It’s an illusion. It’s just a trick to misdirect the eye. Ric said the words to himself over and over, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe them. Finally, as swift as Ric’s vampiric speed was, the dancing light was quicker. The feu overtook him, and it was like standing in a shower except that instead of drops of water, thousands of twinkling lights poured over him. It effectively blinded him, and under the caress of brilliance, he shivered with a fear that was unknown to him. If he couldn’t see his enemy, he was helpless.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. It’s just a deception. And it doesn’t burn. He concentrated on letting his own power flow outward, and when he opened his eyes, the lights were gone and so was Tux.
Ric ran to the patio door. “Shelby!”
“I’m here. I’m okay.”
He peeked inside and saw her with not only a knife, but also a shotgun and her service weapon. He nodded toward her arsenal. “Those’ll be like throwing a dart at an elephant.”
She smiled grimly. “Maybe so, but they make me feel better just the same.”
“I think it’s only Tux. If the knife is silver, it’s your best choice.”
Laughter floated toward Ric from the edge of the woods, just as the feu follet had. “No, I didn’t go after her, Ric, but I could have. I could have killed her before you could have torn yourself from the feu’s embrace. So you see, you will have to come after me to stop me.”
Tux was right. He couldn’t just stay on the defensive, yet neither could he afford to be lured away from the house. He would have to lean on more of his other strengths. The Hand of Death, as big a hook as it was, needed a line to help catch its prey.
“No, there you’re wrong, Tux. If I come after you, it’ll be to run you down, not to be enticed like a child who knows no better.”
Laughter drifted through the air like the feu. . . .
Ric’s gaze sought that of the creature across the yard, and he locked in the compelling power that could bridge the distance between them. “You will no longer use the feu follet against me, Tuxbridge. You will come to me, and we will fight this fight to the finish, equal to equal.”
Ric reeled his opponent in, step-by-step, until Tux was halfway across the yard. Ric had time for a brief instant of satisfaction before he felt his control crack and the night explode in a reign of terror. Tux broke eye contact and flung the dancing fire at Ric’s head. This time the lights didn’t float, but blew at Ric like a firestorm, blinding him with a brilliance that was more like flashes of lightning than a glowing ground fog. Ric spun, but the movement only caused him to lose his sense of where he was. Too late, he felt himself being grabbed from behind by hands that were thrust under his own arms and then pressed against the back of his neck. Tux was nearly as tall as he was, and broader and heavier by about fifty pounds. As physically powerful as any vampire Ric had met, Tux had the strength and leverage to lock in the hold securely. It forced Ric’s arms up and rendered the Hand of Death useless.
“Equal? You never treated me as an equal, Ric, not from day one. I was just an errand boy, no better in your eyes than a jackal. I could’ve lived with that, but not what you did to my brother. You killed my brother over a mortal, damn you!”
Though the hold was painful and left him immobile, it was far from deadly. What could Tux hope to accomplish except to humiliate him?
If Ric had known the answer, he wouldn’t have asked the question.
Tux let go with his left arm, and Ric tried to twist and break the hold. Before he could, though, he felt a knife blade pierce his side. Pain more blinding than the feu follet washed over him, and he cried out. It was silver. Nothing but silver could burn with such a white-hot intensity.
“Let go of him, you bastard!”
Tux released his hold, and Ric fell to his knees. Through the silver haze of pain he could see Shelby about twenty feet away, the pistol she held in a two-handed grip pointed right at Tux’s heart. “That won’t stop him, Shelby. Get out of here, now!”
But she held her ground, and Tux’s laugh was as biting as a second knife thrust. “By all means, stay, Sheriff. When I’m done with the doctor, I’ll have you.”
Ric heard the gun go off, over and over. The ringing sound was deafening, but he knew the bite of the weapon wouldn’t match its bark. Still, Tux screamed, staggered backward, and toppled over Ric.
“Shelby, get in the car and leave, now. Bullets will slow him down, but they won’t stop him.”
“Not even silver? I thought you said . . .”
Tux’s shrieks drowned out the rest of her statement. He was writhing on the ground, and Ric realized that the knife was lying just a couple feet away. Even in his pain, Tux saw where Ric’s gaze fell, and Tux tried to reach toward the knife. Ric didn’t have to beat him to it. He only had to lay his hand against Tux’s body. Both men stretched for their targets, but Ric was quicker. Tux’s wounds, like Ric’s, were bleeding freely and showing no signs of closing and healing. It was the mark of a silver wound.
“I’m sorry, my friend. I would not have ended it like this. But at least you’ll be with your family.” Ric held his hand over Tux’s heart, felt the blood flow, and let his own power surge against it. In a moment Tux’s screams faded as his body died the True Death. Ric collapsed on top of the body, fearing he, too, would join Tuxbridge in whatever nasty corner of Hell was reserved for the Undead.
But he felt warm hands and heard a welcome voice and knew he wasn’t in Hell yet.
