Before Melaphia disappeared around the corner to the little altars that lined the pa.s.sageway to the vault, I said, "Don't forget to get your sleep."

"I'll be burning the midnight oil translating that text about the Slayer. It may tell us something important."

I drummed my fingers on the desk. "Very well, but don't exhaust yourself. You've been through a series of devastating shocks of late. I don't want you to fall ill...again."

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll be fine."

I smiled as she left the main room of the vault for the recesses of the stairway and tried to concentrate on the paperwork.

As a first order of business, I called Mr. Murphy, the manager of my antique store. When I inquired about the sword, he became quite fl.u.s.tered.

"Oh, my goodness, Mr. Thorne, I thought that you had taken it. I know you've displayed it in your home from time to time. So when it disappeared-"

"Disappeared? You mean you didn't sell it? When did you notice it missing?" I demanded, not bothering to hide my annoyance.

"It-it disappeared a couple of days ago. I questioned all the help. n.o.body sold it and n.o.body saw anyone take it. One day it was just...gone."

"Question them again," I said.

"Should I call the police?"

I thought about that a moment. There was something troubling about the sword's disappearance besides the fact that it was a personal favorite of mine. Some disturbing grain of suspicion irritated my consciousness. "No. After you talk to the staff, go through the receipts for recent purchases and see if anything gives you pause. If not, wait for my further instructions."

As I hung up the phone, I became aware of a mixture of aromas-cinnamon, vanilla bean, and rum-that brought back memories from the night I had first met Lalee. She was standing among a dozen graves, freshly dug for the victims of a yellow fever epidemic.

It was midnight, and she was beautiful, glowing with an inner light. Her skin was golden brown and her eyes were like onyx. Her long hair shimmered like strands of jet beads in the moonlight.

She knew me for what I truly was, and yet she was unafraid. In fact, she might have summoned me there. Afterward I was never sure how I got to those graves. Even if I'd wanted to harm her, I couldn't have. I was powerless in the face of her faith in her spirits and charms. She'd come to the grave sites that night to wing penitent sinners to heaven or whisper a dirge to transport the d.a.m.ned quickly to h.e.l.l. Such was the grandeur of her power, and I was awestruck by it.

We'd made a bargain that night. I would never-more kill a human being out of hunger, in temper, in pity, or for diversion. If I killed, it would only be for justice. And for that, she would give me the gift of the voodoo blood to strengthen me and my offspring, should I ever choose to make them. The young United States of America was barely past its colonial period; it was long before I met Jack McShane on that Civil War battlefield.

I had broken my promise of late, having flown into a rage upon seeing my wife in thrall to another blood drinker. I took my rage out on a number of defenseless mortals and killed out of anger as I had in the old days.

Later I tried to contact Lalee through prayers and offerings, seeking her forgiveness for breaking our bargain. My pleas went unanswered. I was left with only the unwavering suspicion that my broken bond could spell my doom. I told none of this to Jack, and especially not to Melaphia, but the feeling was growing stronger and stronger that my own downfall might be at hand.

I shivered. Clearly, while I had not been successful in manifesting Maman Lalee, Melaphia's efforts were bearing fruit. I could not only smell the fragrance of the great woman, I could sense her nearness as well. I rose to join Melaphia, hoping to bask in Lalee's aura.

Time seemed to expand as I felt myself coming closer to the lady. When I rounded the corner, I saw a ghostly form, swathed in a flowing gossamer robe, the unmistakable likeness of a very agitated Lalee.

"I heard you have spoke to de trickster," she said.

"I should have tole you not to pray to him, no. He is not your spirit guide. Did I not say it to you long ago? He is de guide of de blue-eyed blood drinker, not you. That handsome boy can see through de trickster's lies without he even try, but 'tis not in your nature to do so, gentle one. You are gullible. You are de light."

It was exceedingly rare for the Maman to appear in her true form. When she blessed us with her presence, her voice issued from a chosen one. Once and only once it was Jack. I knew that she favored him with her love, sensing the goodness in him.

"Dat loa has led you astray wid de lies and half-truths. Why you want believe him? You he would fool with his tricks just to make himself laugh. What did you ask him exactly?"

"I-I don't remember..."

"You must take care when consulting de loas. You must choose your words careful or he will twist dem to suit his mischievous ways. Dis you know already, but you got careless in your fear. He made you tink it was righteous to send dis vampire to slay de Slayer. It was a trick, yes. No one must kill de slayer of blood drinkers. She is sired of greatness and carries greatness within her."

Melaphia's eyes went wide. "Should the blood drinkers not fear her then?"

Lalee shimmered, becoming more transparent and insubstantial. "By de G.o.ds, dey should fear her power indeed!" she said.

