The sword's faded outline on the wall filled me with an apprehension I couldn't fathom. I selected a splendid antique dagger from one of the display cases as a gift for Iban instead, and left a note to the store manager to put it on my personal account. I locked the door to the shop, unable to shake my unease. Sentimentality had never been part of my nature, and neither had self-a.n.a.lysis.

Still, I couldn't help concluding that the forfeiture of the sword was adding to my overall feelings of loss regarding Eleanor. Or perhaps I just thought it strange that it was gone.

I wrapped my overcoat closer around me and started to walk, not particularly caring where I was headed. Cold, bleak nights such as these would have stirred my blood not so long ago and put me in mind of the hunt. It had been many years since I'd given up the ham-handed barbarism of the old days in favor of a more subtle and civilized stalking. I might have been inspired to stalk a pretty coed walking alone from one of the bars along River Street, entice her to sit awhile with me on a park bench in the shadows. I would ply her with kisses and anesthetize her mind to the bite that would follow. She would awaken shortly, alone, none the worse save for a bit of weakness, a craving for drink, and two tiny puncture wounds on her throat.

But I was in no mood for the hunt this night. My most pressing need, as always, was more for s.e.x than food. I took out my cell phone and dialed a number. "I know it's late," I began. "But as always, I'll make it worth your while. Meet me at your boutique."

An hour later I was standing on the doorstep of Ginger's garden apartment with a gaily wrapped package in my hand. "You don't mind a late visitor, do you?" I inquired when she opened the door. "Especially one bearing gifts?"

"Of course not," she said, offering me a pretty smile. She stepped aside to let me in, and the invisible barrier that would have stopped me had she not issued the invitation melted away. I gave her the gift bag, which had been carefully prepared by the female acquaintance I'd paid handsomely to open her lingerie shop after hours.

Ginger took my coat, folded it over a chair, and invited me to sit. "What on earth can this be?"

"Open it," I said.

Ginger issued a little squeal as she unwrapped the a.s.sortment of silk panties and bra.s.sieres. "Oh, you shouldn't have."

"They're to replace the ones I destroyed," I said. She was looking quite attractive in the garment she now wore. A teddy, I believed it was called, in a swirly turquoise satin print that put one in mind of the sea.

"Ooh, you bought me a whole wardrobe of them! There's every color of the rainbow here."

"Do you like them?"

"I love them," she cooed. "Would you like me to model them for you?"

Slowly I looked her up and down, from the top of her auburn hair down to the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the hollow of her waist and the curve of her hips. Down to the place where the scalloped edge of the sea-colored satin barely covered her s.e.x, along her fine, long legs to her shapely feet with their pink-painted toenails.

"No," I said. "I want you bare."

"Then bare I'll be."

She smiled and wriggled her shoulders just enough to loosen the spaghetti straps of her garment; she then let it slide down her body to pool at her slender ankles. In the darkness of last night's encounter I hadn't seen her body as clearly as I would have wished, even with my keen, vampiric sight. Now I let my gaze feast on her perfection.

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were full and heavy. Whether this was a feat of nature or modern engineering I neither knew nor cared, especially when she leaned over me for a kiss. I cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in my palms and the nipples responded by becoming erect. I removed my lips from hers and gave them over to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, suckling as if I could wrest from them the life-giving human blood I craved.

Ginger moaned deeply and pressed more firmly against me as she reached to unfasten my trousers. She seized and stroked me with both hands, my own moan involuntarily removing my lips from her nipple. Kneeling before me, she took me in her mouth and let her lips move up and down the length of my shaft in an intoxicating rhythm that put me in mind of ocean waves pounding their way onto the sh.o.r.e.

She released me from her mouth and straddled me, putting me inside her. I cradled her bottom in my hands and drew her closer, fitting my c.o.c.k inside her as deeply as her body would allow. She gasped and drew her legs up involuntarily and perhaps defensively, but the movement only allowed me to probe more deeply. I pulled back slightly for another stroke and arched my back to go deeper still. She took a deep breath and shifted, trying to relax so she could accommodate more of me.

"That's it," I whispered as I drew out of her, a little more this time. I thrust again, only harder. And so it went until both of us came together in a violent sun-burst of sensation.

As I laid my head back against the chair, sated, I let the memories of other times and other lips overtake me, and I could have sworn I smelled the faint fragrance of lavender.

Jack I wondered if Melaphia knew of some spell or potion that could turn me to stone.

I'd wept until I couldn't anymore. Did you know that vampire tears appear pink against white linens? I guess it's because they're mixed with the blood that animates us. I'd seen my own tears so rarely in my immortal lifetime that their unnatural color always shocked me, made me wonder just for a moment why they looked that way. Then I remembered.