“Ric! Don’t be dead, please.”
He moaned. The voice was wonderful, but it wasn’t making sense. He had already died, hadn’t he?
“Ric, tell me what to do. How can I help?”
“There’s only one thing that can help him, miss, and that’s fresh blood.” The voice came from behind Shelby.
She whirled, raising her gun to the new target.
Ric pushed himself to a kneeling position. “No, Shelby, don’t! Don’t shoot him.”
“Don’t worry, Doc, she’s no threat to me. Are you, miss? Put the gun down.” Revelin Scott’s voice was mild, yet Ric, even in his present state, could feel the energy in the air and the power of command behind the even words.
Shelby seemed frozen, unsure what to do, but after a few seconds she lowered the gun, letting it dangle at her side. She offered no resistance when Scott took the weapon from her.
“I’m going to talk to the good doctor, yeah? You can help all of us by ringing somebody on your mobile so that half the cops in the county don’t rush here in response to those gunshots.”
Ric rose to his feet, his hand still pressed to his side, but the wound continued to bleed. He wasn’t surprised to see Scott, nor was it a shocker that the enforcer showed up only after the fight was over. Ric had spent enough time around Drago and other enforcers to know that their motto was “mop, don’t meddle.” Their job was to issue sanctions and punish those responsible for violating vampire law, not to take sides or interfere in a dispute.
Ric waited with as much patience as his pain would allow for Scott’s pronouncement. There was no point in trying to defend or explain his actions. Scott was no jury—he was cop, judge, and executioner—all in one neat killing machine. Rather like Robespierre. The thought prompted Ric to look at Revelin Scott with none-too-friendly eyes. It was the reason so many enforcers were hated.
It was strange that Ric had never thought of Drago in that light, especially since l’enforcier had had more than his share of enemies. But Ric had never been in the position of having his own head on the chopping block. Had this been his inescapable fate all along, merely delayed by two hundred years?
Shelby had gone into the house to make the phone call. Scott stared at Ric with the weary patience a parent shows a tiresome child. Ric’s feeling of dislike for the enforcer sharpened, whetted by both the look and t
he pain of his wound. It was as though his very bloodstream had caught fire and was pumping burning agony to every fiber of his being.
“You’re very quiet, Doc. Is the pain that bad?”
If Ric were in the throes of True Death staring Hell and Damnation in the face, he wouldn’t admit it to another vamp. “No. There’s just nothing to say, is there? He shouldn’t have died. I don’t apologize for or regret what I did, but Tux shouldn’t have died. He was strong, and he did his best for this community, human and Undead alike.”
Scott sighed. “I knew when I sanctioned him he wouldn’t obey my order to stay away from you.”
“But there wasn’t anything you could do, right? The system always fails to accomplish the very thing it sets out to do, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t make the rules, mate. But I notice that for all your high-and-mighty ideals, the Hand of Death is unflinching and unerring.”
Ric’s patience was at an end. “Enough of this. If you’re going to sanction me further, do it.”
“Just two. You have forty-eight hours to leave Shadow Bay.”
The blood that flowed so fiery a moment ago now ran cold. Shelby. Shelby was the second sanction. She clearly knew too much. “And the girl?”
An even smile, showing straight teeth and matching dimples, made the youthful face look even more so. Until one looked at the pale blue eyes. “Technically I should order her terminated or turned, but enough lives have been lost already so that she could live. I leave it to you to ensure she’s no threat to us.”
Had he heard right? Maybe the pain of the silver was making him delusional. “And the second sanction?”
Scott continued as if he hadn’t heard the question. “Besides, I saw how Drago felt about his Gypsy girl before he died. He wouldn’t have killed her had Nikolena herself ordered it. I suspect you feel the same way about this sheriff of yours.”
“The second sanction, Scott. What is it?”
Revelin Scott smiled again. “You’re to return to Paris.”
“That’s a sanction?”
“That’s what I was instructed to tell you. I just follow orders, mate.”
Paris. It could only mean one thing. The day of reckoning had come.
SCOTT STAYED JUST long enough to make sure Ric took what blood he needed from Shelby in order to heal, and no more. An hour later, Shelby had received an IV at Ric’s office to replace the lost fluid in her body, Scott was gone, and she and Ric were back at her house. They were on her sofa in front of the fireplace, Ric stretched out and her body a shadow to his, touching him body part for body part. She felt well and truly drained—tired, lethargic, and weak—but her thoughts raced with an energy all their own. “So is it over?”
He sighed. “You don’t know how complex a question that is. But I have one for you first. How in the world did you come to have silver ammunition?”
She smiled. “Uncle Barry. He was with the Cristallia County Sheriff’s Department in one capacity or another for twenty-five years. For his silver anniversary the department gave him a silver watch. The men he worked with gave him a clip full of cartridges with silver bullets. Kind of a Lone Ranger thing, I think. Anyway, when he died I inherited his gun and the famous silver clip. It meant a lot to me at the time. It means even more now. I think Uncle Barry is somewhere in cop heaven laughing his wings off.”
