“Sean, I don’t know. When men have been tainted, they go insane. They become killers themselves—”

“It’s our only chance!”

Then he felt her teeth. Cold, hard, like steel needles, sinking into his throat. He was filled with a rush, like ice water cascading through his veins. He held her, and held her, as he weakened at first, as he felt his life force washed away in a cold, rushing river ...

Then suddenly, there was a strength in him. A strength like fire. And when he felt himself plucked up again, he strained hard against the force, bursting free of it.

A moment later, shadow formed to substance. Aaron stood before him, whirling his deadly knife. He beckoned to Sean with both hands. “Come on, big boy. Come on, copper, come on, pig!” He whirled toward Sean, and leapt up. His feet caught Sean in the head, sending him flying once again.

Sean quickly staggered up, refusing to lose the fight when he had equal power.

Aaron came toward Sean again.

Maggie rose, flinging herself on Aaron’s back. Her nails ripped down his back, tearing his shirt and his flesh, but he swung her off, hard, and kept walking. He stood in front of Sean and threw a backhanded blow against his cheek that sent him reeling again.

But Sean was quickly up, praying that his own power would come.

Again, Aaron came at him.

This blow sent him flying all the way out to the hall. He landed against the wall, right beneath a painting of the Sean who had been slain during the Civil War. He heard Aaron’s laughter in the distance.

Someone was beside him. Lucian hunkered down by him, fierce and determined. He had pushed Sean’s duffel bag into the hall where they now stood.

“Your sword. You’ve got the strength now. End it. Use your sword, Canady.” Lucian pressed the duffel bag toward him. Sean nodded, reached into it, and took out the Confederate-issue cavalry sword.

Aaron called to him from the library. “Come on, big boy, come on, come on!” Sean rose, the sword at his side, and walked back to the library. Aaron was staring at him, smiling, tossing his knife from hand to hand as he approached him. “I’m tired of playing, pig. Time to dine on pork.”

Sean waited. Until Aaron was almost upon him.

Then he raised his sword.

And ...

Swung. With all his newfound strength.

There were seconds, just seconds, when he saw the alarm in Aaron’s eyes.

Then steel bit into flesh and muscle, blood and bone.

And Aaron’s head went flying, severed from his body.

“Sean!” Maggie cried out, racing toward him. She pitched herself into his arms. He held her. Tightly.

Nearly smothered her. Encompassed her. Weakness pervaded him. They sank to the floor together.

“Oh, God, Sean!”

“Well, we have the murderer!” he whispered.

“Oh, God, Sean, but you don’t understand ...”

“Maggie, we’re alive now. We’ve the killer in the house; there will be no more slayings. We have to live the best we can now, and be ever wary!”

He staggered to his feet. He could hear police sirens. Mamie hadn’t been able to sit tight after all. He went out to find Lucian.

But Lucian was gone.

Within a moment, officers were filing in. Jack, a bandage around his head, was among them; even the chief. Sean tried to talk, to explain. His head suddenly seemed to kill him.

He pitched forward, blacking out.

Maggie had never told him that vampires could pass out.

* * *

Time passed quickly.

Daniel was fine after a few nights in the hospital—he did have a concussion.

So did Sean. He shared a room with his father.

The papers—and the police force—hailed Sean and Maggie as heroes. They had stopped the New Orleans Ripper.

The case ended more bizarrely than it had begun. The killer’s corpse was taken to the medical examiner’s office. Someone, however, stole it—and replaced it with a decapitated skeleton. But then, Pierre LePont, the most fierce and fastidious of the medical examiners, had been in the hospital with a concussion as well. Strangely enough, he wasn’t furious that the real body had been stolen.

The incident was intensely investigated, but there seemed to be no answers as to what had happened.

The real corpse was never found.

The bones, when investigated and carbon dated, proved to be well over two hundred years old.

Still, New Orleans was a strong city. Days passed, then weeks. The murders and the bizarre incident of the disappearing corpse no longer appeared on the front pages.

Sean looked at himself in the mirror every day. He didn’t seem to change.

He still liked garlic.

And yet...

He had to admit to being slightly afraid that he would soon become a madman. He was only able to function at his job because he knew that both Maggie and Jack were watching him.

Maggie moved into Sean’s apartment little by little. They spent a lot of time at Ashville, and Montgomery Plantation as well. They healed.

They waited.

