anywhere around, I did what any sensible guy would do. I ran.

I ran blindly, bouncing off demons so fast I felt like I was a ball bearing in the devil's pinball machine. Once in a while, something howled in pain and rage or something else made a grab for some part of me, but I kept going. Right until a solid form landed on my back and rode me to the ground like it was fixin' to calf-rope me.

Whatever it was had a familiar scent. A good scent, but not Connie's. This was someone freshly dead. I decided it was lavender I smelled. The thing eased up on me just enough to flip me over to face her.

"Eleanor?" I gasped. "What in h.e.l.l are you doing...in h.e.l.l?" In response, she hauled off and punched me on the chin with every bit of her vampiric strength. The last thing I remember thinking was that old saying about how there's nothing like a woman scorned.

Two.

William "What are you talking about?" I tried to keep the emotion from my voice. "Why must Connie stay in the underworld?"

"She has unfinished business. A few years ago her ex-husband murdered their child in front of her and then turned the gun on himself."

In my bloodthirsty days as a fledgling vampire, I visited enough cruelty on humanity to burn in h.e.l.l for a thousand lifetimes. But as hardened as I was to mortal suffering it still filled me with horror to think of what Connie had gone through.

Melaphia continued, "When Connie realized at Sullivan's funeral that Jack can communicate with the dead, she wanted him to help her-but not just to serve as a medium like he did for Iban."

"She wanted Jack to take her to see her dead child?"

"Yes. She demanded that he take her to the underworld. Not only to make sure that her child was in a good place, but to make sure her ex-husband was in a bad place."

The more she talked, the more lucid Melaphia sounded, but I had no time to appreciate it. "But he didn't agree to it," I said, remembering Mel's earlier admission of culpability. "Tell me what happened."

"He refused her. That's when she came to me. By that time, I had performed some rituals to try to figure out what she is and what she was put here to do. I told her about the first revelation, that she is a G.o.ddess of the Maya."

"The first revelation?" Something tingled along my spine.

"For the rest I had to consult the most sacred of texts. It took me weeks, but I finally connected the dots. William, Connie is the vampire slayer who was prophesied by both my people and the Maya thousands of years ago. When two or more different cultures as mighty as these have the same prophecy, that which is prophesied is a virtual certainty."

"How can you be sure it's Connie?" My mind raced with the implications.

"There's too much to go into right now. But the clincher was the birthmark. Connie has a sun birthmark that matches the ancient drawings exactly. I've seen it with my own eyes."

I thought back to the conversation I overheard between Diana and Ulrich. For all we know, the Slayer may already be among us. Even the dark lords didn't know for sure. But Melaphia did. "I take it you didn't tell her that she's the Slayer."

"Of course not. She doesn't even know what a slayer is, as far as I know. But she's bound to discover it at some point. That's why I agreed to help her reach the underworld, and that's why she has to stay there. Her kind are sworn to kill you and Jack. I hate for her to be trapped in that place, but I had to protect my fathers. I never meant for Jack to follow her. He wasn't even supposed to find out where she'd gone. But he found us just as I'd finished the ritual and Connie crossed over."

"How did he manage to follow her? Jack doesn't know how to cross that boundary by himself."

"He didn't do it himself. He called on Loa Legba." Melaphia broke down in sobs. She obviously blamed herself for teaching Jack enough about voodoo to summon the G.o.d to whom Maman Lalee had a.s.signed him. "I taught him just enough to be dangerous,"

Melaphia said.Maman Lalee was a voodoo queen so powerful that she could hasten the souls of the dead on the way to the underworld. She had been my ally from the time I'd first arrived on these sh.o.r.es, and Melaphia was her descendant. When it became clear that the peaceable New World vampires were headed for battle with the most evil of ancient blood drinkers, Melaphia had agreed that we should increase our powers by appealing to the G.o.ds of her religion. Channeling Lalee, Melaphia had directed each of my family to pray to a specific G.o.d or G.o.ddess of the voodoo pantheon. Jack, with his gift of communication with other dead beings, was a.s.signed to appeal to Loa Legba, the G.o.d of the portal to the underworld, among other things.

I put my arms around Melaphia and comforted her as I had when she was a child. "That's our Jack," I said. "As resourceful as always, and just as pigheaded." And as brave, I thought. Like the mythic Orpheus, he had gone to rescue his Eurydice.

"The portal opened for him," Melaphia said and sobbed. "And then he was gone." She looked up at me with pleading eyes and called me by the t.i.tle she hadn't used since she was a child. "What are we going to do, Father? How are we going to get him back?"

"I'll go get him myself. I went to the underworld and made it back safely once. I can do it again." I tried to imbue my voice with more confidence than I felt, but Melaphia's look of horror let me know that I wasn't convincing.

"No! What if you both got stuck there? Who would protect Renee and me and all the other people who depend on you?"

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew that she was right: Jack and I both being trapped in another dimension was a strong possibility. Even if Melaphia was able to manifest Lalee, they might not be powerful enough to release us both from the grip of the underworld.

"You're right," I said, "I wasn't thinking."

Melaphia released a pent-up breath, but the furrow of worry still creased her forehead. "Do you think that if all of us who practice the religion were to come together to entreat Loa Legba, he would send Jack back to us? We don't have Jack's bond to him, but maybe he would hear us if we banded together."

"It's worth a try. My only worry is that opening the portal would allow other ent.i.ties through to our world."

"Bad ent.i.ties, you mean?"

"Yes. But it's the best idea we have. As a precaution, why don't you consult your sacred books to see if you can find any information on how to banish the unwanted back to the underworld? I'll go and find Werm."

"Can't you summon him through your bond between sire and offspring?"

"Unfortunately, Jack has cleverly taught Werm how to block my thoughts," I explained with slight bemus.e.m.e.nt. "That young man must enjoy his privacy because I haven't been able to reach his mind since shortly after I made him...unless he expressly wished it."

Melaphia stepped back and smoothed her hair, done up in the style she called dreadlocks. I could see that she was gathering her mental strength for the work ahead. I was glad to see her acting more like herself. I just hoped it lasted. I needed her knowledge and power as never before.

"Werm has his own business now," she said. "It's a bar. A goth bar." Melaphia told me the address and I turned to leave.

"I'm sorry," she said.

I turned to face her. "For what?"