I studied her lips, her eyelids, her cheekbones, chin, memorizing her while I could. As painful as it would be, I wanted to remember the lines of her perfect face if I lived to be a thousand.

But I didn't have to live to be a thousand. I didn't have to live at all.

The vault had no windows, but I sensed it was daylight outside. I didn't need poison like Romeo. All it would take to end this pain would be to step out the back door and feel the sun on my face one last time. It would all be over.

With Connie in my arms, I stood. "We're going now," I told her. "I love you. Good-bye." One last kiss, I thought. One last kiss.

I lowered her feet to the floor and held her tightly to my chest. I put my lips on hers, for once as cool as mine, and kissed her long and hard, pressing her body deeper to mine. She still smelled like lilacs, and I pretended that she was there with me, alive and well again.I brushed one thumb across the soft skin of her throat and stroked her long ebony hair. I gathered some of the silky ma.s.s into my fist and rubbed it against my cheek, savoring the softness. Her every curve and texture was all a woman should be. She was a G.o.ddess indeed.

I thought about how we had slow-danced at Werm's club and began to sway with her, playing over and over again in my head the Elvis Presley song we danced to. Wise men say, only fools rush in. I'd been a fool to think that falling in love with a mortal would lead to anything but disaster.

I'd had too many relationships with human women to count, but only this one had led me to forget myself and to become reckless.

I'd never loved any woman the way I loved Connie, and never would.

I should have left her alone. She'd still be alive if it hadn't been for me. But true to my nature as a demon, I only thought about myself and what I wanted. And, my G.o.d, had I wanted her. I saw my red-tinged tears fall onto her gown, staining it, spoiling its pure whiteness, and I cried harder.

I cried for myself and I cried for Connie. My body shook with sobs. The music in my head stopped and I stood still, hugged her, and gave in to my emotions. I thought I'd stopped dancing.

But Connie had other ideas.

I thought I felt an intake of breath against my chest and knew that in my grief I was imagining things, becoming delusional. Then I saw Connie's head move. In another moment she was looking up at me.

"Jack," she whispered.

I covered her cheeks, her eyes with kisses, pausing just long enough to cup her face in my hands and stare into her eyes to rea.s.sure myself that I wasn't dreaming. Then I kissed her some more, her nose, her brows. "Thank G.o.d," I said. "You're really alive."

"I know I've been on a long journey but I can't remember what it was all about. Wherever I was, you brought me back, though, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yes. Everything's going to be fine now."

"But I can't remember what happened. I think I had a job to do. Something important. Did I do what I...set out to do?"

"Yes," I told her. "Everything's all right. You can put all your sorrow behind you." I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a squeeze. "Pinch me so I can believe we're both really back."

Laughing, she reached around me and pinched my b.u.t.t, and I laughed with her. Then we looked into each other's eyes again and the laughter died on our lips. It was as if I was seeing her for the first time. I saw the same wonder and awe I was feeling mirrored in her face. She flung her arms around my neck and I kissed her again like I'd never kissed anyone before-or been kissed in return.

I carried her to the chaise lounge and sat her down, kneeling in front of her. She cupped my face in her hands and then lowered them to my shoulders and chest, stroking her way to my waist where she grasped my shirt and pulled it out of my jeans and over my head. I reached beneath the white dress and swept it up and off in one smooth motion. She was naked underneath, glorious and perfect. If I hadn't already known for sure that she was a G.o.ddess, I would have felt it in my bones. She lay back and I began my worship of her.

Still kneeling at the end of the chaise, I lifted one of her feet and kissed the sensitive arch, making her shiver. I planted kisses up and around her ankle, then along her shapely calf, easing her leg over my shoulder as I did so. I licked the tender little crease at the back of her knee, shuddering with antic.i.p.ation as my lips moved along to the smooth skin of her inner thigh.I kissed and nipped, letting my fangs brush her flesh as lightly as the wings of a b.u.t.terfly. She reached down to weave her fingers into the waves of my hair, ma.s.saging my scalp and urging my mouth higher until my lips found the triangle of crisp dark curls that fringed her most feminine place.

I closed my eyes, reveling in the fragrance of her desire for me and let the curls tickle my nose before she spread her legs wider and blossomed for me. Reverently I lowered my head to her rosy flesh, swollen with need. I could feel her pulse beating beneath my mouth as her blood rushed to her blessed womanly parts, making them plump and ready for that splendid dance as old as time.

The vampire in me responded to the blood as if I could see it rushing, and my fangs lengthened involuntarily. Mentally, I tamped down my response to the life-giving red nectar and concentrated on my devotion to my G.o.ddess.

My tongue teased the dewy petals it found on the way to the little bud at her center. I stroked it again and again with my tongue, lips, and chin until Connie reached down to grasp my shoulders.

She urged me upward until I was braced above her and she went about relieving me of my jeans. "I want you now," she said simply.

My erection sprang to meet her hands and she wasted no time putting me inside her. I felt like I melted into her, onto her, became one with her. As I moved inside her, I braced on one elbow and cupped her breast, ma.s.saging upward from her rib cage to the nipple, teasing its tip with my thumb before starting again.