One afternoon, about a month after Aaron’s death, Sean met Maggie at Montgomery Enterprises. When he entered the shop, Cissy was on duty, and told him that Maggie had had an appointment and he should wait for her upstairs in her office.

He was sitting in her swivel chair, idly looking at her handsome sketches on the wall, when he suddenly turned around to discover that he had company.

Lucian De Veau sat relaxed and composed in one of the chairs before the desk.

Sean felt a cold sweeping over him. He had killed a vampire after Maggie had drunk his blood. Had Lucian come to tell him that he was about to face a fight he couldn’t win?

“Lucian,” he managed to say.

Lucian grinned. “Ah, yes, Lieutenant! You look well.”

“Am I well?”

“You look just fine to me.”

“Damn you, Lucian, if you’re here to tell me that I am a vampire, or that I was a vampire when I killed Aaron and there’s a death sentence decreed on me, get it over with. And whatever is going to happen, so help me God, I’ll take you with me if you think you can make Maggie pay for anything—”

“Ah, Lieutenant! First of all, I made you pick up the damned sword. The bastard was after me. High treason, no matter how you look at it. But think. Do you feel any different? Any different at all?”

“I don’t understand you.”

Lucian sighed with exasperation. “No one is coming to kill you, Canady. There’s no death sentence.”

“On me or on Maggie?” he demanded hoarsely.

Lucian smiled. “Lieutenant, you aren’t a vampire. Or even tainted. You might be a fool, but then, under the circumstances, that’s forgivable.”

“I’m not a vampire? All right, I didn’t go all the way. Or Maggie didn’t go all the way. But I was tainted!” Sean leaned forward. Was he insane? There had been many times during the past weeks when everything had been so damned normal, he’d begun to think that he and Maggie had simply faced down a brutal, heinous, mortal killer.

Lucian leaned toward him, shaking his head. “I don’t think you understand. At all. I’ll explain. You never were a vampire—and you were only tainted for a short time. Maggie was always different, because her father fought to keep her alive. She never officially died; she was never buried. She never before attempted to taint anyone; when she killed, it was usually for mercy, and she did so completely, by the rules of our kind. I don’t completely understand what happened myself, but I realized quickly that I had no power over you; I couldn’t summon you. That being the case, you’re not tainted, and you’re definitely not a vampire. Maybe there really is a God. Maybe, in the end, he does make the rules. For all of us.

Maybe there’s magic in faith. I remember when Alec first met Magdalena.”

“Alec? Alec who made Maggie a vampire?”

Lucian nodded. “Alec was head over heels in love with her; he risked his life every second of that affair.

But she was deeply in love with him as well, and he was convinced that he could make things right between them. On one of the ancient graves I’ve seen in Europe, that of a reputed vampire who survived the plague in the thirteen hundreds, there is a saying engraved deep into the mortuary stone: And Love will set you free. Alec believed there was forgiveness in love. The age-old tale of beauty and the beast.

We are only monsters when we see ourselves as such. Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps it’s not simple. And maybe the power of the human spirit is stronger than any other, and perhaps even another silly saying is true—Love Conquers All.”

“I do admit that there is a Higher Power as well. There is a hell, and a heaven, in our souls, and beyond.

Maggie never lost her faith. How many vampires have you heard of who regularly go to church? I’ve tried to summon you—I’ve tried to command you both to my presence. You never heard my call. You were not compelled to obey it. I don’t have all the answers. But I came to tell you this. You are not tainted, you are not a vampire; and perhaps Maggie has found peace, for she doesn’t hear me anymore.”

“I wish—I wish I could believe that. If it’s the truth, what are you doing here?”

“I came to say good-bye—and wish you well. I don’t want to see Maggie. Hurts too much. I did—well, almost—love her once. So, good-bye, good luck, and take my advice. Don’t dwell on the past, don’t wonder about what might have been real and what might have been imagined or remembered from dreams. You’ve been given life. You bested Aaron Carter with the strength of your own will, and your love for Maggie. For a mortal human, you’re all right. So, forget what happened. Forget about me: I’ve never been your enemy. Go live your life. Have the sense to cherish what you have.” Sean hesitated, studying the man. Lucian stared at him with his golden eyes, his striking features grave.

Sean nodded, and after a moment, slowly offered Lucian his hand. “For a vampire, you’re all right.” He grinned. “Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar, as my father might say.” Lucian looked slightly embarrassed. It might not look so good for the king of the vampires to be admired and befriended by a mortal.