"Does this count as being played? Or being played with?"

I reached her with such preternatural swiftness that she would not have been able to see me move. I invaded the wispy undergarment with one hand while I freed my erection with the other. She gasped as I raised her off her feet and entered her, pinning her against the wall with the force of my shaft. I bore down with punishing strokes, causing her to issue little rhythmic cries with each one. "Tell me," I said. "What dealings have you had with Deylaud?"

"I told you," she said, her hands against my shoulders. "I don't know him."

"You lie." I grasped her by the waist, trapping her between my rock-solid frame and the wall. She pressed down against my shoulders, whether to urge me closer or to try to work her way up and away from me I neither knew nor cared. She arched back from me, which only served to afford me access to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I pulled at the elastic neckline of her peasant blouse, hooking my fingers into her bra.s.siere at the same time, dragging them both downward. Her right breast sprang free as if it had a mind of its own.

I pulled hard on her taut nipple with my lips and tongue, grazing it with my fangs, causing her to cry out louder. My c.o.c.k felt as hard as a jackhammer, working in and out of her tender flesh. "I can keep this up all night," I whispered cruelly. Perhaps it would be fun to torture her a bit after all. I wondered if she had a taste for it. As a seasoned prost.i.tute, she would have been asked to partic.i.p.ate in all manner of deviant scenarios. But I had no doubt she would never have experienced a night as brutal as I could give her. The only instrument of torture I needed was between my legs.

The betrayals I had suffered at the hands of Eleanor and Diana came back to my mind in vivid relief and stoked my anger. I didn't yet know what Ginger was playing at, but I soon would, by the G.o.ds.

"Oh!" Ginger cried out once more and collapsed against me, sagging like a wilted flower against my chest, her legs limp and dangling. I came in bucking spasms, struggling to remain on my feet to support us both. What a shattering o.r.g.a.s.m it was to have robbed me of my strength if only briefly, I thought, shaken. With my vampiric might, Ginger's weight was as that of a fly, but I staggered a moment before I could remove myself from her and set her down. I couldn't determine why I felt so strange. I certainly hadn't had that much to drink.

Ginger came back to herself quickly and I suspected that, unlike me, she'd been faking her sudden weakness. Setting her clothing to rights, she managed a sly grin. "You were like a beast," she observed. "Where did that come from?"

"Let's just say it's the real me," I remarked, fastening my trousers.

"Eleanor said you were kinky."

"Oh? What else did she tell you about me?"

"She said you like to play blood games." Eleanor had procured swans for me on a regular and discreet basis, but they weren't selected from the ranks of her regular girls. I wondered how many of the other women in Eleanor's stable knew about my proclivities. "And what games would those be?" I asked.

"Don't play coy. You know the ones-where you bite a girl's neck and drink her blood."

"Oh yes," I said. "Those."

"I had hoped you'd want to play that game with me." Ginger moved forward, sliding her pretty, manicured fingers down her neck from her ear to her shoulder. "Why do you think I wore this blouse?" She ran her fingers under the elastic, pushing it down to expose her flesh from neck to shoulder.

I reached out and stroked her perfect white throat with my fingertips. I could see the bluish vein that pulsed beneath her flawless skin. The blood flowing through it called out a siren song as old as time. "As you wish." I pulled her to me and bit down. My sense of taste and smell sharpened as it always did with that first hit of the intoxicating life fluid.

Her blood had a familiar tang, as did her scent. She reminded me of...but no, it couldn't be. My mind, my memory, my guilt were all playing tricks on me.

In the same way you see the face of a lost loved one in the crowd, imagine you hear the whisper of their voice on the breeze-so I imagined I tasted my Eleanor and smelled her signature scent. I harkened back to the night I made her for myself, the dark sanct.i.ty of the act almost like a black wedding, to have and to hold until death do us part.

If I'd only known that her final death would come so soon. And at my hands.

Ginger's sigh brought me back to reality, and I reluctantly broke contact with her flesh.

"My turn," she said, and stood on her tiptoes.

"What are you doing?" I asked, feeling strangely intoxicated.

"Now I want to drink your blood."

