"It hurts," said the vampire. It canted its head to one side and Alek saw its ragged mane of hair was bound with chain and a steel ball. Kage.

"That's good. If you could not feel at all, that would mean you were dying." More blood was dribbled into his wound, and with the blood, more pain. The heels of his boots beat arythmically against the floor. He thought he would explode from the pain, the immortal pain. Finally, mercifully, after some minutes Kage stopped tormenting him and knelt down. He smelled like death and Alek began to breath out of his mouth by reflex to cut the odor of the grave.

"You don't smell so well yourself, brother," Kage said. His grey, caustic face showed no emotion, as always, yet there was purpose in his gestures. He reached down and took hold of the stake of iron in one of his hands. The other hovered over Alek's face a moment before clamping down over the bridge of his nose, the heel sinking under his palate, his upper canine teeth sinking deep into the hand. Alek choked, but it was a momentary discomfort. And then there was a sensation to which his entire body responded--a white-hot flash of fire from within that ripped a gushing hole loose and actually lifted his body several inches off the floor. Alek screamed through his teeth, biting against the hand preventing him from snapping his tongue loose, and it was like the roar of a lion or the cry of a wolf, something elemental and inhuman, a sound so strange it did not seem possible it came from his own throat. He tasted blood, rotten, and he began to gag in earnest this time. To gag and writhe.

Be still, said Kage's eyes.

And Alek was. And he lay as still as a corpse and felt the hissing heat of his own immortal blood filling the hole the iron stake had left in his stomach. His fingernails tore strips of the blood-soaked carpet from the floor. He was in h.e.l.l. He must be dying. He was...

"Alive," Kage whispered as he released his hold on Alek's face, the palm of his frayed hand smearing the blood across Alek's cheek like war paint. "Alive and immortal and cursed to walk this world forever, a plague unto yourself."

d.a.m.ned.

"Yes."

Alek felt the pain recede...not fast, not fast enough for his liking...but at least he could breathe now and he had stopped roaring in anguish.

He tasted his shed tears and blood. He felt his heart--it was running like a clock in his chest, but at least it was running. He sagged back against the floor, unable to move, unable to do more than shake his head at Kage and utter silently the only word he was capable of: "Why?"

Kage threw down the railroad spike. "It was what the master wanted, nothing more. Don't read too much into it. The next time we meet, Slayer, things will be very different."

The master...

And then Alek remembered. Through the pain he remembered it all.

Danny, Robyn, Kage. Everything.

And then it was obliterated again by a waxing cramp of hunger.

Craving. The wanting that never, never seemed to leave him, d.a.m.ned and immortal as he was. He curled himself around the pain, almost weeping in the clutch of its power, as helpless as a child. As helpless as Danny, his Danny...

Kage seemed to regard him with something like curiosity. "You saved Danny. I can't tell you what that means to me, and so I will show you instead." Again he touched Alek, but this time he took great care in it, unwinding him, his fingers on Alek's face, under his chin. With a force that was gentle, yet firm, Kage tilted Alek's head back. The sensation of having his throat exposed panicked him and he started to whimper and struggle. Again Kage commended him to be still, and he was. He had no strength to fight the vampire's will. No desire.

Kage held him fast and leaned down, his tongue finding Alek's mouth in something like an exploratory kiss. Kage's tongue entered Alek's mouth like a snake in a hole, stealthy, and twined with Alek's own for a moment before raking against his canines. The barest touch...and it set his entire body on fire with the need. The endless craving. And when Kage convulsed and offered Alek the gift of life Alek could no more deny it than a dying man in the desert could deny a drink of life-giving water.

Alek drank it all. His body drank it all, his hurting, starved body cleaving to the nourishment. He groaned as his body returned to life, pain fluttering away-not gone but now lurking at a distance--wounds netting at almost preternatural speed. He found Kage's hair, the chain, his fingers tangling in it, his mouth and tongue seeking and begging yet more and more life from Kage's mouth. Kage responded. He must have fed heavily for he seemed to give in an endless, frenzied pa.s.sion before the giving became too much for his own recovering body and he broke the kiss and forcefully pushed Alek's body down.

