It’s a technical day and age, a new world, you know.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, a new world.”

“Sean, you’ve got to believe me. I swear, I’m telling you the truth.”

“I don’t believe any of this. I can’t believe any of this.”

“Sean, please, please, you have to listen to me. Because it’s the only way you’re going to catch your killer.”

He frowned. “You know who the killer is?”

She looked at him gravely. “Yes.”

“And the killer is a vampire?”

She drew determinedly away from him, rising. She looked down at him. “Yes,” she said softly.

He threw up his hands. “My God. You’re losing your mind. I’m losing my mind. It’s that simple.”

“Sean—”

“No, no, I’ve got a few questions now. We’ll go right back to step one. You’re telling me that you’re really a vampire.”

“Yes,” she said evenly.

“So, actually, you have incredible strength. In many ways. You could have killed me at anytime.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And ... no.”

“What?”

“I could have ... but I couldn’t have.”

“Damn you, Maggie, which is it?”

“I have the strength, but ...”

“You have the strength!” He rose then as well, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at her, shouting,

“Prove it. Do something. Take me, then. Do it. Prove this.” He advanced on her, a hand on her chest as he shoved her back. He pushed her, hard. Once, again, again.

“Sean, stop it.”

He caught hold of her shoulders and shook her. She made no protest. She continued to stare at him, her head falling back. God, she was so beautiful! All that he wanted to do was hold her.

But everything suddenly seemed so insane.

“The killer is a vampire?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why he’s so incredibly strong. Why he doesn’t fall when he’s shot.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

He nodded after a moment. “A vampire ... so killing is quick and easy for him.”

“It always has been,” she reflected.

“You’ve known him before?”

She nodded.

“Another lover?”

She shook her head emphatically. “I hated him from the time I met him.”

“But he’s incredibly strong, because he’s a vampire.”

“Yes.”

“So—that would make you incredibly strong.”

“I told you—”

“No, you still haven’t really told me anything. So, I repeat— you could kill me. Quickly. Easily.”

“Sean—”

“Answer me. You could kill me. With a twist of your fingers.”

“I could, but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” he demanded fiercely, his incredulity at a situation that still seemed to bear a certain truth causing his temper to soar.

But she still stared back at him evenly. “I can’t kill you, I can’t hurt you, because ...”

“Because?”

“Because I love you,” she said very softly.

He fell silent, then turned away from her. He sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at her, still refusing to believe. It was insane.

And yet ...

He felt as if he were on fire. With confusion. There were things that he felt... that couldn’t be. He was a sane man. He dealt with madmen at times, but he was a cop, a good cop, and he had faced evil before, but evil came in flesh and blood.

Normal flesh and blood.

“So, you really do love me?”

“Yes. You know that I do.”

“I’m sure this is something you’ve said before. Over the years, of course. Just how old are you?”

“Very.”

“When were you born?”

“As a vampire?”

“As a human!”

“Eighteen twenty-one.”

“You must be using one hell of a night cream.”

“You know that vampires don’t age at the same rate—”

“How can I really know anything? I need help here,” he said dryly. “Eighteen twenty-one. A lot of years gone by. So, in that time, how many men have you loved?”

She was still staring at him with such level eyes. As if this were a regular, real conversation. “Two before you,” she told him, “except that the second one doesn’t really count.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“Because I think that he was you.”

Sean groaned and sank down on the bed. “He was me?”

She nodded very gravely, rising and walking to her dresser where she shook a snow globe of a Disney prince and princess and set it down, watching as the glittering particles within the globe settled once again. Then she met his eyes in the mirror. “I’ve been around a very long time, Sean. Honest. I’ve seen a lot that was bad, but I’ve also come to believe in some good. I think that sometimes, perhaps when lives are cut short, people come back. In close and similar situations. I think that you are the Sean Canady I knew and loved during the Civil War.”

He looked at her, his throat dry, as he thought of the strange dreams that had been plaguing him lately.

