She was still staring at him with such level eyes. As if this were a regular, real conversation. "Two before you," she told him, "except that the second one doesn't really count."

"Oh? And why not?"

"Because I think that he was you."

Sean groaned and sank down on the bed. "He was me?"

She nodded very gravely, rising and walking to her dresser where she shook a snow globe of a Disney prince and princess and set it down, watching as the glittering particles within the globe settled once again. Then she met his eyes in the mirror. "I've been around a very long time, Sean. Honest. I've seen a lot that was bad, but I've also come to believe in some good. I think that sometimes, perhaps when lives are cut short, people come back. In close and similar situations. I think that you are the Sean Canady I knew and loved during the Civil War."

He looked at her, his throat dry, as he thought of the strange dreams that had been plaguing him lately. Dreams of riding into battle, seeking glory ...

Last night.

His mad desire to make love on the stairway.

No.

"Who was your first lover?" he demanded harshly.

"Comte Alec DeVereaux. We met when I was very young."

"You loved him-and he did this to you?"

She hesitated, uncertain for the first time. "I loved him, and I believe that he loved me.

And I think he foolishly believed he could make things right between us. There is a saying engraved on an ancient tombstone in France: 'And love shall set you free.' I think that Alec believed that my love for him would change things. That he could regain his immortal soul through me. Lucian believes that Alec was convinced of the truth of the saying."

"Ah, yes, Lucian!" Sean spat out. "So-this Lucian is a vampire as well?"

"Yes."

"And he's survived all this time?"

"Much longer than me. Lucian is ancient. As for Alec ..." She shook her head. "My father killed Alec. He was with one of your great, great-however many greats- grandfathers, and some other men. They thought they knew what Alec was."

"From what you say, they did know. He was a vampire."

"He was a vampire, but not evil."

"What he did to you was apparently evil."

"I've already told you-"

He groaned with sudden impatience. "Don't tell me anything else! I don't believe any of this."

Maggie walked back over to him, sitting Indian fashion on the bed before him. "Sean, you have to believe me. It's the only way you can fight the killer."

"I shouldn't have a gun. I should have a stake," he queried skeptically.

She ignored his tone, anger flickering in her eyes as she watched him.

"Well," he told her, "I do need a stake, right? We have established that the killer is a vampire."

She hesitated, watching him. Then she let out a long sigh. "Yes, he's a vampire. A practiced killer who has made an art of murder through the years. He's also Jack the Ripper."

Sean's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, Jesus, Maggie-"

"Don't 'Maggie' me in that tone. I'm going to start at the beginning and try to be concise, and try to get all this through your stubborn head. When I was very young, I fell in love. My father wanted to save his child, so he killed Alec, then spent his life trying to save me. He invented a child-and a way for me to come back to New Orleans every twenty years or so. I met Lucian because-"

"Yes?"

"Lucian is the king."

"King!" Sean reiterated through clenched teeth.

"Well, that's what he is. But that's beside the point now. He was my mentor; he taught me the rules. How to survive, how to have a life, how to keep my property. I have always been M. Montgomery in some manner or another. During the Civil War, I met Sean Canady, and I didn't have the nerve to tell him what I was, but I had promised that after the war I would explain why I couldn't marry him. At a party we met a man, and I knew he was one of my kind, except he was cruel. Incredibly cruel. I knew from the beginning that I wanted nothing to do with him, but he pursued me. He killed carelessly, and worse, he enjoyed tainting men."

"Tainting them?"

"I told you about tainting people. Slicing into their necks with the blood teeth; they don't die, they don't become vampires. If a vampire takes too much blood from a victim this way, the victim dies-or he or she goes mad and starts killing others."

"Oh, of course," Sean murmured. "Anyway, this vampire slowly killed Colonel Wynn's daughter, then started on him. He destroyed the colonel. Wynn started butchering wounded Confederate soldiers, convinced that a soldier had seduced and killed his daughter. Sean Canady went after Wynn, I came after Sean ... and Aaron Carter came after me. I was so desperate that I would have kept Sean alive as a vampire, except that it was too late."

Sean thought that his face must be fixed into a permanent mask of disbelief, like a plastic mask.

"Then the war ended, time went by-Aaron became Jack the Ripper?" he inquired. "And Aaron is the killer I struggled with last night."

