He trailed his fingers lazily down my bare back, soothing me with long fingers. He lifted my hair and kissed my neck. I tingled where his lips lingered.

"I learned some new poems in Germany," he murmured as he kissed me. "Touring with a band is tedious. Days traveling on uncomfortable buses. Nights spent in seedy hotels. I had time on my hands. Tended to think too much. Here's something by William Morris. It made me think of you," he said, and rolled over on his back, stared at the ceiling, and began to speak:

Upon the day thou weariest of me,I wish that thou mayst somewhat think of this.And twixt thy new-found kisses, and the blissOf something sweeter than thine old delight,Remember thee a little of this nightOf marvels, and this starlit, silent place,And these two lovers standing face to face.

When he had finished I swung my legs off the edge of the bed. My feet hit the wooden floor with a small smack. I stood, my stiff back toward my lover. "I think I shall shower," I said.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "You didn't like it? I thought the rhyming was brilliant."

I looked back over my shoulder at Darius, his face innocent of malice.

The poem he chose revealed too clearly that he had been thinking of me with Fitz when he memorized it. His anger was there in the lines. He wasn't as gracious about my leaving him as he had earlier implied.

"It was very nice," I said.

"But?" he asked.

"But? Nothing. Nothing to do with the poem. Something else," I lied. "What are your plans tonight?" I asked.

"My plans?" He propped himself up on his elbow as he remained lying carelessly on the bed. He looked down at his fingernails. "Besides staying at least a few steps ahead of the grim reaper, not any. I heard that the return of Ha.s.san Omar and the relic are in the works. I'm out of it now. It's up to the State Department, I suppose. Anyway, it's over with for me." He raised his eyes to my face. "What are you going to do?"

I realized I had a decision to make, one that could determine the fates of many. I hadn't told Darius about Rogue's plan. I stood there and looked at him, wondering whether to listen to my believing heart or the niggling doubt in my head. Which was the better judge? I wish I knew.

I let out a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound In for a penny, in for a pound I walked back to the bed. I sat down on the edge and told Darius everything. I told him that a large gathering of vampires, primarily from Lucifer's Laundromat but others too, would meet in Central Park at midnight. They would be decoys, sitting ducks as it were, to entice the ninety or more vampire hunters that Darius said were in New York to attack. I walked back to the bed. I sat down on the edge and told Darius everything. I told him that a large gathering of vampires, primarily from Lucifer's Laundromat but others too, would meet in Central Park at midnight. They would be decoys, sitting ducks as it were, to entice the ninety or more vampire hunters that Darius said were in New York to attack.

But the vampires acting as a Judas goat would be ready, armed, and prepared to fight. More important, they would be in constant contact with Rogue and a squadron of us, also heavily armed. Upon the Central Park group's signal, we would join the battle, flanking the attackers from behind in a cla.s.sic pincer maneuver.

The success of the operation would come down to precise timing-and completing the action quickly, before the police arrived to interrupt the vampire war going on within the city limits.

"We don't have to kill all of them," I explained. "But we do have to decimate their numbers enough so that Opus Dei sends the survivors back to whatever dark hole they came from."

Darius listened. I couldn't read his face.

"Count me in," he said.

The night came down on the city like black velvet, too warm for the season, causing thousands of air conditioners to be turned up to high. People lined up in front of ice-cream stores. Policemen rode around in their squad cars sweating beer into their shirts.

In the shower stall I let the cool water run over my body. I was humming as I slathered liquid soap over my flesh. I thought about a lot of things as I washed. Darius would spend the early hours with me. We could talk some more. Make love again, of course.

I didn't know if the Darkwings had a briefing tonight. J didn't call. I would not have gone in any event. I didn't know what I would say to him. I didn't know if I wanted to see him again. I had cast my lot with Darius, not J.

I had nearly quit the Darkwings before. I was at that point again. Perhaps I needed to rethink my career as a spy. Or perhaps not. I liked what I did. Months earlier Darius had encouraged me to leave my mother's group and join his agency. He'd asked me to go to Germany with him, as a secret agent as well as his lover.

His request had put me at a fork in the road of life. Before, I had taken the other path, and now, ironically, it had led me back to the same junction.

Fate was giving me all the signs. This time maybe I should pay some attention to them.

I emerged from the shower to find that Darius had retrieved his shirt and jeans from the clothes dryer in the kitchen. He was already dressed. My brow furrowed.

"Are you going out?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, picking up his cell phone and wallet from the bedside table and putting them in his back pocket.

"I thought you said you didn't have plans?" My voice was skeptical and suspicious.

"I didn't when you asked before. Now I do," he said, turning around and looking at me.

He must have called someone while I was in the shower, I thought. "So where are you going?"

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll meet you later. You said ten to twelve. At Seventy-second and Broadway?"

"That's where I'm meeting Rogue. I thought we'd be going there together." Anxiety began to gnaw at me like a hungry rodent.

"I have to take care of something first. Don't look so worried. I'll be there; I promise." He crossed the room and put his arms around me.

