The Killing Dance

Sabin levitated upward. "I will have your soul for that, mortal."

I ran my fingers over the circle and it was still there. Edward started to turn the shotgun towards the vampire. The naked heart pulsed and shimmered in the cross's glare.

"The heart, shoot the heart!"

Edward didn't hesitate. He turned and shot the heart, exploding it into so much meat. Sabin hit him a second later and he went flying. He ended up very still on the ground with Sabin on top of him.

I pushed my hand forward. It met empty air. I fired two-handed at Sabin as I walked towards him. I put three shots into his chest, forcing him to his feet, back from Edward.

Sabin raised a hand in front of his skeletal face, almost a pleading gesture. I stared down the barrel of the gun into his one good eye and pulled the trigger. The bullet took him just above the crumbling remains of his nose. It made a nice big exit wound like it was supposed to, spattering blood and brains on the grass. Sabin collapsed backwards onto the grass. I fired two more shots into his skull until it looked like I'd decapitated him.

"Edward?" It was Harley. He was standing over Cassandra's very still, very dead body. His eyes searched wildly for the one person he recognized.

"Harley, it's me, it's Anita."

He shook his head, as if I was a buzzing fly. "Edward, I still see monsters. Edward!" He raised the machine gun at me, and I knew I couldn't let him fire. No, it was more than that, or less. I raised the Browning and fired before I'd had time to think. The first shot sent him to his knees. "Edward!" He squeezed off a round of fire that went inches above the men's heads. I fired another into his chest, and put one through his head before he fell.

I approached him, gun at the ready. If he'd twitched, I'd have shot him again. He didn't twitch. I knew nothing about Harley except he was genuinely crazy and very good with weapons. Now I'd never know because Edward didn't volunteer information. I kicked the machine gun out of Harley's dead hand and went for the others.

Edward was sitting up, rubbing the back of his head. He watched me walk away from Harley's body. "Did you do it?"

I faced him. "Yes."

"I've killed people for less."

"So have I," I said, "but if we're going to fight, can we unchain the boys first? I don't feel Richard anymore." I couldn't say the word deadout loud, not yet.

Edward got to his feet, a little shaky, but standing. "We'll fight later."

"Later," I said.

Edward went to sit by his friend. I went to sit by my lover and my other boyfriend.

I holstered the Browning, slipped the cross off Jean-Claude's neck, and threw it spinning into the woods. The darkness was suddenly velvet and intense. I bent to undo his chains and one of the links went spinning by my head.

"Shit," I said.

Jean-Claude sat up, sweeping the chains down his body like a sheet. He slipped off the blindfold last. I was already crawling to Richard. I'd seen the sword pierce his heart. He had to be dead, but I searched for the big pulse in his neck, and I found it. It beat against my hand like a weak thought, and I slumped forward with relief. He was alive. Thank you, God.

Jean-Claude knelt on the other side of Richard's body. "I thought you could not bear his touch, that is what he told me before they gagged him. They were afraid he would call his pack to aid him. I have already called Jason and my vampires. They will be here soon."

"Why can't I feel him in my head?"

"I am blocking it. It is a fearful wound, and I am better practiced at dealing with such things."

I pulled the gag from Richard's mouth. I touched his lips gently. The thought of how I'd refused to kiss him earlier that day bit at me. "He's dying, isn't he?"

Jean-Claude broke Richard's chains, more carefully than his own. I helped him clear them from Richard's limp body. Richard lay on the ground in the bloodstained white T-shirt I'd last seen him in. He was just suddenly Richard again. I couldn't imagine the beast I'd seen. I suddenly didn't care. "I can't lose him, not like this."

"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 cannot cheat death."

"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 tunnel towards a burning blue fire. Pain cut the darkness like a white knife, and I heard myself gasp. I felt Jean-Claude's fangs sink into me, his mouth sealing over my flesh, sucking me, drinking me.

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 tunnel to meet us, and the world exploded into shapes and images that were too confusing. Bits and pieces of memory, sensations, thoughts, like three separate jigsaw puzzles shaken and tossed into the air, and every piece that touched formed a picture.