She nodded. "I met him again in London. I had to travel around Europe as well as the States, you see. I didn't age, and I had to allow for each new child to grow up."

"Of course," Sean murmured.

"I was in London, and I became good friends with a doctor and his wife-remember how I said that I think that people come back when their lives are cut short?"

"What?"

"Well, I think that the doctor was your partner, Jack, by the way, and that Angie was Laura."

"Sure, why not?" Sean said. "If we're going to believe in vampires, we might as well believe in reincarnation."

"I know that there are vampires. I don't know if reincarnation is true or not. I just know that the world is full of souls, good, evil-and I think, old and young."

"And you believe in G.o.d, Maggie?"

"Yes."

"And are you d.a.m.ned?"

"I don't know. I pray not. Maybe, even among us, it all has to do with the concept of free will and making choices. And I pray that you won't be such a fool as to not pay attention to what I'm saying, because I'm telling you, if Aaron isn't stopped, more people will die. More and more. Peter-the doctor who was my friend in London-was an incredibly gifted man determined to help out in the slums of Whitechapel. We were out one night when I saw Aaron. We got into a fight; Lucian intervened and ordered us both to leave off. Anyway ... Laura, Peter's wife, was pregnant, so I kept working with Peter so that she could rest, and stay home, away from the filth and disease and crime on the streets.

Then the Whitechapel killings began, and Peter started having blackouts. He was convinced that he was the killer, and I began to wonder myself, because he disappeared each time there was a murder and I couldn't find him. And he'd be covered in blood. Then ..." She inhaled deeply. "Laura had been sick. Peter found her dead after one of his blackouts. He blamed himself, and ... he shot and killed himself. It was the morning after Mary Kelly was murdered so brutally. I was dazed, walking around ... I saw Aaron. And when I confronted him, I found out that he'd been killing the prost.i.tutes and purposely making Peter think he was a killer. He thought it an incredible joke that the police were so mystified, and he loved the lists of suspects. I don't know how to explain Aaron except that he thinks himself a hunter ... like a cat, perhaps, a killer who likes to taunt and torture his prey. I was so angry that I attacked Aaron, and I hurt him, really hurt him. I would have killed him then except that Lucian stopped me, because, if I had killed him, I would have faced execution from my own kind. Even if Lucian hadn't sanctioned a formal execution, other vampires would have found me and a way to kill me. They might have despised Aaron and agreed with me, but that is the ancient law. We are not allowed to destroy our own kind. Still, Aaron was hurt, really hurt. The kind of hurt that probably took nearly a century to heal.

But he's better now. And he's back-strong, evil, vicious. Jack's back!" she said very softly, and looked at him. "Don't you understand what you're up against, what kind of evil?

Jack is back, and that's the truth. My G.o.d, look at the killings, look at your victims! How many men could copycat that well? If you allow yourself to think about it all, you'll realize I'm telling you the simple, indisputable truth."

The truth. Surely, she saw the disbelief in his eyes.

"Maggie ..."

"Oh, G.o.d!" she groaned. "It's true, Sean. It's true. What will have to happen for me to convince you?"

She sat before him, somehow appearing very innocent and young, even in her nakedness. Her eyes were liquid, glittering a beautiful gold, her hair was still wild around her shoulders; she was so perfect and so lovely, it seemed incredible that she could be telling him such a story, much less believing it.

He cupped her cheek, kissing her lips lightly. "I'm going to take a shower. Get dressed.

Get into work," he told her. He rose, walking toward the shower. He felt as if he stumbled like a drunk. He paused at the bathroom door. "With any luck, they might have caught this madman by now," he said.

Her back was to him. Long, sleek, beautiful. She shook her head. "They won't have caught him. You know that. If they had found them, they would have called you by now."

She was right; he knew it. Even if he hadn't said where he'd be, they'd have known.

He stepped into the shower and let cold water pour over him. He was in a nightmare, and he needed to wake up.

When he emerged, Maggie was dressed, ready for a day at work. She wore a navy business suit with a white silk blouse and tie. Masculine apparel had never looked so feminine, yet she was the sophisticate now, long red hair swept up into a neat chignon.

"There's coffee in the kitchen," she told him, leaving the bedroom as he dressed.