Maybe one day I would stop hating the things that reminded me I was dead. William had been right all the times he told me that I still felt more human than vampire. He told me once that I would wake up one night having put all memories of being human behind me, and only then would I have come of age as a blood drinker.

Only then would I stop being shocked at the color of my own tears.

I stood mutely outside Connie's apartment door with a bouquet of lilacs in my hand. Connie must have sensed me there with her brand-new slayer perceptiveness, because she opened the door I was too much of a coward to knock on.

"There you are," she said. She took the flowers from my hand and I followed her into the apartment. "My favorite. How in the world did you get them? You don't see them in florist shops very often even when they're in season."

I shrugged in response and sat on the couch while she got a vase from the kitchen. She returned and set the vase on an end table beside us. I put my arm around her and hugged her close when she sat beside me.

"You're awfully quiet tonight," she said.

"I guess so." I held her tighter and took one of her hands in mine, rubbing the pad of my thumb over her smooth, soft skin. Warm human skin. "I don't feel much like talking, but I want to hear you talk."

"What do you mean?" She twisted her head to look up at me quizzically. The movement bared her pale throat, sending a wave of pain and guilt over me. I forced myself to look away.

"I want you to tell me everything about yourself." "You already know my checkered past," she said.

"I told you about being abandoned and adopted, all of that." Her face took on a strained look for a moment, and I knew she was considering the idea of telling me about the tragic event that had brought her to Savannah and to me. And ultimately to her death, although she didn't know it yet.

But I didn't want our last conversation to be sad. I didn't want to see hurt in her eyes. "Your middle name," I blurted. "What is it?"

"Huh?"

I couldn't help myself. I had to smile at the funny expression she gave me, at the way her eyes crinkled at the edges when she came close to laughing. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to memorize that look so that I could hold it for as long as I might exist, though to conjure it in my memory would only mean suffering.

"Don't you think I should know your middle name? I want to know everything about you. Like-what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? Um, what was your high school like? Why the little toe on your right foot is so ugly."

She punched me playfully on the chest, laughing. "That toe is a badge of honor. I broke it in the state soccer tournament and we won."

"Hey, watch the pecs," I said, rubbing my chest. "I would hate to see what you'd do to me if you'd lost. And the ice cream?"

"White chocolate chunk."

"I've never tasted white chocolate in my life," I said. She opened her mouth to give me one of her witty remarks and then fell silent.

There I went again, reminding us both that I was a vampire. "What about that high school?" I said, changing the subject.

"I went to Saint Pius the Tenth high school," she said. "Known affectionately in Atlanta as Pi High."

"That sounds wholesome."

"Oh, it was. The nuns made sure of that."

"And your middle name?"

"I have several. Take your pick. My name is Lareina Senalda Drina Consuela Adalia, but you can call me Connie."

"I'm honored. That's a long name to saddle on a little bitty baby."

"A long, pretentious name."

"What does it mean?"

"I'm sorry to say that I don't speak a word of Spanish. But they tell me it means something like 'the queen with a sign or symbol who helps, defends, and consoles mankind.'"

"The 'sign or symbol' being your birthmark."

"Yeah, the sun birthmark that Melaphia says means I'm a G.o.ddess."

That brought me back around to reality. I kissed the top of Connie's head and then she wriggled around to face me. "You can do better than that," she said, "or I'm not Lareina Senalda Drina Consuela Adalia Jones."

I kissed her ardently, deeply, trying to convey everything I felt for her but would not be able to put into words even if I could speak, which I was sure I could not. Her lips held the promise of hot lovemaking, but that would not be happening again. Even if I could have brought myself to make love to Connie tonight, the memory would have skewered me with white-hot shame every time I closed my eyes.

I broke off the kiss and whispered, "I love you."

"I love you, too," she said.

I swallowed hard. It was now or never. Looking deeply into her eyes, I concentrated my glamour on making her know my love for her. I love you, never anyone as much as you before, and never anyone again.

"You're getting sleepy." I heard myself say the words like some cheesy nightclub hypnotist, only from somewhere far away, outside my own body.

She nodded, closed her eyes, and slept, her face offering me the most wonderful smile I'd ever seen. No angel's could have been as sweet. It charmed me and froze time for a precious, peaceful moment.

I closed my eyes, too, afraid that if I looked up I would see that across the room the Blessed Virgin's icon had begun to stare at me in revulsion and censure, perhaps even silently crying her own tears. In my remorse I addressed both her and Connie as I whispered, "Forgive me."

My fangs pierced Connie's throat just over her carotid artery, and the blood flowed in the way human blood did, sure but unhurried, like the Savannah River to the sea. The monster in me savored the taste and the aroma, hungering for more while what was still human in my mind screamed in desperation and horror. I felt like a creature coming apart at the seams, sinew by raw sinew, atom by atom. My dual natures warred against each other until I thought my nerves would catch fire.

