Right after that Slayer thing.

Five.

William Melaphia was about to go upstairs to Renee when Jack entered the kitchen leading a very much alive Connie Jones by the hand.

Our shock must have shown on our faces.

"Connie!" Melaphia moved woodenly to Connie's side and gave her a hug. "It's a miracle."

While Melaphia put on a show of welcoming Connie back from the underworld, Jack asked, "How's Renee?"

"Safe and sound."

"Thank G.o.d."

By that time, Melaphia had released her hold on Officer Jones.

"Indeed it is a miracle," I said. "We were convinced you were lost to us. Jack, how did you do it?"

"I don't know. It just happened." Jack beamed, unable to take his gaze from his lady love.

Melaphia and I exchanged the most subtle of concerned glances. Our world had just become more complicated by tenfold.

"Are you sure you're quite all right, Officer Jones?"

"Yes, and please, call me Connie."

"This incredible turn of events calls for a celebration." I tried to sound as happy as I could. "Melaphia, we should have some champagne."

"That's very kind of you, William," Connie said, "but I'm really exhausted after...everything that's happened. I think I should be getting home."

"If you must," I said. "But there's something I need to say, first. Your reasons for traveling to the underworld are your own and none of my concern. Whatever the reasons may be, the risks are too great. I have forbidden Melaphia to help you or anyone cross that portal again. Is that clear, Melaphia?"

Melaphia looked down at the floor, genuinely chastened, and nodded silently.

"Don't blame her, William. I twisted her arm," Connie admitted. "I promise I won't do it again."

"Good. Because there are not only risks to you, but risks to Melaphia as well, not to mention Jack, who'll always be fool enough to try to go and fetch you back. See that there isn't a next time."

"I understand." "I must ask for your word." I half-expected Jack to challenge me just on principle for being too bossy, as he would put it, but he nodded instead. He wasn't eager for his girlfriend to repeat the escapade.

"I give you my word."

"Good," I said with a sigh. "And congratulations on your safe journey."

Jack accompanied Connie through the foyer to the door, all the while offering to travel through the underground tunnels to ensure she made it safely to her apartment. She demurred, but their voices lowered as they continued their good-byes.

Melaphia grasped my arm. "What are we going to do?"

"You're going to go upstairs and go to bed, and Jack and I are going to take our rest as well."

"But-"

"There's nothing we can do at the moment. I'll have a serious talk with Jack first thing tomorrow. We'll both need all of our strength for that."

I heard Jack close the front door behind Connie. Melaphia nodded and hugged Jack as they pa.s.sed each other in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer. I heard her footsteps on the stairs up to the bedrooms.

Jack leaned against the doorjamb and regarded me warily. "Mel told you about Connie." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Of course. This is a grave situation, Jack."

"Look, she doesn't even know she's this slayer."

"She will."

"How? Who's going to tell her?"

Jack's defiant att.i.tude was already playing on my nerves. "We're both weary. Let us discuss this when we've had a chance to get our rest."

"We'll discuss it now. Who's to say she'll ever find out? I mean, whose job is it to tell her, anyway?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Melaphia is going to do additional research."

"She's going to have to look it up? How much do you know about slayers?"

"To be perfectly frank, not a great deal. However, I did get some information about them while I was in Europe."

"What information?"

"There seems to be a feeling among the European vampires that a prophesied slayer is or soon could be among us. If she's not already."

Jack ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of nervousness I'd seen a thousand times. "A feeling?"

"The old ones can...sense certain events, as you know. Olivia, like Melaphia, is attempting to learn everything she can. Until they know more, you must keep a close eye on Connie."

Olivia was my second in command in Europe. She had recently uncovered a cache of doc.u.ments she hoped would shed light on the history of the blood drinkers."Why? What am I looking for?"

I could tell that Jack was deep in denial, something he would have to snap out of quickly if he was to survive. "You're looking for any sign that your girlfriend wants to kill you."

Jack "If she comes at me with the pointy end of anything, you'll be the first to know," I a.s.sured William.

"Don't be glib. This is serious."

William gave me one of his stern looks, the kind meant to scare me. And I was scared all right. I went the extra mile to block my thoughts so he wouldn't know the secret I was keeping from him right then. If he knew that Connie's learning that she was the Slayer was as simple as her memory coming back, there was no telling what he would do.

"Yeah, I know it's serious," I said, and suddenly remembered another serious subject. "Hey! I saw Eleanor in the underworld. She attacked me and said you killed her. What the h.e.l.l happened?" At the mention of Eleanor's name William looked so sorrowful I was sorry I'd brought her up.