"That's not the way it works," I said. "This is a one-way transaction." I was a natural top, in sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic parlance, and did not submit to blood donation-not that it had ever been an issue. Of all the young women I had thrilled with my blood sucking, none had ever asked for blood in return. If I were mortal, I would not have objected. Fair was fair, after all. But even though no victim would be drained to the point of death, there was always the possibility of a two-way blood exchange activating the forces that birthed vampires to some bad end.

She pouted for a moment and then shrugged. "Oh, well, have it your way, selfish." Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

I was left alone wondering exactly what had just happened, and if I was in as much control as I thought I was.

Jack I knocked on Connie's door empty-handed. No flowers this time. She loves me; she loves me not.

Connie opened the door. "Hey, you," she said. Except for the dark shadows under her eyes she didn't look any the worse for wear after her ordeal at my hands.

"Hey." I walked past her into the living room. "Are you all right?"

"I'm still a little weak, so I took today off," she said. "I didn't hear from you last night." "Yeah. Sorry."

"What's wrong, Jack? You don't seem yourself." She closed the door and came to stand in front of me. She reached out to me, but I backed away.

"There are some things I've got to tell you," I said.

"Sounds serious."

I had paced to the window. I turned around to her and said, "You should sit down."

For once she didn't argue with me, but sat down on the couch.

"Things are getting kind of intense between us," I started out. I'd rehea.r.s.ed what I was going to say, but my mind was a blank. I was going to have to wing it.

"I guess you could say that," she said cautiously.

"Do you remember when we first started to think about...seeing each other, and you knew there was something I was keeping from you?"

"And you didn't decide to tell me until I saw you go after Will the night he killed Sullivan," she recalled.

"And I saw your...fangs." I could see her work hard to suppress a shudder.

"You told me that I couldn't ever lie to you again."

Connie's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes. I remember what I said."

"There's some things I've got to come clean about-some stuff you've got to know."

"About what?"

"About you. And me." Even as I spoke to her about coming clean, I knew I'd be lying. I was thankful that, as close as we'd gotten recently, she hadn't learned to read me like William could.

"Go ahead. Out with it. What do I need to know?" No-nonsense Connie was back. She reached for a sofa pillow and hugged it to her chest, bracing her-self, I figured, for something bad. She'd correctly surmised from my manner that what I had to say didn't involve sunshine and daisies.

I jammed my hands in my pockets to keep from wringing them. "First, Melaphia has figured out what you are, and William's people in Europe have confirmed it by looking at prophecies in some old Celtic records that they have."

"What do the Celts know about Mayan G.o.ddesses?"

"It's a little more complicated than you being a G.o.ddess." I had decided to shield Melaphia from blame. I didn't want Connie to figure out that Mel had helped her get to the underworld in hopes that she would never return.

"What are you talking about?"

"You are a G.o.ddess, as far as that goes," I said.

"But what makes you a deity are your specific powers."

"Which are?" "You're a vampire slayer. The Slayer."

Connie chuckled, but her eyes didn't smile. "You're kidding me, right?"

"I wish."

"You're talking nonsense. Vampire slayers are only in the movies and on television."

I raised my arms and let them fall to my sides. "That's what you said about vampires, remember? And yet, here I am, fangs and all.

Remember how you nearly burned me to death with a touch before you found that spell that let us get physical without frying me?

That was no mistake, no accident. It's who you are."

Connie took a deep breath and considered this. "I see what you're saying," she finally said. "I mean, I guess it would explain what happened between us. But what does being the Slayer mean exactly?"

"It means that one of these days real soon you're going to have some kind of superpowers that are going to make you really, really good at killing blood drinkers. And it's going to be your solemn duty to kill as many of us as possible. And you're going to want to."

Connie looked at the carpet for a moment, her eyes wide. "Are you sure about all this? Maybe there's been some kind of mistake."

I reminded her about the birthmark and told her about the prophecies Melaphia and Olivia had found. "But what removed all doubt was something that happened in the underworld-something I didn't tell you about."

"What did you hold back? What happened?" she demanded, angry now, and I didn't blame her.

"It was right after you were with your son-I didn't lie about that part, I swear. When he went running off and you knew you couldn't follow him, some angels came down to you and showed you a sword."

"My G.o.d. Angels? With a sword?"

