She sighed softly. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was the fact that she'd never tire of hearing him say things like that.
He smiled. "We lived in the same district and had been lovers for years. When her husband died, she used his legacy to open a small milliner store. Over the years, her business, and her fame, grew."
She didn't bother commenting on the fact he'd basically admitted he and Christine had been lovers while her husband was still alive. Given the utter loneliness she'd sensed in him when she first met him, she could hardly take him to task for grabbing happiness where he found it. Besides, it had all happened long ago, and the people involved were long dead. "So how did Dunleavy get involved with her?"
"He didn't. I caught him trying to kidnap a woman and beat him up. My mistake was not killing him."
"Why on earth didn't you?"
He shrugged. "At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn't realize he was anything more than a blood thirsty vampire intent on a kill."
"I thought you killed blood thirsty vampires?"
"Nowadays, yes."
She raised her eyebrows. Did those words mean that Weylin's spell had faded to a point where Michael no longer thought he was living in the past?
"Back then," he continued, his words confirming her thoughts, "I had more of a 'live and let live' attitude.
At least until Christine was killed."
So Christine had been the first step on his road to becoming a key member in the foundation of the Circle. Patrick had obviously been the last. "How did Dunleavy know you were involved with her?"
He grimaced. "Christine's success made her very welcome at many society gatherings. I was her regular escort. Neither of us were exactly hard to track down."
"How did she die?"
"Dunleavy shot her. She bled to death in my arms."
"I'm sorry." She brushed a kiss across his wet shoulders. "But at least being shot was a quicker death than what Dunleavy could have offered."
"That's the problem. He did do worse. He raised her from the dead and turned her against me."
And he'd been forced to kill her all over again. "Dunleavy deserved the death you gave him."
"Yes, he did. But here we are, and once again, others are paying for something I did."
"If there's one thing I've learned in my time with you, it's that the mentality and actions of psychos is not that of normal human beings. What's happening here is not your fault, just as what happened to Christine was not your fault."
"If I'd killed him—" "You don't have clairvoyance. You can't see the future. Hindsight is wonderful, but at the time, you thought you were doing the right thing."
He smiled and turned around, drawing her into his arms and kissing her soundly. "Thank you," he said, pulling away from the kiss and gazing down at her.
She raised an eyebrow. "For what?"
"For listening. For understanding. I have carried the guilt of Christine's death for a long time."
"Just as you carried the guilt of Patrick's death?"
The warmth in his face died a little. She saw the struggle in his eyes, felt, via the link, his instinctive need to shut her out battle with the desire to finally acknowledge, and therefore release, some of the pain of his past.
He pulled her close again, wrapping his arms tightly around her, as if drawing strength from her closeness. Which was ridiculous. If any man was an island, it was this vampire.
"I should have been in San Francisco to meet Patrick, but tracking down Dunleavy took time, and I was in Hartwood longer than I expected."
"So he landed in San Francisco and met Jasper."
"No, Jasper's twin. From what I could gather, the two became lovers."
She raised her eyebrows. "I thought a vampire couldn't survive on another vampire's blood?"
"They can't, but that doesn't stop them from having sex."
Well, no, she thought, feeling dumb for even asking such a question. "How long were they lovers?"
"Not long. There were only a few days between Patrick's arrival in the golden city and mine. He'd only been dead a few hours when I found him."
"So how did you know it was Jasper's brother who killed him?"
"Because Jasper and his brother were little more than fledglings, and neither were exactly careful about the clues they left behind with their victims."
Yet Jasper had been canny enough to survive the fledgling stage, and clever enough, after Patrick's death, to taunt Michael with the death of more friends down through the years. "So why did your brother take up with someone like that?"
Michael shrugged. "He was a knight at heart. He liked trying to save people."
Yet even the gentlest of knights could not save someone with hearts as black as Jasper's and his brother's. "Even if you'd arrived on time, you don't know that Patrick wouldn't have met the same death.
One thing I learned from my years on the streets was the fact that fate cannot often be sidestepped."
"I know that. Accepting it is a different matter."
"Patrick made his own choices. You can't be held accountable for that."
"No." He took a breath, kissed her forehead and turned around.
She continued scrubbing his back. The black lines were fading, but the buzz of energy was just as strong, and the welts rippled across his skin in a red wave.
"So," she said, suspecting she'd better keep him talking, keep him distracted from the magic striking him.
"How are we going to kill Kinnard—Dunleavy—when he can protect himself with magic?"
"I don't know. Magic is not my field of expertise." His gaze met hers in the mirror. "And as much as I want you to leave, I have to say that this is one case where I think I need help."
"Well, you've got mine, whether you want it or not. Even if Dunleavy wasn't threatening to kill all and sundry, I wouldn't leave you here to fight him alone."
His amusement ran through the link. I seem to remember hearing words to that effect before.
Once or twice,she replied with a grin. Aloud, she added, "Dunleavy warned us against destroying any more pentagrams. What if he meant just the ones he's using to feed energy to the circle protecting this town? What if we destroyed the one he intends to use for the sacrifice?"
"Would it achieve anything?"
"Well, it might delay the ceremony for a while." And even a few minutes could make a difference between finding and not finding Dunleavy.
"He'll have it protected."
"Then we take the protection out, too."
Michael nodded. "And then begin the hunt for Dunleavy himself."
It was a plan. Not much of a plan, but better than nothing.
He twisted around, grabbed the cloth from her hands and tossed it into the sink. "Let's get moving."
She didn't argue, just turned around and walked into the bedroom to grab her coat. The day was rapidly cooling, and the mines would probably feel like an ice chest tonight. She checked their hostage, happy to see he was breathing easier, then walked into the main room.
Michael was at the sink, washing the blood from her knife. He flipped it and handed it to her hilt first.
"The pentagram he'll be using in the ceremony will no doubt be protected by a larger circle of stone than the ones he has around his sacrifice pentagrams," she said, slipping the knife back into its sheath, "I doubt whether my knives will be strong enough to move large rocks."
He nodded and bent, searching through the cupboards underneath the sink. "You do realize he can perform the ceremony without the benefit of a pentagram. All it really does is protect him and his victim from attacks from unwanted spiritual sources."
"But he's trying to raise his brother's spirit. If he tries it without the pentagram, he risks bringing something far worse into being."
"There is nothing worse that Emmett Dunleavy," Michael said grimly. "You ready?"