Her body lays across a pyre but not in effigy. A single flame flies toward the mound, thrown by his own hand. As the fire grows upon the rise, he stands at its edge-a perimeter made for a single witness.

Orange bleeds into blue. Blue to red. The colors sear the wood, smoldering and igniting under her unmoving form. Each lick of flame emboldens him.

Searing heat licks her toes and dances its way toward her ankles, thighs and arms. Her body jolts, though she does not attempt escape-the centerpiece to her own life's finale.

His lips curve upward.

A scream fills the air, sending birds to the sky-the flapping of wings barely audible over the building inferno's roar.

He bristles-a momentary worry she may rise from death's clutches.

The blaze accepts her body as its fuel. Kindling snaps. Sparks fly upward, adding to the smoke-fogged air.

He twirls a single red rose between his fingertips, thorns digging into his pads. His gaze remains fixed on the fire, and the woman who can no longer be defined.

Deer run from one side of the clearing to the other, away from the unceasing heat. Not even nature wishes to be beholden to the man, yet it cannot separate itself from his deed.

A bellow sounds from the center of the pile as it collapses upon itself. Cascading rivers of liquid flow along the sides.

The fire sings, whistling a deep tune and claiming, for itself, everything within its reach.

He remains in place, a grin reaching across his face, growing with each crackle.

Each pop.

"In death, we have parted." The rose twists between his fingers until flakes and dust settle in the center of the destruction, a wide circle where once her body laid as if at rest.

A dying spark sustains itself as if holding out hope for more fuel. He crushes it underfoot, stomping out the final vestiges of life on the scorched patch of earth. "No man, save me, shall ever have your love."

A flicker of blue catches his eye. On bent knee, he runs a fingertip over a soft, velvet square. That it survived the fury surprises him, yet he does not react, for he has already accomplished his mission.

He holds out the rose, its bloom full and bright. It hovers above the center of ash. "Never again will you betray me." Decisive contempt fuels his voice.

He opens his hand.

The flower drops to the ground, sending puffs of white ash into the air.

"The betrayer reaps her own sorrows."

Her demise is his success.

a a a Taylor could no longer differentiate between realities. Words held no meaning. Time meant nothing. Fire consumed her. For all she knew, her body laid across a pile of wood. She tried to move, yelled and screamed at herself to fight, to rise, to depart.

None of it worked.

Tanner's face etched itself in her mind's eye. That followed with Ian's. Round and round they went, mixing and merging within her dream state.

Flames.

Bath.

Falling house.

Fire.

Water.

Earth.

The hotter the air flamed around her, the more she cried out. Whether sound escaped, she didn't know. Encompa.s.sed by flames, soaring and shooting into the sky, and crying out within her mind, she managed to turn enough to take in a blaze around her. To see it grab her calves, circle her arms and melt her skin.

A form stood to the side-the silhouette of a man she'd loved for centuries.

She called for John over and over, begging him to stop. To help. To cease. To save her. To kill her.

If her heart could tear in two, it would have. The only emotions she had left sizzled as the fire took everything away.

Her view moved to pure darkness.

a a a Ian slumped against the wall outside Taylor's hospital room door as nurses and doctors rushed in for the fifth time in as many hours.

Codes had been called. Numbers rang out. A controlled panic followed. Taylor's temperature soared. Her body riddled with a fever reaching above one-hundred and seven degrees had nurses and doctors working every bit of magic they possessed to prevent brain damage.

He slid until his b.u.t.t hit the floor, and his head fell into his hands, balanced against pulled-up knees. Night had pa.s.sed with a flurry of activity. Grams had gone home, Michael to his hotel, and Ian's parents to theirs. Taylor, though, she'd never regained consciousness. Morning had calmed, but with the five o'clock hour on Monday, chaos reigned again.

"Here." Michael's voice reached Ian. "You need to drink. Eat. Nourish yourself before you fade to gray."

Ian's head lifted, though the strain on his muscles from sleeping in a chair and sitting slumped over for much of the time sent tingles of numbness through him. He took the cup from Michael and breathed in the hot chocolate. "Thanks." A sip seared his lips but gave way to pleasure.

"Let's go to the lounge."

"I want to stay." Ian drank more, letting the cocoa wash away the grit in his throat. The nurses and doctors all thought Ian her fiance, so they'd given him special concession to remain with her. He didn't want to lose his status or the opportunity. He needed to be there-compelled by unspoken, inner forces.