I felt Connie's heartbeat as the blood flowed into my mouth. I sucked at the artery, wishing it to be over so I could crawl away somewhere and die like I deserved to. But then I felt something else.

Another heartbeat.

I stopped, sealing the wounds on Connie's neck with my saliva, and tried to think of what could account for what I had felt.

William told me once that I was special, that I had powers and gifts I hadn't discovered yet, ones even he didn't understand. I'd always had powers of communication with the dead. I could feel them as I walked close to their resting places. If I was supersensitive to death, could I also be hyperaware of life?

I looked at Connie's sleeping form as I cradled her in my arms. The bloom of life still blushed her cheeks. I held her close to me and pressed my ear to her chest, hearing the steady if weak lub-dub of her heart.

Then I moved my head so that my ear was against her abdomen. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate the power of my vampiric senses into my hearing. There it was. A tiny heartbeat. Connie was carrying a child.

My child.

Eleven.

William I arose early the following night and went to my desk to catch up with correspondence and other business matters that had piled up during my recent absence. The evening before, the other vampires and I had returned to the mansion in the wee hours-they from Werm's club and I from my tryst with Ginger. We smoked the Cuban cigars Iban had brought and sipped a fine brandy while listening to Travis's tales of fighting Cortes and the other conquistadors. His deep voice and the gentle cadence of his speech were so soothing, it was almost possible to forget what poor Jack was going through.His plight still weighed on me this evening, and I wished to occupy my mind to keep from thinking about him and the sad task he'd had to undertake the night before.

I had chosen to stay out of his private affairs over the years, but now I wished I had warned him more strongly against becoming involved with human women. But then, I'd failed to heed that advice myself and paid the price with my peace of mind and my everlasting sorrow.

Despite the fact that Jack could block me from reading his thoughts and emotions directly, he could not always hide his emotions from me when he was in my presence, especially when those emotions were strong. The night he had come back from the underworld, when I first told him he must prepare himself to kill Connie, I knew he hadn't accepted it. I could see it in his face.

Jack always thought he could finesse his way out of a bad situation, and many times he could, especially when that situation involved human beings.

But last night Jack had realized that his charm and cleverness were useless against the dire circ.u.mstances we found ourselves in. I could tell the instant when he understood that there was no getting around the fact that he had to kill his lady love. The life, for lack of a better term, had gone out of him as clearly and visibly as the mortal verve dies at the point of a fang.

The administrative tasks before me were mere workaday trivialities, but I hoped they would distract me from my morose thoughts.

As I sifted through the papers, I could not muster any enthusiasm for my labors.

Melaphia appeared in the vault, bearing a carafe of warm blood and several cups on a tray. "Your guests aren't up yet, I see."

"I suppose they're jet-lagged," I remarked. "They're not used to the sun setting until three hours from now."

"Let me pour you some breakfast while you wait for them."

"Thank you, my dear, but I'm not hungry."

Melaphia set the tray down on the edge of my huge desk and came to stand behind me. Rubbing my shoulders, she said, "It's a sad night."

"Indeed it is."

"I've started my preparations for approaching both Maman Lalee and the G.o.ds about keeping the Portal from the underworld closed to the double-deads," she said. "I've sent for the appropriate potions and offerings. I'm still going over the texts and making lists of things I should include in the spells. Deylaud is helping, of course."

"Good. Is he still grieving for Eleanor?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so, but keeping him busy is helping." With a final squeeze of my shoulders, she sat down in the leather wing chair opposite the desk.

"How are you doing?"

I shrugged. "I may eventually get over her absence, I suppose. But it's difficult to know how much suffering I've caused her."

"But William, there was nothing you could have done differently."

"Not once she was out of control, no. I'm just sorry I let her persuade me to make her a blood drinker in the first place. But let's not speak of it again. I don't want to saddle you with any more of my burdens." By way of changing the subject, I asked, "So how goes the general research into the nature of the Slayer?"

"I confirmed what Travis and the European legends say about the fact that the Slayer is half-human and half-vampire. In the eyes of the Maya, that elevated her to a G.o.ddess. I think I've found some pa.s.sages that may shed more light on what we're dealing with, if I can interpret them correctly. I'm on my way to my little altars in the pa.s.sageway to say my prayers for guidance now." She paused a moment, and then said, "It's still strange to think of a vampire fathering a half-human child. It goes against every law of nature."

I sighed, feeling each one of my five-hundred-odd years. "True," I agreed. "But when it comes to nature, I believe what Hamlet said to Horatio applies."

Melaphia raised a slender brow. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

"Heaven, earth, and the underworld," I added. "I hope that in the fullness of time when you reach heaven you will know all and understand all."

"That would be a blessing," she said. She began to speak again, but held her tongue. I sensed that she had been about to wish me the same good fortune.

But we both knew heaven wasn't where I was headed.