"I was forced to destroy her. She lied to me about her role in Renee's kidnapping."

Big mistake on her part. You did not ever lie to a master vampire, especially the one who made you. The lie of omission I just told-or rather, didn't tell-was only made possible by the control I'd honed through years and years of blocking out William's ability to read my mind. As a fledgling, Eleanor wouldn't have had the power to do that, at least not for very long. "Eleanor was the one who led Diana and Hugo to Renee?"

"For the purity and mystical qualities of the child's blood, yes. I could not allow Eleanor to live after that."

"William, I'm sorry. Really I am. I know that you made El to be your mate for the long haul."

"Yes, I did. But I could not let anyone threaten my family. Not even the woman I loved and hungered for. I'd loved her like no other in half a century. But my family-Melaphia, Renee, and you-are the most important things to me on earth. And I would do anything it took to protect you all." William gave me a meaningful look. "Do you understand, Jack?"

It wasn't like William to go all touchy-feely. And goodness knew, if the situation were different, this little speech of his would have made me feel all warm and fuzzy. He and I had b.u.t.ted heads many times over the years because he used to treat me like a hired field hand. It had been only recently that he admitted how important I was to him, like a real son almost. Even though we looked the same age in human years, William was my sire and more of a father to me than my human father had been.

But what he was hinting at was out of bounds. "If you're suggesting what I think you are-"

"You know exactly what I mean."

"I want to hear you say it," I challenged, although in fact I didn't. I really, really didn't. Maybe I thought William wouldn't put it into words, that he'd back off. Perhaps he'd show some humanity. After all, it was William's love of humanity that had led him to make me his offspring, his undead son. He'd told me so once. He said he'd seen the kind of humanity in me that would not go away even after he'd made me a fellow demon. It was William who taught me never to take a human life without the most dire provocation.

Surely, I thought desperately, he would never, ever ask me to harm the human I loved the most.

"Very well, then," he said. "Maybe you do need to have it spelled out for you. I expect you to do everything you can to preserve this family. I have no doubt that you would lay down your life for me as well as for Melaphia and Renee-"

"I can't make that choice for Connie," I said, interrupting him before he got to the part that would break my heart. "I can't choose to lay down Connie's life for our family." "The day will come when Connie will try to take your life. That is the point at which you must destroy her. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for Melaphia and Renee. If anything happens to me, who is to protect them from the forces that are coming? They are the last remaining pure sources of the voodoo blood. The old lords will kill them for it, and their deaths won't be quick and painless."

I heard myself make a choking sound. "There has to be something I can do," I murmured, my mouth as dry as ashes. "There has to be a way around this."

William grasped me by the shoulders, getting all up in my grill with those cat-green eyes of his. "This is bigger than you or me. Do you think that you, Jack McShane, can reverse a prophecy of two ancient cultures? Even Lalee herself could not do that."

I swallowed hard and shook off William's grasp. "You can't ask me to kill Connie. You just can't." I staggered a few feet away, desperate to put some physical distance between us before I took a swing at him despite myself.

"That is precisely what I am asking you to do," he said calmly. "For the sake of this family, for Melaphia, Renee, and all the vampires whom you have come to know and love-Werm, Olivia, Tobey, Iban-"

"Stop!" I fought the urge to clap my hands to my ears like a child. "I love her, William. I love her more than anyone I've ever loved."

"The way I loved Eleanor," William said stoically.

"And the way I loved Diana."

I'd never seen William's face like it was now-a twisted mask of grief. I'd been so shocked at seeing Eleanor being turned into a sideshow-worthy snake woman and horrified to hear that William had had to kill her that I'd forgotten all about William's former wife, Diana. She and her mate, Hugo, had been the ones who kidnapped Renee. When William had left for Europe, he was so angry that he could have killed her with his bare hands. "What about Diana?" I asked.

"The last I saw of her she was being buried alive." In a movement so fast I could barely see it even with my keen vampire sight, he was on me again, staring at me eye-to-eye. "I would have killed her myself if I could have reached her-drained her like I did Eleanor. Did I tell you I too saw Eleanor in h.e.l.l?"

"How? The sh.e.l.ls?"

"Yes. I used the sh.e.l.ls to try to get you back-to see if you could be reached."

"Then you saw..." I couldn't even stand to say what Eleanor had become. There's just something awful about snakes. I guess it's human nature to be disgusted by the serpent and what it represents. The story of the fall is part of all of us.

A wave of revulsion showed on William's face and he staggered a step away from me, the reality of what he'd done to Eleanor dealing him a body blow. I reached out to steady him. It was a sign of his condition that he let me.

