Impossibly, she caught it by the hilt. When she touched it, her body convulsed like she'd grabbed a live electrical wire. Behind her a transformer blew, backlighting Connie in an eerie blue-green glow and showering her with sparks. I could barely see the whites of her eyes now. They weren't human eyes anymore, and I could see the tiny fangs when she opened her mouth.

To smile.

That was the worst part, that smile. She knew who and what she was now. She could feel it; h.e.l.l, we could all feel it. She was the G.o.ddess destroyer of vampires. She was the Slayer.

I remembered what Travis had said about how Connie would be like an animal when she first turned, but I refused to believe it.

My Connie was still in this creature somewhere, and if anyone could reach her and reason with her, I could.

"Connie," I said, approaching her slowly. I reached out my hand to her. Unfortunately, it was the injured hand, the one dripping blood.

She put her delicate nose in the air and sniffed as an animal would have, and the gesture horrified me on a primal level. "I smell the blood of the blood drinker," she said in someone else's voice. She came at me with the sword and I dodged away. "What are you doing?" William asked me, alarm in his voice. "Don't go near her!"

From the corner of my eye, I saw Reedrek and Damien run away like the cowards they were. But Eleanor, she stayed and moved toward William, creeping up on him like a black widow spider.

"It's me," I told Connie. I hoped my voice was soothing despite the fact that I was terrified for all of us. I started toward her again.

"Jack!" William shouted. "Stop! You can't reason with her. Remember what Travis said!"

She lowered the sword and c.o.c.ked her head to one side. "Jack? Is it you?"

Hoping to heaven she wasn't faking, I said, "Yes. Now give me the sword." I inched closer.

She looked at the sword and then at me. "Okay." She held the sword out to me and I reached for it.

She punched me in the face with her other hand, the blow coming so fast I didn't see it until it connected with my jaw. I felt myself lifted off my feet and into the air. My body hit the wall of the hospital and slid to the pavement. For a moment or two, I couldn't move or think.

And a moment or two was all it took.

Connie leaned over me and held the sword high, the maniacal smile back on her face. William started to run to me, but Eleanor caught him from behind. She jumped onto his back and threw one arm around him, clamping his neck in the crook of her arm.

"Slayer! Over here!" Eleanor screamed.

Connie whirled. I tried to raise myself up but was thrown back to the ground. My head throbbed so viciously it took a couple of seconds for me to realize that another earthquake had begun to shake the earth beneath us. I rolled on my side facing William, trying to get to my knees.

Connie seemed unaffected. She forgot me entirely and stalked toward William and Eleanor, drawing back the sword as she went.

William shook Eleanor off, and she fell to the ground hard. He squared himself as Connie charged. He blocked the blow, connecting with her forearm. Connie lost her footing, but managed to hang on to the sword. Meanwhile, Eleanor was scrambling up and away into the darkness, and I had only managed to get to my knees, although the quaking had stopped as quickly as it had begun.

Suddenly, four people came scrambling into sight from the tunnels through the opening in the street. "The portal is closed! We did it!" Melaphia yelled, but her smile of victory turned to terror as she and the others saw what was taking place on the surface.

I knew something was wrong with this picture. The timing was off. This couldn't be happening. "No, not now!" I yelled.

I was on my feet, staggering toward William, aiming to get between him and the Slayer. It wasn't Connie anymore.

The sword was on the backswing again, and this time the Slayer was p.i.s.sed. I lunged, the horrified screams of Melaphia, Renee, Deylaud, and Reyha ringing in my ears.

The Slayer was too fast for me, and for William.

In a move mercifully too quick for any of us to see, she drove the sword into William's heart.

I would wonder later if time really did slow down right then, or if some primitive protective mechanism kicked in to keep my mind from shattering.

I kept on moving toward William as if in slow motion, vaguely aware that Connie had run away, disappearing into the park after Eleanor.

I reached out my hand to him and heard myself shout, "Father! No!"

He reached for me as well, and I could swear our fingertips touched just for an instant.

I yelled again, "Wait!"

But William's body was already turning to dust. I had just enough time to question why the body of my friend and father seemed to go out of focus before his form broke apart and splintered into millions of twinkling shards that scattered into the winter wind.

Twenty-one.

I don't remember how we got back to William's house before sunrise. I couldn't seem to figure out a lot of things. People were sobbing, and I didn't want to think about why.

Worse than that, somewhere deep inside my mind a nagging guilt told me the reason we were all sitting here grieving was because I had done something wrong, something stupid. Whatever had happened was all my fault, and I was very, very sorry.

I was holding the pocket watch William had given me, the one he used along with the sh.e.l.ls to get me back from the underworld.

That was a favor I wouldn't be able to return.

Someone must have called Werm to come join us through what was left of the tunnels, because I heard him say, "I can't believe he's gone." Someone had been talking. I seemed to remember that Melaphia had filled Werm in on what all had happened. I had covered my ears for that part. I didn't want to hear it.

