Always the Vampire

“Nah, I did that with Lia. Once was enough. I don’t think those thugs put his socks under the sofa.”


Snowball dashed out of Saber’s office where he kept her combination cat condo, scratching post, and gym. She looked at us, and then took a flying leap to sit on a wide-ledged windowsill. Yes, the cat was beyond happy to be home, and she did something I hadn’t heard her do at my place. She gazed out the window at the oak tree and chirped at the birds.

Sudden tears clogged my throat. What if I never heard that innocent sound again? What if we didn’t get to come home to Snowball after tomorrow night? Come home to each other?

“Honey?”

I looked up into Saber’s cobalt eyes, and everything I wanted to say spilled through my mind. My jumble of fears and hopes, and the love I felt for him clashed with the grim reality that we might have twenty-some hours left together.

“Saber, hold me.”

“Come here.”

I put my glass on the coffee table and crawled into his arms. He cradled me the way he had one night shortly after we’d met. The night we’d watched a Monk marathon on DVD. The same night he’d first kissed me.

“Listen to me.” His deep voice and steady heartbeat soothed my trembling. “We have a six to two advantage against Starrack and the Void, and we have more firepower. Magical and mundane.”

I tilted my head to see him through my sheen of tears. “You’re taking the Glock, aren’t you?”

“Hell, yes. If Starrack shows up, we end this tomorrow night, period. Triton reunites with Lynn, Maggie and Neil have their happily ever after, and we take that vacation.”

He paused to carefully thread his hands in my hair. “I’m serious, Princesca. No matter what happens, we’ll be together. Got that?”

“I do.”

He kissed me then. A long, slow kiss of exquisite tenderness. I ran my hands under his polo shirt, molding each muscle, adoring the texture and tone of his body. My own body caught fire as he returned my exploration. With each piece of clothing we peeled away, each gentle touch, the heat mounted and power flashed like lightning between us.

The smell and taste of his skin, the feel of his hands, every caress intoxicated me until I barely remembered to breathe. And when he settled over me, when he slid inside me, our powers flared so brightly, an aura of light burst around us.

“See?” he whispered, the aurora shimmering as he moved in me. “This is us, love. This is what we create together.”

I cupped his face in my palms. “And we always will. I love you, Deke.”





We napped late in the afternoon, even me, and it was gloriously lazy. I’d forgotten how good a siesta could be.

At seven thirty, we were back at Cosmil’s shanty, and Triton was already there. None of us mentioned it, but we were all eager to have the battle behind us. Even Cosmil and Lia looked weary.

Tonight we were staging a dress rehearsal, so we ran through the plan from beginning to end. After Triton and I danced, Cosmil took the role of Starrack, and Pandora played the Void. I began sipping their energies, and we dodged everything Cosmil threw at us, drawing nearer as we pressed our attack. Finally Pandora played dead. That was the signal to jump Cosmil and hit him with the amulets—the real ones. We even recited the activation code, though it didn’t faze Cosmil. Good to know that there wasn’t any darkness in him to banish.

When we tried to give the amulets back to Cosmil for safekeeping, he refused them.

“I have spelled them both to be invisible,” he said. “Starrack will not know you have them.”

Lia gathered us in the shack before we called it a night.

“Here are the protection charms,” she said as she passed out brightly colored cloth pouches tied closed with twine. “I made one for each of us. Sleep with them tonight so they will bond to you, then keep them in a pocket all day. And, Cesca, here are the drachmas. The spell will last six hours.”

“Thanks, Lia. Saber and I may need to put our pouches and drachmas in the same pocket. Will that be a problem?”

“One won’t cancel the effectiveness of the other, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s exactly what I needed to know.”

“What about the magical bombs?” Saber asked.

Lia produced a small cardboard tray of twenty marble-sized white balls.

She picked balls from the tray and handed them to me. “You and Triton take five of these, and Saber will get ten.”

“How do we detonate them?” Saber asked as he held out his hand for his allotment.

“The directions are simple,” Lia said. “Throw and go. When the magick strikes anything at all, visible or invisible, it will explode.”

“They won’t explode in our pockets, though, right? I mean, we could get jostled in the crowd or bump into a table.”

“Not to worry. The throwing motion is the activator.”