"I have to go. I just came to get some things to stay with him at the hospital. If you give a d.a.m.n about him, you'll get your ungrateful a.s.s back here!"

The phone went dead in Jordan's hands. She felt someone at the door. Great. Good thing she'd never decided to be either a criminal or a cop. She'd left the door open to make her secret call.

Ragnor was standing there.

"I have to go back to Venice. Immediately. You may not have to destroy Jared. Cindy says he may be dying."

"We'll go back to Venice," he said, eyeing her coldly. "But you shouldn't have called.

Phone calls can be traced."

"They already knew I was in New Orleans."

"And now they'll know we're warned about Jared." He paused. "There's another stop we have to make first."

"Where?"

"Charleston."

"Why?"

"Sean has spent the day tracing your Steven Moore. He made a really sudden appearance in Charleston. He'd also disappeared from his last job in New York.

Supposedly, he'd been injured and suffered amnesia on his way to recovery. Oddly enough, his family died at the same time. A close friend on the New York force met with a serious accident. No one remembered him very well."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that your fiance might have been a rather cunning vampire."

She shook her head. "No-that's impossible. You didn't know him. He was the kindest man, the most compa.s.sionate-"

"And maybe a d.a.m.ned good actor. Make yourself a cop. It's amazing how that could keep a lot of evidence from being found. And amazing how easy it would be to get rid of people who were getting too nosy. And how easy to restrain people when they were trying to escape."

"You're wrong!"

"I'll be happy for you to prove me wrong."

"How?"

He turned and started out of the room. She ran after him, grabbing his arm. She let it go quickly, having forgotten in the last few hours just how much power lay in his biceps. "What are you planning?" she asked.

"We have to exhume Steven Moore."

She gasped, backing away. "He was burned! And you can't just dig him up-an exhumation order could take days ... weeks. More. And I have to get to Venice-"

"We'll be on a plane by midnight," he told her.

"Then-"

"We'll be in Charleston in a matter of hours. And as soon as it's dusk-"

"You're going to dig him up yourself?" she asked incredulously. "No, no, we can't. I'm telling you, he was burned. He's been buried a year. He's deep in the ground, in a sealed coffin."

"I'm willing to bet your coffin is empty."

"Steven was never evil! We'll be wasting time. You'll see-he's going to be in his coffin."

"You're right; we'll see."

"You won't be able to get him out of the ground-"

"I'll have help. Lucian and Sean will be with us."

"And the three of you are going to sneak into a cemetery at night and dig up his coffin?"

"The four of us," he said. "You're coming too. I don't intend to let you out of my sight."

They had entered a new age.

Maggie Canady arranged for their flight tickets on the way to the airport via her phone and when they arrived at the airport, they arranged for their transportation from Charleston to Rome and on to Venice. He never left Maggie alone with their toddler and their infant.

While waiting for last-minute arrangements to be made, Jordan had a few minutes alone with the two women.

"You still look sh.e.l.l-shocked," Maggie told her.

"I am still sh.e.l.l-shocked. I read your husband's book. I knew something was going on, that strange things were happening, but I was looking for logical explanations. I thought there were killers loose-"

"There are killers loose," Jade commented.

"But in legend and lore, all vampires are killers," Jordan insisted.

"And most of us have killed," Maggie murmured.

"But you're not a vampire anymore. I've never heard of a vampire being cured, in any legend, television show, movie, book, what have you."

"There is a very old legend that if the tie between a mortal and a vampire is deep enough, a bloodletting can bring back mortality. In my instance ... this is too long and confusing a story to tell quickly. When I met Sean ... well, I think he lived before. We became involved here, in New Orleans, because an old enemy of mine was active and Sean was the cop on the case. I don't have all the answers; for us it worked."

"Okay, you were a vampire, but now you're human. And Jade, you were human, but now you're a vampire. So you weren't Lucian's long-lost soul mate."

Jade looked at Maggie. "She sounds so skeptical. Doesn't this all sound perfectly normal to you?" "I remember when you thought we were all insane," Maggie said.

Jade shrugged. "I came across a group of terrorists in Scotland, chewing up tourists.

They tried to finish off the survivors one by one, and there I met Lucian. I think he believes I lived before; I don't."

"But you say that you are now a vampire," Jordan reminded her.

"I was caught in the final episode with the creatures terrorizing the vaults and crypts of Scotland. With the depths of the tainting I received . . . well, it doesn't matter. Lucian had no desire to become mortal; he was well aware that the upheaval was happening, and he felt responsible to see that . .. that the world changed. He was responsible for his own kind, and to keep a balance and ..."

