The Killing Dance

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.

45

I woke in a pastel pink hospital room. A nurse in a matching pink smock smiled down at me. Fear pumped like fine champagne. Where was Richard? Where was Jean-Claude? What I finally managed to ask, was, "How did I get here?"

"Your friend brought you." She motioned with her head.

Edward sat in a chair by the far wall, leafing through a magazine. He looked up and our eyes met. His face gave away nothing.

"Edward?"

"My friends call me Ted, Anita, you know that." He had that good of boy smile that could only mean he was pretending to be Ted Forrester. It was his only legal identity that I'd ever met. Even the cops thought he was this Ted person. "Nurse, can we have a few minutes alone?"

The nurse smiled, looked curiously from one to the other of us, and left, still smiling.

I tried to grab Edward's hand and found my left hand was taped to a board and stuck with an IV. I grabbed at him with my right hand, and he held it. "Are they alive?"

He smiled, a mere twitch of lips. "Yes."

A relief like I'd never known flowed through my body. I collapsed back against the bed, weak. "What happened?"

"You came in suffering from lycanthrope scratches and a very nasty vampire bite. He almost drained you dry, Anita."

"Maybe that's what it took to save us."

"Maybe," Edward said. He sat on the edge of the bed. His jacket gaped enough to flash his shoulder holster and gun. He caught me looking. "The police agree that the monsters might hold a grudge. There's even a cop outside your door."

We weren't holding hands now. He stared down at me and something very cold passed over his face. "Did you have to kill Harley?"

I started to say yes, but I stopped myself. I replayed it in my mind. Finally. I looked up at him. "I don't know, Edward. When you were knocked out, he couldn't see you anymore. I tried to talk to him, but he couldn't hear me. He started to raise the machine gun." I met Edward's empty blue eyes. "I shot him. You saw the body. I even put one through his head. A coupe de grace."

"I know." His face, his voice gave nothing away. It was like watching a ma

"It never occurred to me not to shoot, Edward. I didn't even hesitate."

Edward took a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth. "I knew that's what had happened. If you'd lied to me, I'd have killed you." He walked away to stand at the foot of the bed.

"While I'm unarmed?" I tried to make light of it, but it didn't work.

"Check your pillow."

I slid my hand under and came up with the Firestar. I held it in my lap, laying it on my sheet-covered legs. "What now?"

"You owe me a life."

I looked up at that. "I saved your life last night."

"Our lives don't count, we'd back each other up, no matter what."

"I don't know what you're talking about then."

"Occasionally I'll need help, like Harley. Next time I need help, I'll call you."

I wanted to argue because I wasn't entirely sure what mess Edward would drag me into, but I didn't. Looking into his empty eyes, holding the gun he'd put under my pillow, I knew he'd do it. If I refused his bargain, his trade as it were, he'd pull down on me, and we'd find out once and for all who was better.

I stared down at the gun in my hands. "I've already got the gun out; all I have to do is point."

"You're injured. You need the edge." His hand hovered near the butt of his gun.

I laid the gun on the sheets beside me, and looked at him. I lay back on the pillows. "I don't want to do this, Edward."

"Then, when I call, you'll come?"

I thought about it for another brief second, then said, "Yeah, I'll come."

He smiled, his Ted (good ol' boy) Forrester smile. "I'll never find out how good you really are until you draw down on me."

"We can live with that," I said. "By the way, why the invitation to come monster hunting now? And don't tell me it's about Harley."

"You killed him, Anita. You killed him without thinking about it. Even now, there's no regret in you, no doubt."

He was right. I didn't feel bad about it. Scary, but true. "So you invited me to come play because I'm now as much of a sociopath as you are."

"Oh, I'm a much better sociopath," he said. "I'd never let a vampire sink his fangs into my neck. And I wouldn't date the terminally furry."

"Do you date anyone, ever?"

He just smiled that irritating smile that meant he wasn't going to answer. But he did. "Even Death has needs."

Edward dating? That was something I had to see.