“At this time of night? You tell them tocome back tomorrow.”
“It’s an emergency reading. She needs toknow if her fiancé is cheating on her. It’s only going to take aminute.”
“A minute you could be sleeping, you mean,”the old lady grumbled.
“You go back to bed, Grams. I’ll talk to herout on the front porch so we don’t bother you.” Gwendolyn noddedfor me to go out the door and then she came after me and closed itbehind her. “Over here,” she said gruffly and led the way to anancient old swing hung in one corner of the porch.
I followed her, noting that I had obviouslygotten her out of bed. She was wearing a long nightshirt withTweety Bird printed on it and purple and black striped socks.Tweety was saying, “I taught I taw a puddy tat!” Again, notvery witchlike—but who was I to say how witches had to dress forbed? Besides, right now I was more concerned with vampires.
“Tell me about the stake,” I said as soon aswe sat down on the creaky old swing. “What is it doing to Corbin?What’s wrong with him?”
She frowned and crossed her arms over herchest. “There is such a thing as client/witchconfidentiality. And Alec Corbin is strong enough to tear me apartif he finds out I told you something he doesn’t want you toknow.”
“He won’t touch you,” I promised. “I, on theother hand…” I poked the stake at her again and she flinched.“You’re going to tell me everything,” I said. “And start at thebeginning.”
She sighed. “Fine. It’ll be too late for himto do anything to me soon anyway.”
That sent a cold chill down my spine but Isimply nodded at her. “Go on.”
“He came to me about a week ago—the nightbefore you saw me, actually. He said he wanted something to kill avampire. A really old and powerful one.”
“And what did you tell him?” I asked,thinking that Corbin must have gone directly to see her after oursecond encounter where he had “healed” me.
She shrugged. “I told him it was impossible,of course. Vamps that old are really hard to kill.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. “But he usedthis stake to kill one—I saw it with my own eyes. How did he doit?”
She looked uncomfortable. “I spelled it forhim. The only way to kill a vamp that old is with a majorsacrifice. So, well…”
“So what?” I insisted, frowning at her.“What did you do?”
Gwendolyn looked at me angrily. “It’s darkmagic, all right? I shouldn’t have done it—Grams would die if sheknew. But I needed what he was offering too much to turn himdown.”
“Which was?”
She sighed. “A vial of his blood. Do youknow how powerful four hundred year old vampire blood is? Thespells you can work with it, the revenge you can take—”
“Okay, I’m not interested in hearing how youused Corbin’s blood to get back at the nasty cheerleaders from highschool who were mean to you,” I snapped. “Just tell me about thesacrifice part of it—that doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not,” she snapped back. “It’s ugly allthe way around. I told him it would be fatal but he said he didn’tcare. That it had to be done to protect the one he loved.”
“Fatal?” I almost put a hand to my heart andthen remembered I was holding the hateful stake. “What are youtalking about, fatal?”
“The sacrifice is a life for a life,”Gwendolyn explained slowly, as though she was speaking to a twoyear old. “The only way he could kill the other vamp was by givingup his own life to do it.”
“Oh God…” I remembered how Corbin hadstabbed Roderick with the stake and then stabbed himself with it aswell. “So he what…he gave the stake Roderick’s blood and then hisown?”
Gwendolyn nodded. “That’s how it works. Oncethe stake has tasted the blood of the victim and the blood of thekiller, it takes the victim at once and the killer moreslowly.”
“So Corbin’s dying?” I couldn’tbelieve it—didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true—itjust couldn’t.
But the witch was nodding her head. “Yeah,he is. In fact, I’m sort of surprised he’s lasted this long.”
“What?” I wanted to strangle her.“You mean he’s going to die now?”
“Well, probably not tonight.” She looked atthe stake which was lying in my lap, still partially wrapped in myjacket. “I’d say from the color of the blood on the runes he has atleast one more night.” She looked up at me. “So at least you havetime to say goodbye.”
“You listen to me…” I grabbed her by thefront of her Tweety Bird night shirt and yanked her close, shovingmy face into hers. “I’m not saying goodbye to Corbin. I’mnot saying goodbye because you are going to fix this.”
She pulled away from my grip, a pissed offlook on her delicate features.
“Keep your voice down! I can’t fixit—it’s dark magic. A binding spell.”
“Well, unbind it,” I demanded. “Look,you said it had to do with sacrifice, right? What would happen ifI…” I took a deep breath and looked down at the stake in my lap.“If I shoved it into my chest too?”
“What do you think would happen ifyou shoved a stake in your heart? You’d die,” she said flatly. “Thestake has already done its magic—there’s no reversing it thatway.”
“Well how can you reverse it?” Ishouted. “Damn it, there must be a way!”
“What in the world is going on out here?”Suddenly a white haired old lady wrapped in a faded blue bathrobecame out the front door. She had creamy brown skin a shade darkerthan Gwendolyn's and looked to be in her seventies but her eyeswere sharp. “Gwendolyn Marie LaRoux,” she said, hobbling toward us.“I asked you a question, what is going on?”
“Nothing, Grams.” Gwendolyn suddenly lookedguilty and much younger than her actual age of twenty-five.
“I can see that’s not the truth, Gwendolyn.”The old lady’s sharp eyes suddenly fell on the stake still lying onmy lap. “Oh, no,” she breathed, shaking her head. “Who isresponsible for this? Gwendolyn, what did you do?”
“I did what I had to do.” Gwendolyn crossedher arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “He’s a really oldvampire