"And to protect people," Maggie said flatly. "Jordan, the world is black and white and all shades of gray. But you have to believe us; maybe we're all trying to make amends now.

Maybe all vampires want to believe even they can get to heaven one day. I don't know. It's just that in the last year or so, many of the stricken-the cursed, or the blessed, as you would have it-have formed something of a coalition. They lead fairly ordinary lives, and when such an upheaval occurs, they fight it together. Anyway, here they are ... coming for you. Take care; trust us, please trust us!"

Maggie gave her a hug as Ragnor came for her. "Hurry-we'll just make the plane."

He led her into the airport as Sean and Lucian said good-bye to their wives. He was all business, in a hurry to make sure they didn't miss their flight.

She was seated next to him on the short hop from New Orleans to Charleston. She was still worn to a frazzle, and he seemed in no mood for conversation. When the plane landed, they immediately searched for a car rental place.

"What about the car I wrecked yesterday?" she asked Ragnor at the desk.

"Sean took care of it."

"But-"

"He's a cop. He took care of it," Ragnor said again.

A few minutes later, they had their car. It wasn't quite dark.

"We can go to my house, if you want," Jordan suggested.

"No ... I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"Hey, I know a great restaurant in the area," Sean suggested. "Southern fried cooking, but then, those two don't have to worry about high cholesterol."

Jordan tried to smile at the joke.

She knew the place where they stopped. It was an old converted house on the outskirts of town, very near the cemetery.

Both Sean and Lucian ordered fried chicken, potatoes, succotash, salads and desserts.

They ordered wine with dinner.

She decided that since she was going to dig up the grave of a man she had loved, she needed a large gla.s.s of wine as well.

"And to think," she murmured, halfway through the meal, "legend has it that vampires don't need normal sustenance, only blood."

Ragnor looked at her seriously. "We do like our meat rare."

"How have you managed ... the-er-kind of sustenance you do need?" she asked awkwardly. "We often pay visits to the local blood banks," Lucian said. "And animal blood will suffice."

"Human is better," Ragnor said flatly.

"Are you trying to make me more nervous?" she asked him.

He leaned close to her. "If I intended to take your blood, Jordan, I could have done so many times before now."

"She's not a very trusting soul, is she?" Lucian inquired.

"Oh, and I should be?"

Ragnor shrugged. "Left corner table," he said to Lucian and Sean.

Jordan started to move her chair back. "No," Ragnor warned her softly.

"What are you telling them?" she demanded.

"We're just keeping an eye out."

"For-"

"Hey!" Sean said. "I'm a cop. My eyes are always open."

None of them explained any further. Lucian asked for the check and paid it. It was time to leave.

When they reached the cemetery, Sean drove the rental car deep into a grove of trees by the side of the very old burial ground.

"We'll have the gate open in a minute," Ragnor told them. He and Lucian started walking toward the entry. They disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, Sean and Jordan heard the creaking of the old gate.

Sean carried a duffel bag with him as they started in.

"What if the Charleston cops showup here?" Jordan demanded.

"We'll be done before anyone shows," Sean a.s.sured her. "Let's go."

Inside the now open ten foot gates, Ragnor and Lucian were waiting for them. As so often occurred at night in the outlands of Charleston, fog sat low on the ground. For a moment, Jordan closed her eyes, thinking of the insanity of what she was doing. On a dark and foggy night, she was wandering around a cemetery with a very strange cop and two self-proclaimed vampires.

Fog drifted around sculpted burial figures. Cherubs rose above many graves; Madonnas, heads bowed in prayer over folded hands, graced others.

The fog seemed to swirl with a life of its own. Jordan tripped over a broken old stone as they hurried off the path. Ragnor caught her arm, righting her.

"Steven is-just ahead," she told them.

He was buried in an open area between two pre-Civil War private mausoleums. She pointed out the grave.

The stone was black marble, making it hard to read the inscription in the darkness, but Lucian and Ragnor seemed to have no problem with night vision.

They paused for just a moment. Jordan remembered the day when she had stood here and listened to the prayers as Steven had been interred.

It had rained.

The sky had been a leaden gray. She had felt as if they were burying her heart.

Now she was allowing people to dig him up. There would be no way to stop them, she knew.

Sean carried three spades in the duffel bag. He took them out, and the three men started digging. Jordan watched, standing just a few feet back, amazed at the speed with which the men could move the dirt.