She took a deep breath and repeated her question. “Ric, is it over?” Physically, she had wormed her body as close to his as she could, but his thoughts and desires still felt miles away. From one corner of her mind a voice cried out that she could never feel close to a being so totally alien to her. Another part of her told her to get up and run so as not to hear the answer. But at her center, she knew she had to hear him say it. Maybe it was the cop part of her that refereed all the other voices, but she had to know the answers. All of them.
He leaned his head forward and whispered into her hair. “A great deal has ended, yes. Shadow Bay is no longer to be home to either of us. I am under orders to leave. I cannot disobey. And while you have no one forcing you to move, I truly believe it would be your death if you stay. The Undead who will still be here after I’m gone will fear you too much to let you live.”
She shivered at the feel of his mouth so close. “Fear me? I should be the one fearing them.”
“You know their secret, my sweet. Knowledge is a powerful weapon.”
“I don’t feel very powerful right now.” And that is so much the truth. Her physical fatigue was nothing compared to the loss of control that suddenly washed over her. Ric’s arms were wrapped around her, and she held onto those lean, muscled limbs as though they were a handhold that would prevent her from being swept overboard into a sea of uncertainty and despair, but she felt little comfort. He still hadn’t said anything about wanting her to come with him.
Well, if he wouldn’t say it, she would. “You don’t want me to come with you.”
He was quiet for a moment, and she felt her heart pound harder with every second that filled the silence. Then she heard his voice in her ear, no louder than a sigh. “I want you more than anything in this world. I could plant seeds in your mind that would grow into the thoughts I want you to have. I could show you every fantasy you’ve ever had and make them come true. But it’s the vampire lie. The fact is that most mortal-vampire relationships don’t last. The ugly truth, my sweet, is sacrifice and risk. The disaster is the reality, not the fantasy. To survive, you must make of it what you can. As must I.”
“And face our fears.”
“Yes, my sweet, and face our fears.”
She twisted in his embrace and gazed into the amber eyes. Perhaps they were indeed dark windows to a house of horrors. After all, he was her biggest fear, and she his. But all she saw was the strength of a being who would always protect her. And the hunger of a heart that would always need her.
“So where are we going, Doctor?”
A slow grin spread across his face, and the weight of two centuries seemed to lift from his features. “Think you could make do in Paris?”
She leaned forward to press her smile against his. She had just enough time to breathe four words into his mouth before his kiss took her breath away. “Ten-four, lover boy.”
Epilogue
THE SMALL COMMUNITY of Shadow Bay didn’t like change. The resignation of the sheriff, and the disappearance of Judson Tuxbridge and the new medical examiner, caused a brief ripple of gossip. But the placid surface of the town quickly restored itself, glittering peaceful and bright on the Lake Michigan shore. The murder of Kyle Carver was never solved, the town elected a new sheriff, and Lucius Moravich retired from his archaeological digs.
The house known as the Chicken Palace was purchased by local resident Dory Kreech, who was rumored to be Seline Swanson’s new boyfriend. Some laughed at the sight of the Goth Queen with the unimposing young man, but Seline’s coworkers saw only a happiness in Seline so complete that not even a cruel remark by Deputy Jason Rody could darken her mood.
Just outside of Paris, a redheaded woman waited in a chateau that legend held had been many things over the years, including a converted Russian palace. The uncertainty of what the future held waited with her, but stronger still was the belief in her love, and the knowledge that her lover would return to her soon.
In Paris the Directress Nikolena sat in her opulent office and entertained a man who was the Directorate rumor mill’s top candidate for the dubious title of New Prized Pet. It certainly seemed obvious to all who paid attention to such things that not since Alek Dragovich had an enforcer been invited to spend so much time behind Nikolena’s closed doors. Inside the office, an observer would have indeed heard Nikolena lavish praise on the young man.
“You’ve returned the prodigal son to me, Revelin. No more will he wallow in the extravagance of secreting himself from the world, of was
ting his power in such an insignificant place. You’ve done well by me once again.”
The man kneeled and kissed the tiny jeweled hand. “Madam, it is my honor but to serve.”
“And whom do you serve?”
“Only you, Madam, only you.”
She smiled a Nikolena smile that had as many meanings as she had years on the earth. A red light winked on the console on her desk. “Ah, my revered guest is here. Leave me now, dear boy, through the back way. You’ve done well.”
The shaggy-haired man bowed and left, and a moment later, a tall vampire strode into the office. He was dressed in black and white elegance. But his tawny hair, worn long and loose, put the elaborate waterfall cravat to shame, and his glowing amber eyes outshone his gold jewelry.
“Damiane.”
“Ah, Ricard, my golden boy. You remember my name of old. Welcome home, my love, welcome home.”
The End
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