I was like ice in his arms. My mind was racing, matching my accelerating heart. "Don't you think you should have something-some blood, I mean-before you go?"

He leered and nuzzled my neck. "Are you offering me a meal?"

I pulled away from his kiss and pushed out of his arms.

"Hey, I was just kidding. I know you meant the blood-bank stuff. Thanks for the offer, but I'll take care of it later."

"You'll need all your strength for tonight," I said, not knowing what he meant by, I'll take care of it later I'll take care of it later, but questions were getting me nowhere.

He smiled at me. "You worry about me too much. I promise you I'll meet you on time. I promise you I won't be fainting with hunger. If anything, if you want to know the truth, I'm concerned about your going tonight. It will get rough. Somebody, maybe a lot of somebodies, will die. I don't want you to be one of them."

I lifted my chin. "I won't be. I know how to fight. You of all people should know that."

"You are one bada.s.s mama. I know that. There's still a risk. Being a selfish person, I don't want to lose you. I just got you back."

"Was it a contest?" I said, my words brittle.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Getting me back? Was it a game for you?"

He rolled his eyes up at the ceiling. "G.o.d grant me patience," he muttered under his breath. Then his eyes came back to me. "Daphne Urban, you are one of the world's most trying women. Can't you accept the fact that I love you? I love you with all my heart. I want you to be safe. I don't want you breaking heads and maybe getting your own busted. I want us to have a life together, an eternity together, if you will.

"Oh, h.e.l.l," he said, and took a step toward me, stretched out his hand, and grabbed my arm. He pulled me next to him, my bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against him.

"You're going to make me a crazy man; you really are. I wanted to find a better time to ask this, but I'd better do it now-Daphne, will you marry me?"

I whooped. I threw myself in his arms. I wrapped my naked legs around his waist and covered his face in kisses. "Yes," I said, "Yes, I'll marry you." No hesitation, no doubts.

Then he told me that he had been going out to buy me a ring. I felt like an idiot. A suspicious, irrational idiot-for about a nanosecond.

Although my outward reaction was uninhibited, inwardly I was deeply shaken. Twice within a short amount of time, within the same banner year, two men had asked me to wed them. For four hundred years I had affairs, liaisons, and long dry spells. No marriage. No engagements. A vampire bride is not a highly sought-after mate.

Why had that changed since I joined the Darkwings? Had something in me changed?

"So it's a yes," he said with a broad smile. "In that case, I think we have to make it official," he said, and unb.u.t.toned his jeans and dropped them to the floor, exposing his upright member.

It was clear what "making it official" meant.

We never made it to the bedroom. We sank down together on the carpet. Without foreplay Darius entered me, a quick, hard taking. And since there were other Kama Sutra Kama Sutra positions we had yet to try-sixty-three more, to be exact-I moved beneath Darius so that we could begin with the Mill Vanes, which required self-control of the man and strength from me. positions we had yet to try-sixty-three more, to be exact-I moved beneath Darius so that we could begin with the Mill Vanes, which required self-control of the man and strength from me.

After a few minutes in that pose, as the pa.s.sion soared in us both, I shifted again and we moved into the Mirror of Pleasing, which allows no touching with the hands or face. But the tantalizing distance between us made me grow desperate with wanting to hold him. I pulled back and asked him to squat on his haunches. In a sitting position, I slid down onto him, taking him within me. Then, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, I met his lips with mine in an unending kiss. In this variant of the Medusa I was soon gasping, the stars whirling around me as I climaxed. Darius followed with an o.r.g.a.s.m of his own.

I had been sated. I had been well and royally f.u.c.ked three different ways. But somehow it was not what celebrating an engagement perhaps should be. My feelings must have been evident, for Darius, his body slick with sweat in the hot night, kissed me again.

"Didn't I please you?" he asked.

"Yes-" I began.

"It's getting late," he said, cutting me off. "I'll come up with something special for the next time. And that's a promise." He gave me a playful slap on the b.u.t.t, got up, and went into the bathroom. I heard the water running while he washed up.

I should have been happier than I was, I thought.

Well, h.e.l.lo! I admonished myself. One reason I wasn't happier was that Darius was still going out. And not taking me with him.

After he left, stopping to kiss me as he headed out the front door, I told Jade I'd take her for a walk. She danced around with doggy joy when she saw the leash. Gunther squeaked in his cage, wanting to go too.

"Sorry, little guy," I said. "It's too hot for a rat in a pocket tonight."

In fact, all I had on was running shorts and a cotton cami, a pair of flip-flops on my feet. The humidity had created air you could wear outside; the temperature hovered in the high eighties, even after dark.

Mickey tipped his hat when Jade and I stepped off the elevator into the lobby.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Fit as a fiddle. Most action I've seen in forty years," he said with a smile.

"Thank you for what you did," I said.

"No need for that," he said, blushing, and changed the subject "Saw your young man go out a little while ago." His previous rancor at Darius was absent. Getting attacked by killers and then disposing of a dead body must be a male bonding experience.