Something nudged my hand. It was Reyha's nose. It had to be daylight because she and Deylaud were in four-footed form now.

She sprawled listlessly across my lap and I stroked her head mechanically.

Deylaud, whimpering, was snuggled up to Werm, who had a comforting arm around his slender shoulders. Melaphia held Renee, who had fallen into a fitful sleep.

"I can't believe this is happening," Melaphia said.

"Me neither," I murmured. Oh, G.o.ds. It was coming back to me. My body quaked, remembering the sword's blow as if I'd absorbed it myself.

"I can't accept it. I won't."

"We have to."

"What are we going to do?" she asked, her voice breaking.

How many times had William told me that if anything ever happened to him, it was my responsibility to take care of the family?

Had I ever, on any of those occasions, entertained the possibility that we could be left without him? No. Not even once. What had I been thinking?

It was time for me to step up.

I eased Reyha off my lap and knelt in front of where Mel sat on the sofa. I took her hand and kissed it gently. Renee stirred and opened her eyes, so I took her little hand in mine as well. "I'll protect you," I said.

"And what if-when-the Slayer comes for you?" Melaphia asked. "What then?" "I'll do whatever I can to stay alive until she...calms down. Travis said that she might reach a point where we could reason with her."

I noticed Werm was following our conversation closely, his eyes swollen from weeping. But he didn't ask any questions. He was my second now. He was going to have to grow up fast.

"You know you cannot avenge William," Melaphia said. "As much as I might want you to. Lalee has forbidden it."

"I understand. But there's another reason I can't go after her."

"Because she carries your child?"

"No," I said.

"Because we still don't know how the Slayer can be killed?"

"No, though that's true, too."

"Then why?"

"We need her help."

"With what?" Werm finally spoke up.

"The portal was open for some time," I said. "The double-dead vampire I killed here at the house made his way up from the underworld pretty quick. How many others do you reckon had the wherewithal to do the same?"

"Oh, sweet Maman," Melaphia murmured. She glanced down to make sure Renee had fallen asleep again, not that the child wouldn't eventually figure out for herself how much trouble we were all in.

Suddenly I was thinking clearly again. It was about time. I filled in Melaphia and Werm on Reedrek's rant in the tunnels and told them about the double-deads and their ability to change their appearance.

"It's our responsibility to send those m.o.f.os back to h.e.l.l where they belong," I said.

"My G.o.d," Werm breathed. "There are only the two of us. How are we going to fight them all? How are we even going to find them?"

"There's only one thing we can do," I said. "We have to get on the good side of a vampire slayer. That's her job, right? To sniff out vampires and a.s.sa.s.sinate them."

"Yeah, but what if those vampires are...us?" Werm croaked.

"We'll have to figure out how to make her want to kill them more than she wants to kill us," I said.

"If you say so, Jack."

"I know you can get us through this, Jack. I have faith in you," Melaphia said, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

Her words meant more to me than she would ever know. I sat on the sofa between her and Werm and put an arm around each of them. "William always said Savannah was his city."

"It was," Melaphia sobbed.

I hugged them close to me. "And now it's ours."

When people say they sleep the sleep of the dead, they have no idea.

I slept dreamlessly-thank the G.o.ds-and woke with a sense of purpose. Werm was awake and feeding from the bottled blood in the refrigerator.

"You probably shouldn't open the nightclub, even if the power is back on," I said. "Why don't you lie low for a while until we get some idea of what we're facing."

"In terms of the number of double-deads, you mean?"

"Yeah. But call Seth and give him an idea of what we're up against. Tell him Connie has been activated and that he should check on her. He knows what that means."

"Done," he said, and took the back way out toward the tunnels.

I turned the corner to go upstairs and found Melaphia kneeling before her little altars.

"How long has it been since you slept?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "I had to do something. I prayed to Maman Lalee, but I don't know if it did any good. She didn't manifest."

"What'd you pray for?" I asked, even though I figured I already knew.

"I beseeched her for a favor for William. Even though she told us no one could ever come back from the underworld again, I asked if she could find it in her heart to try to get William to a better place. I can't bear to think of him suffering for eternity."

She collapsed against me and began to sob again, and I sank down to the steps with her. "I can't stand to think of it either," I said, stroking her hair. It was the thought I had been trying to suppress ever since we'd lost William. It was too painful to dwell on, so I chose not to.

"Have faith," I said. "Those two have a special relationship. Lalee will think of something."

"I hope so."

"Why are you crying, Mama?" Renee asked from the top of the stairs.

We looked up to see the little girl beaming down at us. Then Melaphia and I exchanged worried glances. Was Renee so traumatized by the sight of William's death that she had blocked it out of her mind?

"I'm just sad because I prayed to Maman Lalee to help William and I don't know if it worked."

"Of course it worked," Renee said.

"How do you know, honey?" I asked her.

"Because I saw him dancing."

Twenty-two.