"I need to talk to you."

"You can talk here." The door slammed open and shut as another cart of something-or-other breezed by.

"No, Ian. We can't. You're distracted and worried ... and waiting for them to call out numbers that would mean she's dead."

"I am not."

"Are too. Now come on. I have some news." Michael lifted Ian with a heave.

With a feigned reluctance, he rose and went with his brother into the lounge, the s.p.a.ce empty, and closed door blocking the hospital sounds. "Okay, what?"

Michael pulled a seat from beneath the table and pointed to the one across from him. "Sit."

"I was sitting. Out there. Where I could listen."

"You really are into this chick, aren't you?"

Ian yanked the chair from under the table and fell into it. "Okay. Now what?"

"I want you to talk to Marcie."

"Who?" Ian dropped his head to the table.

"Marcie. She's a forensic geneticist who's decided to go to med school. She took a creative writing cla.s.s elective that I was in."

Ian wobbled his head against the surface.

"She's part of the team I a.s.sembled for you ... for that girl you're dying to find out stuff about."

"Oh." Exhaustion took away Ian's ability to be excited about talking to a member of Michael's team. The beep of cell phone numbers being pressed had him popping up his head. "Now?

"Yes."

"Fine, I'll-" Ian stopped at the shuffle and m.u.f.fled voices on the other end of the line.

"Um, h.e.l.lo?" A sweet, Indian voice joined them.

"Marcie?" Michael asked.

"Yes, this is."

"Hey. This is Michael. I have my brother here."

"Oh, many thank yous for calling."

Ian nodded.

"She can't see you nodding, bro. Go ahead, Marcie, tell him what you told me a few minutes ago."

"My apologies for the interruption, but Michael wanted me to give you results ... straight from the horse's a.s.s."

Ian snorted a laugh. "I believe you mean straight from the horse's mouth?"

"Right, yes, sir."

Oh, please don't call me sir.

"I am to tell you, in no uncertain terms, that the DNA markers between a Miss Taylor Marsh and this bone sample are the same. I am so sorry for your loss."

She's watched way too much television drama. "She's not dead," Ian's hands clenched together on the tabletop. "Can you test it again-"

"No," Michael said. "It's conclusive. If Marcie says it, it's the truth. I told you, man, she has the most experience of any of us."

"Mr. Ian?" Marcie's sweetness came through again. "You say she is not dead? Why do we have a rib then?"

"That's a long story. Are you absolutely, positively-"

Michael held up a hand.

"The percent margin of error is point O-O-O-O-O-one."

"It couldn't be a family member or-"

"No," Marcie said.

"Is there anything else you can tell me about the bone?" Ian scratched at the side of his head.

"Ah ..." Paper shuffling came through the microphone. "The bone comes from a female, approximately nineteen to thirty-one years of age." Marcie stopped for a moment. "We date the bone at one hundred and twenty years." More rattling and dings came through. "That is all."

"Thanks, Marcie," Michael said.

She clicked off.

"How can your girlfriend ..." Michael pointed out the closed door. "... who is very much alive ... also be dead?" His brows came together in the middle.

Ian slouched further against the table, thoughts of Sherrill's photo from a hundred years ago, the tattoo, the symbolic nature of it and the potential for reincarnation.

"Even identical twins, whose DNA matches ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent of markers, have some differences. I'd say the odds are pretty impossible unless Taylor's been cloned."

There can only be one answer.

a a a Ian shipped Michael off in the plane the next day, vowing again to stick to Taylor's side. He'd added a *please go ask the hot blonde out and get details on the genealogy question', though didn't tell Michael why. His hunches didn't always work out, and he didn't have a particular one about the photo or details Sherrill had given them, but a vibe told him to look into it.

Yet, as he stood outside Taylor's open door, peering in, he wondered how much his presence or any of the tasks he'd undertaken helped or would even matter if she didn't survive.

If her fourth life ended in the hospital's ICU in Rochester, New York.

A rush of staff brought at least half a dozen people into the room, and just as had happened before, for the second day in a row, her body heated up like a small inferno. People moved around each other, running wires and lines from walls to Taylor's bed.

Still Ian stood, watching.

"Mr. Sands?" A lab-coated doctor stood in front of him.

"Yes?" Ian ran a hand over his head.

"I have in my notes that Ms. Marsh was brought in last week, in ... ah ...." He flipped over his paper.

"North Carolina," Ian said.

"Yes ... for a reported drowning, is this correct?"