Alek's mind was spinning, body humming with energy. "More?"

"No more for you, Slayer. You've had enough."

Enough. No, there could never be enough...

But too much and he would suffer for it.

"That's right," Kage said.

You can know my thoughts?

"For a short time," Kage said. "Until our bond weakens."

Our bond...

Alek looked on Kage and he looked inside of him. All that terror, all those years. The loss and the sorrow...and yet there was love, too. He thought it could not be possible, yet it was. Kage was not merely devoted to Danny. He did not mindlessly serve the boy any more than he had any of his great human masters. There was love there as well. The love he cleaved to, because it subjugated the monster. He loved Danny, was in love with Danny. And that love was a wonderful, overwhelming feeling of happiness to be so near someone so special. To be so complete in the presence of another. To be loved. To serve. To be precious.

To feel human...

Alek's jealously was like a river.

"He loves you too. You have become a part of us both." Kage stood up.

Alek knew he was leaving for good, and that they would not face each other again, except as enemies. Perhaps the love would remain, but it would not exist between the two of them. It was love of common blood, Alek realized. Dragon's blood. A strange elixir.

They shared Danny. That was all.

Alek sat up. He was still weak, but he would live. Not a foot from where he lay was the iron railroad spike that nearly ended his life. He picked it up.

Robyn?

Dead in our eyes, as I have said, Kage said as he hovered in the window. Beneath the tatters of his coat was a little figure with large shimmering eyes.

Alek smiled.

Uncle Alek, said Danny.

Had he really heard that? Had he?

And then they were gone, both of them. Just gone.

Alek was confused. He went to look out the broken window, but there was nothing to see but night. And then went upstairs to the bedroom.

There were bloodstains on his sheets and duvet, but that wasn't so unusual. There was always blood somewhere.

He stood in the room, the stake in his hand, and wondered about Robyn.

She was gone.

And he never saw her again.

30.

One week to the date, Alek went to see Edward Ashikawa at his house. It was a common day. The men at the gate let him in--somewhat reluctantly as usual--and he was looked over suspiciously and asked to unload any firearms, again, as usual. But he had none of those and had never owned any anyway, so it made no difference to him. He was allowed to keep the sword, and that was the only thing that counted.

The butler-henchmen said Mr. Ashikawa was in the courtyard taking tea and would Alek be joining him this afternoon? Alek said he would.

Outside in the courtyard, at the top of the stairs to the gazebo, sat the Dragon Lord of the Yakuza. He was sipping green tea and reading the New York Times in the beautiful light of day. He folded down the newspaper and regarded Alek with some surprise before saying, "I admire you. You have an enormous amount of courage coming here."

Alek regarded the man overtop the round black shades he was wearing against the fierceness of the light. "Well, the way I see it, you haven't tried to kill me in the last week and I have no interest in killing you at all, so I'm hoping this is a truce."

Edward Ashikawa considered that, but before he could respond, a little voice interrupted them both.

"Uncle Alek!" And then there was Danny running around the side of the great fountain and throwing himself forward into Alek's arms. Alek dropped down and caught him and Danny locked his arms around Alek's neck and started to squeeze like a vice with an iron grip. Alek noted that little Danny certainly had his father's strength. "You sure took a long time in coming," Danny said. "What took you so long?"

Alek looked past the child to his father. "I've been fighting the bad guys."

"Cool." Danny finally let go long enough to study his face. "Where's your mask?"

Alek tilted his head. "No masks for you, Danny-boy."

"I missed you, Uncle Alek," the boy said and gave him another squeeze. "I was scared, but Daddy said you would be back. Daddy was right."

Alek smiled. "I missed you too."