In my unnaturally lengthy life I had made love to more women than I could count, and thought myself in love with quite a few of them. I thought I'd known when it was real. And I'd even grieved with the loss of a special relationship when things fell apart, as they always did. Being a creature of the night meant always having to say you're sorry. And always having to say good-bye.

But it wasn't until this woman came into my world that I felt more alive than I had when I was a living, breathing human. She was the only woman who'd ever known what I was. And still she could look past the abominable circ.u.mstances that accounted for my existence and love me for the man I still was inside. Or at least the man I tried to be.

And as for the s.e.x-the way we fit together, the way we moved when we found our rhythm felt like something preordained. It was as if this woman who came along so many generations after my death was made especially for me. As I thought this, I remembered the truth. She was made for me in a very real way.

She was made to kill me.

That was why I caught fire the first time we touched. She had learned a spell that cured that bit of s.e.xual dysfunction, but the purpose behind it was clear now. I pushed that thought out of my mind, because as surely as Connie and I had pa.s.sed through h.e.l.l in the last few hours, we were in heaven now and I wasn't going to let anything spoil that for either of us. We came in a shuddering climax while looking deep into each other's eyes.

"My Consuela, my G.o.ddess," I heard myself whisper.

William I instructed Werm and the dogs to go upstairs and check on Renee. She wasn't expected at her private school-when she'd been kidnapped I'd called the headmistress and told her that we were going to homeschool Renee for the foreseeable future. It's a shame we must go to such ends sometimes to protect our secrets.

"I'll see that Connie is buried in consecrated ground," Melaphia said.

"Yes. Do," I agreed, thinking that Melaphia was now acting entirely too calm for what she'd just gone through. "Are you sure you're all right, my dear?"

She lifted her chin, and I saw a series of differing emotions play across her face. I'd known those various expressions for thirty years now. This child I'd helped to raise had grown into an exceptional woman, a woman who had never used her considerable powers for any cause that wasn't n.o.ble and just. She'd never been as conflicted as she was at this moment, and she was hurting. Finally her reserve crumbled and she hid her face in her hands. "She was my friend." She choked out the words with difficulty.

"And I didn't even try to bring her back with Jack. I wanted her to stay."

I was tempted to gather her into my arms again, but I knew that would not help her regain control. Instead I spoke soothingly to her. "Do you remember how we helped Shari to a better place when she was confined to the underworld?"

"Yes. I remember."

"Do you think that Connie is in a lesser place? Consider this. While she was reckless in crossing the portal to the underworld, she lost her life through no real fault of her own, no sin in any case. Would not her divinity ensure that she reached a place of peace with her son?"

"Yes, I suppose it does make sense when you think about it like that." Melaphia wiped her eyes.

"If Renee was..." I couldn't bring myself to say the word dead. "...wouldn't you want to be with her even if it meant leaving this world?"

"Of course I would."

"Then promise me you won't dwell on this. What's done is done. It's out of our hands."

"And you and Jack are out of danger."

I started to say, From the Slayer at least, but bit my tongue. Later I would catch her and Jack up on what had happened in Europe. The old lords had been a gathering threat when I'd left for the United Kingdom, but to Jack they were also a vague and shadowy one. I know it was difficult for him to appreciate the menace they posed to us since they seemed to him so far away.

What I had learned while in London would flesh out the situation, as Jack himself would say.

As glad as I was that Jack was back with us, something still nagged at me about the way he'd returned. "I have to ask you something about what happened down there. Why did you scream just before Jack reoccupied his body?"

Melaphia looked at me blankly. "I did? I don't remember that at all."

"What about the fireball that rolled through just as the portal opened?"

She looked alarmed and shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember holding hands with you and Werm and starting my chant. I must have gone into a trance because I remember coming out of it convinced that I had failed and Jack was still in the underworld. What-what fireball?"

"It's probably only some by-product of Jack's crossing. Do you remember anything similar from when I came back from the underworld?"

"No, but it wasn't really the same thing."

"It's probably nothing to worry about."

During the spiritualist movement that began in the 1800s, humans came close to discovering the shadow world of beings other than themselves. A few charlatans gave the legitimate psychics a bad name and the movement eventually all but died out. The mediums who were successful in manifesting spirits during seances found that a residue-ectoplasm, they called it-was generated by the incident. Such is the nature of physics. Perhaps the fireball was something similar.

"Do you think that anything...bad...came back with Jack?" Melaphia asked. "Oh, I think we would have known immediately. Demons tend not to play coy."

She visibly relaxed, but her young face showed her weariness. Her emotions had run the gamut in the last few hours. She'd gone from near madness, bereft at having lost her daughter and perhaps me and then Jack as well, to happiness at having us all returned to her. But what should have been elation was tempered by guilt over her part in losing Connie.

"Is it really over, Father?" Melaphia asked, leaning her head against my chest.

In the rare instances when she'd called me that through the years, it was always when she'd wanted rea.s.surance. If my trip to Europe to rescue Renee had taught me anything, it was that our lives were about to become even more insecure, but now was not the time to tell her that. I put my arms around her and hugged her like I did when she was small.