Even though I could barely make out her features, I could swear she looked directly at me. Ordinarily I would be thrilled to make eye contact with the demiG.o.ddess once more, but this time, something indecipherable in her gaze shook me and made me want to turn away, but I did not.

I started to speak-to thank her for helping Melaphia save Renee in the bowels of London so that I could bring her home safely. I wanted to apologize and beg her forgiveness for breaking the oath I had made to her. I tried to form the words to ask her to guide us in our current dilemmas. But I was frozen in place as she began to disappear.

"Wait!" shouted Melaphia. "We need your advice! What can we do to stop the old lords? They are ready to open the portal to the underworld so the worst of their demons can prey on us. What should we do to stop them?"

"I do not have power over de kind of elemental forces dat it will take to free de basest demons, no," Lalee said, her voice becoming fainter. "And I do not have dominion over de ones most d.a.m.ned. You must beseech de most powerful beings in de heavens, and even dey may not be able to help you. May de G.o.ds have mercy o'er de souls of you all who I love."

In an instant the apparition was gone, and Melaphia and I looked at each other too shocked to move for a moment. We both knew that Lalee would not be back. "Quickly!" Melaphia shouted. "We've got to stop Jack before it's too late!"

"If it's not too late already," I said. I ran to my desk to call Jack on his cell phone. The other vampires, who had been in the process of rousing anyway, were startled fully awake by our shouting. They emerged from their coffins demanding to know what was happening. I dialed the phone while they peppered me with questions.

"Jack!" Melaphia shouted. I turned around to see him descending the stairs, and we all ran to him.

Jack "Jack, please tell us you didn't do it!" Melaphia cried while grabbing the lapels of my jacket.

"No, I didn't do it," I said. "I couldn't kill her. I-"

"Thank G.o.d," William said.

"Why wasn't Jack supposed to kill the Slayer?" Tobey asked.

Iban and Travis exchanged worried glances.

Melaphia slumped against my chest. Her breath was coming fast and in hitches. She seemed to be on the verge of breaking into laughter. Not the good kind, but the hysterical kind you go into when you almost step off a cliff into thin air and something stops you. I knew how she felt.

"Lalee just appeared to William and me. She said the loa Legba tricked me when he made me think you were supposed to kill Connie."

The relief I felt was indescribable. Not only did I not have to kill Connie, but I didn't have to worry about any of my friends killing her either. I hugged Melaphia and kissed her on top of the head like I did when she was small. Thank you, sweet Maman.

"How then are we to deal with the Slayer when she is activated?" Iban asked.

"She didn't say," Melaphia said, righting herself.

"She just said that the Slayer was sired of greatness and carried greatness within her."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Travis asked.

"I think I can answer the last part about carrying greatness within her," I said. They all looked at me expectantly. "Connie's pregnant."

It sounded strange to hear that out loud. It was all I'd been thinking about for the last twenty-four hours, but as I said the words I still couldn't reconcile myself to their meaning. Could it be possible? Had I fathered a child?

Melaphia's dark eyes went wide. "You? I mean, yours?"

"I'm sure she hasn't been with anybody else."

Everyone but William was stunned into silence.

"What happened last night, Jack?" he asked. "I put her under glamour like you said. Then I...did what I had to do," I said, not able to put the awful truth into words. "Then, while I was listening to see if she still had a heartbeat, I heard another one. A small one, and I knew. I sealed the wound, woke her up, and told her she got sick with the flu and pa.s.sed out. Then I told her she was dehydrated and started forcing her to drink fluids.

I stayed with her until just now to make sure she was going to be all right."

"How could she possibly survive blood loss like that?" Tobey asked.

Travis, looking stonier than one of the carvings on Mount Rushmore, said, "The Slayer's powers of healing will be as great as ours.

This is another sign that she is close to being activated."

"How far along is she?" Melaphia asked.

"A few days is all."

"How can you detect a life that small?" Iban wanted to know.

William said, "Jack is a very sensitive creature. I've known it all his life. We all know about his power to feel out the dead, even reanimate. It seems he is also as sensitive to the presence of life. I doubt if any medical device could detect a heartbeat at this stage, but with his gift, Jack can."

My sire and I just looked at each other. It was as hard to read William as ever, but I could swear I saw something like awe in his face. "It looks as if Jack is much more special than even I understood. He has just fathered a child." One corner of his mouth turned up in the barest suggestion of a smile.

"If all this is true," Travis said, "he has sired another vampire slayer." Travis looked like he wanted to spit on the ground. "How do we know this voodoo spirit has the interest of the blood drinkers at heart? Has she seen the slayers at work as I have?"

"She has your interests at heart because William made a pact with her a couple hundred years ago," Melaphia said, lifting her chin.