Dreams of riding into battle, seeking glory ...

Last night.

His mad desire to make love on the stairway.

No.

“Who was your first lover?” he demanded harshly.

“Comte Alec DeVereaux. We met when I was very young.”

“You loved him—and he did this to you?”

She hesitated, uncertain for the first time. “I loved him, and I believe that he loved me. And I think he foolishly believed he could make things right between us. There is a saying engraved on an ancient tombstone in France: ‘And love shall set you free.’ I think that Alec believed that my love for him would change things. That he could regain his immortal soul through me. Lucian believes that Alec was convinced of the truth of the saying.”

“Ah, yes, Lucian!” Sean spat out. “So—this Lucian is a vampire as well?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s survived all this time?”

“Much longer than me. Lucian is ancient. As for Alec ...” She shook her head. “My father killed Alec.

He was with one of your great, great—however many greats—grandfathers, and some other men. They thought they knew what Alec was.”

“From what you say, they did know. He was a vampire.”

“He was a vampire, but not evil.”

“What he did to you was apparently evil.”

“I’ve already told you—”

He groaned with sudden impatience. “Don’t tell me anything else! I don’t believe any of this.” Maggie walked back over to him, sitting Indian fashion on the bed before him. “Sean, you have to believe me. It’s the only way you can fight the killer.”

“I shouldn’t have a gun. I should have a stake,” he queried skeptically.

She ignored his tone, anger flickering in her eyes as she watched him.

“Well,” he told her, “I do need a stake, right? We have established that the killer is a vampire.” She hesitated, watching him. Then she let out a long sigh. “Yes, he’s a vampire. A practiced killer who has made an art of murder through the years. He’s also Jack the Ripper.” Sean’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, Jesus, Maggie—”

“Don’t ‘Maggie’ me in that tone. I’m going to start at the beginning and try to be concise, and try to get all this through your stubborn head. When I was very young, I fell in love. My father wanted to save his child, so he killed Alec, then spent his life trying to save me. He invented a child—and a way for me to come back to New Orleans every twenty years or so. I met Lucian because—”

“Yes?”

“Lucian is the king.”

“King!” Sean reiterated through clenched teeth.

“Well, that’s what he is. But that’s beside the point now. He was my mentor; he taught me the rules.

How to survive, how to have a life, how to keep my property. I have always been M. Montgomery in some manner or another. During the Civil War, I met Sean Canady, and I didn’t have the nerve to tell him what I was, but I had promised that after the war I would explain why I couldn’t marry him. At a party we met a man, and I knew he was one of my kind, except he was cruel. Incredibly cruel. I knew from the beginning that I wanted nothing to do with him, but he pursued me. He killed carelessly, and worse, he enjoyed tainting men.”

“Tainting them?”

“I told you about tainting people. Slicing into their necks with the blood teeth; they don’t die, they don’t become vampires. If a vampire takes too much blood from a victim this way, the victim dies—or he or she goes mad and starts killing others.”

“Oh, of course,” Sean murmured.

“Anyway, this vampire slowly killed Colonel Wynn’s daughter, then started on him. He destroyed the colonel. Wynn started butchering wounded Confederate soldiers, convinced that a soldier had seduced and killed his daughter. Sean Canady went after Wynn, I came after Sean ... and Aaron Carter came after me. I was so desperate that I would have kept Sean alive as a vampire, except that it was too late.” Sean thought that his face must be fixed into a permanent mask of disbelief, like a plastic mask.

“Then the war ended, time went by—Aaron became Jack the Ripper?” he inquired. “And Aaron is the killer I struggled with last night.”

She nodded. “I met him again in London. I had to travel around Europe as well as the States, you see. I didn’t age, and I had to allow for each new child to grow up.”

“Of course,” Sean murmured.

“I was in London, and I became good friends with a doctor and his wife—remember how I said that I think that people come back when their lives are cut short?”