"They said that you..." I stopped, realizing I was about to literally put a weapon in her hands she could use against us. I decided to keep to myself the angel's instruction to find the twin of the shiny sword. "They said you'd be given special powers and weapons to fight the vampires." I stopped, to give both of us time to take a breather. Connie looked as ill as she had been when I revived her the other night, and I expected I looked just as sick as she did. Sometimes it was good not to be able to see your own reflection.

Connie rubbed her temples like she'd just developed a headache. "I think I'd remember if a band of angels showed me a sword and told me to kill my boyfriend."

"Just because you don't remember any of it now doesn't mean that you won't someday."

"Answer me this," she said. "How did I get to be this-this slayer? I mean, why me?"

"Evidently, your natural father was a vampire and your mother was a human woman."

She looked at me as if I'd just slapped her. "Natural? What the h.e.l.l is natural about having a vampire for a father?"

d.a.m.ned if she didn't have a point there. "I know how you must-"

"No, you don't! You chose to be a bloodsucker! I don't want this. I don't want any part of this!"

"Believe me. I don't want it for you." I changed my mind about telling Connie the rest of what happened in heaven-that she didn't get to beat up her ex-husband. She'd have enough to absorb tonight. I felt a fresh wave of guilt wash over me for having started out my talk by saying I was going to tell the whole truth, all the while knowing I would pick and choose what to reveal.

"What if I just said 'no thanks'?"

"I don't think you can say 'no thanks' to a band of angels, considering who they work for."

"But I don't feel like a vampire slayer."

"You may not feel like one now," I said. "But according to the lore, there's going to come a day when your powers will activate, and then it'll be open season on the likes of me. And I don't think you can turn this a.s.signment down like it was a normal job offer."

She stood up from the couch, came to me, and put her arms around my waist, laying her head against my chest. "I'd never hurt you. You believe me, don't you?" she said, looking up at me with her trusting dark eyes.

I wished with everything in me that her powers could be activated at this very moment and that I wouldn't have to tell her the rest of it, even if it meant she got to kill me now. Especially if it meant she got to kill me now.

I wanted to hug her back, to lay my cheek against the silkiness of her hair and tell her everything was going to be all right as long as we had each other. Instead, I kept my arms at my sides and steeled myself.

"You will," I said. "You'll try to kill me and William, and Iban, and all the other vampires you know. And then you'll go after the rest of them. Only by then us good vampires will be dead and you'll have to take on the really vicious ones by yourself."

"How can you say that?" she shouted, and held herself apart from me. "I couldn't kill any of you. How can you think that I could?"

"You're not going to be able to help yourself after you're activated. But even before that, you're going to want to slay us all after I tell you what I came here to do the other night. What the rest of them sent me to do."

She backed away from me slowly. "What are you talking about?"

I could tell she was figuring it out. The horror on her face left no doubt. I could turn and run now and she'd know without my suffering the pain of telling her. But I couldn't take the coward's way out. I had to finish what I'd started. "You didn't pa.s.s out because of the flu. You pa.s.sed out because I drained most of your blood." I heard myself say these words as if I was somewhere far away, like my brain didn't want to take the meaning in. Connie's eyes went wide with shock and hurt.

"Connie," I said. "Two nights ago I tried to kill you."

Thirteen.

William When I arrived home from the Portal, Tobey and Iban were on their way out. Their charter pilot had been on standby, ready to go at a moment's notice. We wished one another well and they departed. Travis had already left by whatever mysterious means he traveled.

Deylaud was waiting by the telephone in my office. "Any word from Olivia or her people?" I asked him. He shook his head and said nothing. I could tell he was troubled. "What is the matter, old friend?"

"I don't know." He stared straight ahead of him.

"Are you ill?" He looked at me then. "There's nothing wrong with me. It's that woman I saw at the Portal."

"I saw your reaction to her. What the devil is there between you?" I asked.

"The devil!" he repeated, standing up from my desk chair. "Devil possession! That is the only thing that can reconcile what I took in with my senses this evening to what you told me is true."

"Explain," I said.

"The woman I saw tonight at the nightclub-I don't know who you believe her to be. But mark me, that is Eleanor!"