"Yes, little one," I said as I used to. "It's over."

Jack When I was holding Connie afterward, there were no words for the happiness I felt. I was half afraid I was dreaming. If so, I hoped I never woke up.

Suddenly Connie became aware of her surroundings. "Where are we?" She glanced around the room. When she saw the coffins, she gave a start and looked back at me in alarm.

"We're in the bas.e.m.e.nt of William's house. Everything's okay. More than okay. It's-" I kissed her again, hard. She broke off the kiss suddenly, her eyes wide. For a blissful little while, we'd both put the underworld behind us. But I saw awareness coming into Connie's face. She wanted answers.

"What happened when we were in the underworld?"

"You still don't remember?" I just stared at her, thinking about all that we'd been through in the last few hours-or was it days?

Who knew how underworld time compared to topside time? Where did I begin? What should I tell her? And if she really didn't remember anything, what should I make up or leave out?

She grabbed me by the upper arms and shook me as hard as she could, which wasn't very hard since I was nearly a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than she. "I don't remember. Now, what happened?" she demanded again.

"What's the last thing you can recall?" I countered. I sat up and helped her on with her white gown. My mind raced as I gathered up my jeans and dressed myself. h.e.l.l, how much did I myself recollect about what transpired right there at the end? I was pretty sure the angels hadn't gotten around to telling her she was the Slayer.

She gave me a veiled look, on the defensive already, I figured. "I-I came over to talk to Melaphia."

"To talk? Or to get her help changing zip codes and dump me in the process?" The question sounded childish even to my own ears, under the circ.u.mstances and considering the mind-blowing s.e.x we'd just had. But gol-dang, I'd just been through h.e.l.l and back. A man deserved some answers.

"Not everything's about you, Jack," Connie said, putting me in my place.

"I told you over and over it wasn't safe to go to the underworld, and you ignored me."

A look of realization came over Connie's face, and she quit playing coy right quick. "What did you do?" she demanded, her eyes blazing.

"I did what I had to. I brought you back."

She balled her fists and pummeled my chest. I caught her forearms as gently as I could but firmly enough to still them. "You-you-evil bloodsucking b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I went there to see my son, and-"

"And you did." She'd never spoken to me of her son before. In fact, I wasn't supposed to know who she had wanted to see. It was a relief to have her finally open up, if only a little.

She stopped struggling and gazed up at me, blinking. "I did?"

I said gently, "It was awesome."

"Tell me," she said.

"There was your...son," I began. I didn't want to reveal that I knew how her son died. Seth had warned me that the pity Connie had seen in his eyes after the murder-suicide had spelled the end of their relationship. I wasn't going to make the same mistake.

Connie was a proud G.o.ddess, and she had told me what she wanted to accomplish in the underworld only in the most general terms. Those were the terms I'd keep things on.

I walked her over to the chaise next to the bar and sat her down. Then I told her everything I'd seen when she'd been with her son. My description of the events didn't do them justice, but I tried my best. Tears ran down Connie's face as she listened, and I did my best to answer her questions. She had lots of them.

When she was out of questions, she took a deep breath and wiped away her last tear with the back of her hand like a little girl.

"What about my other reason for going?" After all this time, she couldn't put into words what her ex-husband had done to her.

"You kicked a guy's a.s.s real good," I lied. Thank goodness she didn't ask me for details like she did about her son. I could have made some up, but she might have realized I was lying. A good cop almost always knows when someone is lying even if the liar is as good as me. "The way you cleaned his clock, I hope he had it coming."

"He had it coming, believe me," she said with conviction. "I wonder why I can't remember and you can?"

"Beats me." I wasn't going to admit it, but I knew someone who might know. Talking to him was my next stop after I checked on Renee. I was confident she was back in Savannah, probably asleep upstairs, or William wouldn't have returned to American soil.

He'd given Melaphia his solemn vow to return her daughter. That was money in the bank. With Connie and Renee back, all was right with my world. Well, almost all.

As if on cue, Connie asked, "There's something else, isn't there?"

"Why do you say that?"

"I can tell."

For a split second I pictured myself saying Well, sugar, that's when the heavenly host deputized you to murder me with a sharp stick. But I decided against it.

The best way to commit a lie of omission is to tell some relevant truth instead. "There was some unpleasantness down there. With some demons. I'll tell you about it sometime, but not right now. The important thing is that you accomplished what you set out to do and we're both back here safe."

"You're right. I'm sorry I got testy earlier."

I shrugged. "We've both been through a lot today."

"That's what I mean. I know that whatever happened in the underworld, you risked your whole existence on getting me back here, put yourself literally through h.e.l.l, and I'm grateful. I'm sorry if you interpreted what I did as...running out on you."

She'd been right earlier. Not everything was about me and I shouldn't have taken what she did personally. I just couldn't help it. I shrugged again, not trusting myself to say anything else. I hoped for all I was worth that there would be plenty of time for us to work out all the kinks in our unique relationship.

I'd add my neediness to the list of things I just didn't want to think about right now.