"I did what I had to do, Jack. I sacrificed the woman I loved, the woman I'd planned to spend eternity with, and even having seen her being tortured in the hereafter, I can swear to you I'd do it again, because she was a danger to my family. I put you and the rest of my family first. And that is what you will do, too. When the time comes, you must kill Connie Jones. It's time for you to be a vampire!"

I tried to look away. I tried to think. "But she doesn't know she's the Slayer," I pleaded again. "Maybe she'll never know. You said earlier that I could keep a close eye on her." I stepped back and this time William didn't close the distance.

He sighed and rubbed his brow, considering. We had all been through the wringer tonight, physically and emotionally, and his exhaustion showed. "All right. Watch her carefully until Melaphia and Olivia can find out more about the prophecy. In the meantime, if she comes for you..." "I know," I said, holding up a hand. I couldn't bear to hear it again.

William stared at me for a long moment, sizing me up, trying to decide if I was made of stuff as stern as he was. But he'd gotten as good at hiding his thoughts from me as I was at hiding mine from him. It was probably for my own good that I couldn't read him now. I probably wouldn't like what I saw.

"Prepare yourself," he said. "What Melaphia and Olivia uncover might be quite unpleasant. If that's the case, I expect you to act and act quickly. As I did."

He turned on his heel and left me standing in the kitchen thinking about the horror of spending eternity knowing that I'd murdered the woman I loved. Just as William had done.

Six.

William I awoke later than usual. Even vampires can suffer from jet lag, not to mention weariness. By the time I rose, both Jack and his black coffin with the number 3 decal were already gone. I knew that now that I had returned from Europe, Jack would go back to his own digs, as he would put it-a unit in a heavily guarded mini-warehouse.

At my request, he had been staying at the house in my absence to look after Melaphia. That was no longer necessary, but I knew his hasty departure had as much to do with the tension between us on the issue of Consuela Jones.

Jack and I hadn't always gotten along. He'd resisted my authority as his sire since I made him some one hundred and forty years ago. Most of that resistance was pa.s.sive, but we'd come to blows on occasion-certainly not that unusual between a blood drinker and his offspring but troubling nonetheless. Still and all, we needed each other, both to protect our family-the descendants of Lalee-and to defend our territory and the human population of Savannah from any nonhuman threats.

Over the years, as Jack had achieved more maturity and hopefully better judgment, I offered him more autonomy. I don't think Jack fully appreciated this until the day my own sire, Reedrek, arrived in Savannah. With the threat of Reedrek, I'd been forced to share with Jack some of the darker knowledge about our race, information that he had craved but which I'd nonetheless hoped to spare him, because along with this new awareness came responsibility.

I thought about these things as I showered and changed. I had much to accomplish this night and moonlight was burning. The first order of business was to meet with Melaphia and decide how to proceed with our lives now that this vampire slayer was in our midst.

Despite the weighty matters on my mind, I had to smile when I entered the kitchen. The domestic scene that greeted me gladdened what was left of my heart. Melaphia stirred a pot of a stew on the stove while Reyha sorted through the spice cabinet in search of herbs for the mixture. Deylaud sat at the kitchen table with Renee and a very large book, extolling the virtues of the epic poem as a literary form. Anyone who might think this too dry a subject for a nine-year-old doesn't know Renee. Her attention was as rapt as if Deylaud were discussing the finer points of a Harry Potter novel. Actually more-when the head of your household is a vampire, wizards hold less allure.

Their greeting smiles lightened my spirits. Renee ran to me and threw her skinny arms around my waist. "Deylaud is helping me study my literature lesson," she said, giving me a brief hug before leading me by the hand to the huge volume open on the table.

"Evangeline," I observed. The tragic love story forced the unpleasantness of the last night back to the forefront of my mind. I looked at Melaphia and the look she gave me in return said she followed my train of thought.

"The stew is ready," she said. "Reyha, get the cornbread out of the oven and y'all go ahead and eat."

"But Mama, aren't you going to eat with us?" Renee was at her mother's side in a thrice, clinging in a most uncharacteristic way to Melaphia's slender frame. It would take time for both of them to recover from their recent forced separation and the danger they had both been in.

"William and I have some things to talk about," Melaphia said, stroking her daughter's braids. "I'll be back to get my supper in a little bit. Why don't you b.u.t.ter some cornbread for me while it's hot."

As Renee and the twins settled down to dinner, Melaphia and I retreated to the parlor. "I still can't believe she's really home,"

Melaphia said, hugging herself. "Thank you, Father."