"And sealed it with the gift of the blood." Melaphia took any offense to the Maman personally.

"She's never let us down before. Remember who saved us from Reedrek not long ago," I said. "The voodoo blood has saved my bacon more times than I want to remember."

I turned to William to see why he hadn't jumped to Lalee's defense, but he was looking worried, too, in a way I found unsettling for some reason. Finally, he said, "I trust Lalee. Jack did the right thing by refraining from killing the Slayer, even though he may not have known why at the time."

Travis was finished speaking, but he didn't look any happier. Everyone else looked uneasy, too, and they were staring at me.

None of them was familiar with the old religion that Melaphia practiced, although they'd seen a pretty good demo the night when we captured Reedrek.

"Maybe there's another explanation for this," I said. "Could there have been some kind of immaculate conception thing going on in the underworld?"

"That hasn't happened in more than two thousand years, and I don't think we should expect to ever see it again," William said.

"I'm sorry, Jack, but somebody has to say it. Could Connie have had another lover?" Tobey asked.

For some reason that didn't make me mad. I guess because I understood that Tobey didn't know Connie like I did. "No," I said.

"No way."

Travis said, "I still don't like it. Nothing in my own culture's lore and writings indicates that a slayer should be allowed to live."

"I don't know what to think at this point," Tobey said, scratching his head. Suddenly my relief was gone. I was no longer sure that Connie was out of danger at the hands of these blood drinkers. She still needed my protection. I had to think of still another plan, dammit.

Melaphia, William, Travis, and the others started debating the relative trustworthiness of voodoo and Mayan and Celtic spirituality and prophecies. Melaphia said something about the word sire in some prophecy possibly having more than one meaning. Then they speculated on who Connie's vampire father might have been.

It was all too much for me. I hadn't slept any in the last day because of having to nurse Connie, and my head was starting to hurt. I went to the wet bar at the far side of the room to pour myself some blood, and while they were all talking at once, I backed out of the room and took the stairs up to the main floor two at a time.

I drove to the garage and saw through the window that the irregulars' card game was in full swing. It was kind of comforting in a goofy way. My whole life had been turned on its head the last couple of months. It was good to see that part of my world was still normal. As normal as a human, two shape shifters, and a faerie playing cards could be, that is.

Speaking of things kind of normal but really not, I heard the sc.r.a.pe of Huey's shovel as he continued to despoil his own grave. I went around back to see him laboring under the watchful eye of the same crow that had been there the other night. It seemed Huey had made little progress, but this activity at least gave him a purpose in life-that is to say, death-when he wasn't otherwise busy detailing cars.

I wondered if I'd done Huey any favors by accidentally raising him from the dead. He appeared to me as a ghost once shortly after Reedrek had murdered him, and he had reported that in heaven, he had all the beer he could drink. And it was good imported stuff, too.

Then I got drunk during a voodoo ritual and misapplied a prayer to the G.o.d of the underworld-and Huey was reborn, after a fashion. He'd dug his way out of his own grave with his bare hands, to my and Werm's drunken horror. Sending him back seemed too grisly to contemplate, so here he was, a sort of mascot of the business you might say. Besides, he was proving to be useful.

The next time he said he saw little blue men, I was going to sit up and take notice. He could speak shape shifter and see through fey glamour. Who knew what else the little guy could do?

"How's it going, Hugh-man?" I greeted him.

"All right, I reckon," Huey reported.

"Haven't hit pay dirt yet?"

"No sir. I ain't seen no sign of that car."

The crow made a screeching noise, startling us both. I looked at Huey sheepishly. A vampire and a zombie shouldn't be afraid of anything, much less a crow.

"It's tryin' to tell us somethin'," Huey said.

"How do you know?"

"It's been trying its best to talk to me all night. Just listen."

The crow flapped its wings and made some other noises, and they weren't any sounds I'd ever heard come out of a crow before.

"Maybe it got ahold of some bad roadkill," I speculated. My remark seemed to agitate the crow even more. It beat its wings furiously and fixed its beady eyes on me in a creepy fashion.

"My uncle Elroy had a crow that could talk like one of them talking birds," Huey said.

"Like a parrot?" "Yep. But only after Uncle Elroy had split its tongue with a knife."

"Don't get any ideas," I said. "I don't want you picked up by the ASPCA." I was glad Huey didn't have a penchant for getting in trouble with the law. If the authorities were inspired to examine him too closely, especially that loose eyeball, there'd be a lot of explaining to do.

"Naw. I wouldn't do that to a dumb animal."

The crow probably had more IQ points than Huey, but I refrained from pointing that out.

"Ain't you going to join the poker game?" Huey asked.

"No. I had to find someplace to think."