"Yes, he went out," I responded, feeling annoyed now that Mickey brought up the issue again. "By the way, Mick, can you give me some help getting my bike downstairs around eleven?"

"Just ring me when you're ready, Miss Urban," he said.

Time on my hands and nothing to occupy my mind made me fret and stew. I had little to do from now, a little after nine, until eleven thirty, when I would take my Harley downstairs and ride the few blocks over to Broadway. I planned to clean my guns, for I was taking two, then get together what I would wear for battle. Other than that, I faced idleness.

For a while after Darius left I sat at the breakfast counter with a mug of coffee, turning the pages of the New York Times New York Times, just as I had done hundreds of evenings before. Nothing kept my attention. Instead I worried that I had compromised our operation. Perhaps I shouldn't have told Darius. Right now he could be talking with his brother, figuring out a counterattack that would get all the vampires killed.

I hated myself for even fantasizing about that. If that were true, it would mean Darius's marriage proposal was a sham as well, a spur-of-the-moment deception to dupe me into believing in him. Had I been blinded by my pa.s.sion? Where did his loyalties really lie?

These thoughts, born in my teeming brain, made me feel small and miserable. I had had to trust Darius. I loved him. Also, he was the one who had told me about the vampire hunter army in the first place. And I didn't believe he could fake the lovemaking that fused us body and soul. He would have to be a heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d to do something like that, to play me that way. to trust Darius. I loved him. Also, he was the one who had told me about the vampire hunter army in the first place. And I didn't believe he could fake the lovemaking that fused us body and soul. He would have to be a heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d to do something like that, to play me that way.

It was my mother's influence making me think he could be so devious. She could be; I knew that. If I believed even half of what the history books reported on Marozia, it was clear she was a treacherous, ambitious, ruthless woman. Yes, she was my mother. That didn't change the facts.

She had poisoned my mind against the man I loved.

My cell phone rang then, and with relief, seeing it was Benny, I answered it.

She told me right up front that she was not alone. She lowered her voice, giggled, and said she'd been playing Ride 'Em, Cowboy since yesterday. But anyway, she didn't call to brag, she said. She called to tell me that she had talked to Audrey and she was sorely worried.

"I called her and left her a message, you know, about our plans for tonight. She called me back. Now, maybe I shouldn't have-my mama always said never to come between a woman and a man-but, you know, I just have to say what's on my mind.

"I told her that I thought maybe that there Khan fellow wasn't quite as good as she thought.

"I told her about that poor officer from the Intrepid Intrepid, shot the way he was. And that those terrorists may have killed everybody, far as we knew, and we were a mite worried about them really returning the ship without some shenanigans and all. And maybe, since she was a spy, she should try to find out what the terrorists were really planning to do with the Intrepid Intrepid."

Evidently Audrey didn't take Benny's news very well. She said she was sure Khan didn't know anything about any killings. He believed with all his heart that the Wahhabi group was acting in good faith. His uncle had a.s.sured him it was so. And Benny was deeply worried because Audrey's voice sounded hollow and weak, as if she hadn't eaten.

"She surely hasn't bitten him. I can tell you that, girlfriend," Benny said.

I asked Benny if Audrey intended to come to Central Park tonight, either with our group or the Laundromat crew. She said no. After realizing Audrey was in a weakened state, Benny had told her to stick with Khan-to find out information. She asked me if we should run an intervention, or do something to make sure Audrey got some blood in her.

I thought for a moment and decided I had time to take some blood from my refrigerator stash over to her. I said to Benny, "I think she needs to tell Khan she has anemia from dieting for her modeling career. He'd buy that. Call Audrey back and tell her I'm bringing some over."

"Sugar," she said, "that is absolute-y posultooty brilliant. I'll get on it right now."

I felt relieved that Benny didn't ask what I had been doing. And I didn't tell her. Although she was my best friend, I didn't tell her about Darius being abducted. I didn't tell her about Mickey and Darius and the vampire hunters. I didn't tell her about Darius popping the question. I didn't tell her he'd be coming along with us tonight. I curiously didn't mention Darius at all.

I changed quickly into close-fitting white silk pants, a white cami, and a long embroidered Indian-silk Sandy Starkman jacket. I slipped my feet into Stuart Weitzman mules. The overall effect carried a hint of India or Pakistan. I put on jewelry too-enough diamonds on my wrists, neck, and earlobes to need a police escort. In places like the Palace money talks, and I wouldn't have to say anything at all. The doorman would rush over all smiles, and the desk would call up to Khan's room to announce me.

Audrey was standing in the doorway waiting for me when I stepped out of the elevator. She wore a white terry-cloth robe, and her face was just as white. Her hand trembled on the doorjamb, the quaking traveling up her arm. I thought she looked ready to collapse.

When Audrey brought me into the suite, Khan was on the phone. He glanced up at me and waved but kept talking into the receiver.

Good, I thought. I can get this blood into her without any long explanations I can get this blood into her without any long explanations. "Let's go into the bathroom," I told Audrey.