As it happened, her housekeeper, Peggy-plump, rosy-cheeked, Mrs. Santa Claus look- alike-was in the kitchen as well. She greeted Sean pleasantly, poured him coffee, and offered him a fresh, just-baked m.u.f.fin.

Maggie was there, too, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

"The papers say you nearly caught the beast, Lieutenant Canady!" Peggy said. "You'll get him yet, you mark my words."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Peggy," Sean told her. "And the m.u.f.fin. Maggie, you ready?"

She looked up, nodded, set down her cup, and thanked Peggy as well, telling her she wasn't sure whether she'd be back that night or not. Peggy warned her just to keep herself safe.

As they walked to the car, Sean asked sarcastically, "Is Peggy a vampire, too?"

She shot him a regal glare. "Of course not. She's my housekeeper, she looks out for me, and she's wonderful. Someone has to look after a vampire, right?"

"Ah! So she protects you at your weakest moments!"

Maggie ignored that, sliding into the car beside him. "Peggy's family has looked after Montgomery Plantation for ages," she said. "No, she's not a vampire. But her father worked for me before, and before that, her grandmother, and before that-"

"I get the idea. Does she lure in the unwary for you?"

"Don't be absurd."

"So it's no House of Dark Shadows, eh? You do all your own stealing from blood banks?"

"I buy my blood, thank you."

"Pick it right up on a trip to the mall, eh?"

She smiled sweetly. "I should bite you right in the neck."

He shrugged. Why was he hounding her? Was he afraid that she could make him believe? Was she serious, or was he the worst fool of all men, was this a ma.s.sive joke?

They were stiff, not speaking much, until they neared the city. Then he felt compelled to warn her again. "Maggie, I don't know what is and isn't real anymore," he said, catching her eyes in the mirror. "But I don't want to have to worry about you in all this-please."

"You have to think, Sean. You have to promise me that you'll give some real thought to the things I've said to you!"

"All right. But promise me you won't try to save me or anyone else. You have to stay away from the killer-whether he's a man or a monster."

She sat silently, looking down at her hands. He was almost at Montgomery Enterprises.

He pulled the car over as tightly as he could to the curb, throwing it into park to turn and take her hands as he talked to her.

"Sean, I'm trying to help you-"

"Maggie!" he protested, shaking his head and hesitating just a minute. "Maggie, I love you. Whatever is going on. Whether you're nuts, I'm nuts-or we're all nuts. If you want to help me, stay safe."

She stared straight ahead, stiff and angry. Then she looked at him. "I'm telling you the truth, Sean."

"Maggie, this whole thing is so insane. Prost.i.tutes are dead, a pimp is dead-and a corpse is beheaded. It doesn't make sense at all-"

"Yes, it does. I did the corpse," she said quietly.

"What?"

Her eyes locked with his. "I went to the morgue, and beheaded Ray."

"You?" He tried to imagine her-taking a bone saw to a man's neck.

Her lips were a tight, white line. "Frightening image, isn't it? Are you still so sure you love me? Or are you trying not to believe that it could be true? I went after Ray. He was tainted. That should have been obvious. You shot him, and he didn't fall. Aaron had been at him, and his blood was diseased. Enough so that he would turn. Ray was coming back. I couldn't let a man like him loose with immortal power."

He sat silently, remembering how he had seen her in the bathroom doorway the morning after Ray was killed. It was possible ... No. Maybe. Had she come and gone?

"I don't believe you," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"You don't want to believe me."

"But-" "Yes, Sean, I can travel like mist, I can shape-shift. It's mind over matter, almost like telekinesis. It takes a tremendous toll on me, and can't be done often, but then, I haven't needed to do much changing lately. Think about it. Remember waking, and I wasn't in bed with you? I left you, I went to the morgue. Ray was out on a gurney-they were getting ready to cut him open. He was getting ready to consume the blood of every young med student and every old doctor and med tech out there. Aaron had been making sure to behead his victims-but he hadn't killed Ray. You killed Ray, but his blood was infected enough to bring him back. A man like Ray loose in the city ..."

"Fine," he challenged her. "You think back. London, 1888. The Ripper's victims had their throats severely slashed-a few of them to the bone- but their heads weren't actually severed!"

"You think about it. Aaron was trying to make Peter think he was a madman. There were plenty of murders going on at the same time-just nothing so vile as the Ripper murders.