The Killing Dance

"Richard is dying, Ma petite . I feel his life slipping away."

I stared up at him. "You're still keeping me from feeling it, aren't you?"

"I am protecting you." There was a look on his face that I didn't like.

I touched his arm. His skin was cool to the touch. "Why?"

He turned away.

I jerked him hard, forced him to look at me. "Why?"

"Even with only two marks, Richard can try and drain us both to stay alive. I am preventing that."

"You're protecting us both?" I asked.

"When he dies, I can protect one of us, Ma petite , but not both."

I stared at him. "You're saying that when he dies, you're both going to die?"

"I fear so."

I shook my head. "No. Not both of you. Not all at once. Dammit, you're not supposed to be able to die."

"I am sorry, Ma petite ."

"No, we can share power just like we did to raise the zombies, the vampires, like we did tonight."

Jean-Claude slumped suddenly downward, one hand on Richard's body. "I will not drag you to the grave with me, Ma petite . I would rather think of you alive and well."

I dug my fingers into Jean-Claude's arm. I touched Richard's chest. A shuddering breath ran up my arm from him. "I'll be alive, but I won't be well. I'd rather die than lose you both."

He stared at me for a long second. "You do not know what you are asking."

"We are a triumvirate now. We can do this, Jean-Claude. We can do this, but you have to show me how."

"We are powerful beyond my wildest dreams, Ma petite , but even we ca

"He owes me one."

Jean-Claude flinched as if in pain. "Who owes you?"

"Death.»

"Ma petite . ."

"Do it, Jean-Claude, do it. Whatever it is, whatever it takes. Do it, please!"

He slumped on top of Richard, head barely raised. "The third mark. It will either bind us forever, or kill us all."

I offered him my wrist. "No, Ma petite , if it is to be our only time, come to me." He lay half on Richard's body, arms open for me. I lay in the circle of his arms, and realized when I touched his chest there was no heartbeat. I turned and stared into his face from inches away. "Don't leave me."

His midnight blue eyes filled with fire. He swept my hair to one side and said, "Open for me, Ma petite , open for us both."

I did, sweeping my mind open, dropping every guard I'd ever had. I fell forward, impossibly forward, down a long, black tu

A wind swept through the falling darkness, catching me like a net before I touched that blue fire. The wind smelled of growing earth and the musty scent of fur. I felt something else: sorrow. Richard's sorrow. His mourning. Not of his death, but of my loss. Dead or alive, he'd lost me, and among his many faults was a loyalty that went beyond reason. Once in love, he was a man to stay there, regardless of what the woman did. A knight errant in every sense of the word. He was a fool, and I loved him for it. Jean-Claude I loved in spite of himself. Richard I loved because of who he was.

I wouldn't lose him. I wrapped his essence like winding myself in a sheet, except that I had no body. I held him in my mind, my body, and let him feel the love, my sorrow, regret. Jean-Claude was there, too. I half-expected him to protest, to sabotage it, but he didn't. That blue fire spilled upward through the tu

I padded through the forest on four feet. The smells alone were intoxicating. I sank fangs into a dainty wrist, and it wasn't mine. I watched the pulse underneath a woman's neck and thought of blood, warm flesh, and far-off and distant sex. The memories came fast, then faster, flowing like some sort of carnival ride. Blackness gained on the images, like ink filling water. When the darkness ate everything, I floated for an impossible second, then went out like a candle flame. Nothing.

I didn't even have time to be scared.