"Danny," said Edward Ashikawa, patiently, "Why don't you go inside so Uncle Alek and I can talk?"

Danny stared up at his father. "Have to?"

"I would wish it, son."

Danny made a face. "Grown-up talk?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Yuck." He turned back to Alek and grabbed a hold of his arm, shaking it emphatically. "Can I show you the dojo later?" Again he glanced at his father. "Daddy gave me a sword. I can't lift it though. Will you help me? It's cool but not like yours. Daddy says you have the coolest sword ever."

"Sure."

"Will you show me your sword? I want to hold it."

"Of course," Alek said. "Now listen to your father and go inside.

Okay?"

"'Kay." Grinning, the boy ran off. But at the door of the house he turned and waved frantically one more time.

Alek waved back and the boy ran off.

"Kage was right...Danny loves you," Edward said.

"Where is Kage?" Alek sat down on the stairs of the gazebo.

"Around."

Alek nodded. "You lost him when you sent him to protect Danny."

Ashikawa sipped his tea. "Yes. But I did gain you, didn't I?"

Alek smirked. "I'm not a vampire, Mr. Ashikawa. I don't serve."

"All your kind serve," Ashikawa answered with a mirrored smirk. "It is your nature to do so. And you cannot deny your nature, now can you?

Nor more than Kage can. No more than I can."

Alek shook his head. "I was pa.s.sing by the house and wanted to know how Danny was. He had an experience last week."

"Danny is well. Danny is with Kage. That's all that's important to me.

I have everything I need, you see." Ashikawa hesitated and glanced sidelong at Alek. "Well...nearly so."

Alek stood up as the power of the Dragon seemed to reach for him, to push at him, to keep him sitting on the stairs. At Edward's feet. "You never give up, do you?" Alek said. The anger kindled a fire from within.

He would have to leave soon or chance going a second round with the Dragon Lord of the Yakuza, something he didn't want, not when he was on an important mission today. He b.u.t.toned up his coat. "You won't win, Mr. Ashikawa. I won't belong to you. Ever."

But Edward Ashikawa never lost his smile. "Time pa.s.ses, Slayer," he said, "and time changes all things."

31.

He stepped into the hospital lobby just before the end of visiting hours. The receptionist looked up at him with a bored expression that changed dramatically when she got a good look at him. He waited for some snide commend from Debra, but none was forthcoming surprisingly, so he approached the young woman and asked which room Candace Katherine Keith was in.

"1141, sir, but her visitor list is highly-restricted. May I have your name?"

He gave it, wondering if Kat's family, or Kat herself, had thought to include him on the list. He was mildly surprised to learn she had. He made his way to her room, ignoring the interest of the receptionist. He pushed open her door, expecting to find her in a sad, vacant room, but the room was not like that. It was a veritable garden of delights, flowers and gifts everywhere he looked. Like the grand finale of a stage play, he thought. Like a funeral.

She has changed, he thought. And it had been no more than a week.

Her skin was brown and dry, and she had lost so much weight it hung slack on her bones. Her muscle tone and strength were gone. How much weight had she lost in only one week? Twenty pounds? More? He had no way of telling, but he could see the terrible toll it had taken on her body.

Even her hair looked lifeless, draped in dry, brittle strands across the pillow, all the curl gone, as if that were too much effort for her body to make.

It took him a moment to recognize the emotion welling up within him. Rage. He no longer wondered why he had loved her once so long ago. She had been worth loving. But this was sacrilege.

His rage gave him power and he cried out silently, trying to touch Kandy Kat's mind. His hand stroked hers, and then moved to smooth her cheek between the tangles of the tubes and machines that kept her alive these days. He might even have kissed her since princes were reputedly able to bring back fair sickly maidens with such kisses, but the machines would not allow that. And anyway, everything he touched, everything he loved, died.

Kat opened her eyes. They were still bright. They still held mirth.

"Hi there," she whispered. "I saw you...at the exhibit...so beautiful..."