EVEN VAMPIRES GET THE BLUES

Whoa. It doesn't sound like he has the statue. At least I know I didn't lose it. He must have taken it without me knowing when I was trapped between realities, hauled it farther into the beyond, then not been able to get it out again.

Paen gave a mental shrug. However it got there, it's to our benefit that he can't retrieve it easily.

A couple more knocks answered Pilar.

'Don't be foolish,' he snarled at the poltergeist. 'It's not that easy to lift a curse, you know. The offer is simple—you bring the statue out to me, and I'll find a Charmer to lift the curse. Take it or leave it.'

It sounds as if he is having difficulties finding someone to bring it out, Paen said.

I'm surprised he thinks a poltergeist can. Everyone knows beings born of the darkness have no powers in the beyond.

Reuben rapped out an answer that had Pilar snorting, 'No. No one else knows where that half-breed elf was. It's safe enough until you retrieve it.'

If Reuben was cursed to this state, it means he wasn't born into it. It's probably entirely likely that he would have his full powers in the beyond.

I suppose, although there wouldn't be much he could do there even with them. I've never heard of a faery who was cursed, but I don't get around much in the Fae world. Regardless, what are we going to do now?

Find out just where it is so you can get it yourself. Paen stepped into the room, his wide shoulders filling the narrow doorway. 'Lost the statue, did you? That's too bad. Sam would like it back.'

Life suddenly took on a very abstract quality. In the fraction of a second after Paen's words were spoken, Pilar spun around to find himself face-to-face with an angry vampire. But what he did next took us both by surprise. Rather than attacking Paen, or challenging him, or even laughing a mocking, superior laugh at Paen's bravado, he did something entirely different. He killed me.

Chapter 16

A voice screamed in the small, closed room, echoing over and over and over again, a horrible sound that made my brain hurt. It was only after the screaming stopped and Pilar stepped back from me that I noticed he held a knife in his hands. A knife covered in blood right to the hilt.

Warmth seeped into my sweater as an odd gurgling, rasping noise seemed to fill my ears. Paen roared a curse and tore off the poltergeist from where he was clinging, just as if he was nothing more than a troublesome burr. Reuben went flying across the room, hitting the wall with a solid thunk. Paen looked startled for a moment as one of Reuben's arms remained in his grasp, but he threw down the limb as he lunged for me, his beautiful silver eyes almost black.

Beyond him, Pilar fled the room, an injured Reuben crawling out after him, leaving a trail of oily black blood and apports.

'They're getting away,' I tried to say, but something was wrong with me, something was very wrong. I couldn't speak, and my brain apparently had shifted into slow motion again. My legs buckled and I fell backward against the wall, Paen catching me before I could hit the floor. Paen?

Dear god, don't speak. Don't move, Sam. It'll be all right. It's a lot of blood but I'll stop the bleeding somehow.

His eyes were so full of horror, they made mine blur with tears. I tried to touch his face but my arms didn't seem to work. Paen?

I'll call Finn. We'll get you help. There's a hospital nearby. Don't leave me, Sam, just don't leave me. Swear you won't leave me.

I won't leave, I started to say, but stopped because it wasn't true. The room telescoped, Paen at one end and me at the other, moving farther and farther away from each other until it seemed we were at opposite ends of a long tunnel.

Paen, where did you go? What's happening? Why can't I move?

Sam, damn you, don't leave me! There were tears in his voice that spoke in my head, tears and anguish and pain so deep it cut through my soul. Hang on to me, Sam. Stay with me. Don't let go.

I don't seem to be able to…

I drifted backward, as if my astral body had gone flying again, but this was different. Sheer terror filled me as I finally understood what was happening. I struggled to keep from drifting, but I was powerless. Paen! I don't want to go! Please don't let me die! I love you! I don't want to leave you!

I won't let you go, sweetheart, his voice answered in my head, distant but calm, reassuring. Forgive me, Sam.

Forgive you for what? I asked, sobbing tears of agony. I wanted to scream and yell and fight, railing against the cruelty of fate. Now that I had found Paen, now that he had accepted me and we had a life in front of us—for however long—it wasn't right that I should be torn from him. Paen! Please! Help me!

Forgive me, my love.

Pain blossomed deep within me, a horrible, rending pain unlike anything I'd felt before, and for a moment I was thrilled to feel anything, because it meant I wasn't quite dead yet. Paen's silver eyes burned into mine a second before his teeth flashed and a streak of pain shot through my chest, a strange lethargy washing over me. He was feeding off me, drinking my blood, taking into himself everything I was, and had, and ever would have, leaving me… empty.

He dropped me, let the hollow shell of me flounder and sink into a black abyss, and with one last heartrending sob of sorrow, I was no more.

Sam?

Hmm?

How do you feel?

I'm not sure. Am I sleeping?

Yes. Wake up now.

All right.

I opened my eyes. We were still in the storage room beneath the streets of Edinburgh, faint light coming in through the opened doorway. An odd wind seemed to be howling somewhere in the distance, as if a storm was building. Beneath me, the ground was wet and sticky with blood. My blood.

'I'm not dead?' My voice sounded choked, hoarse and rough.

Don't speak out loud, not yet. Give your body time to heal the injury on your neck.

Memory returned to me. Pilar stabbed me?

Slashed your neck. He cut your jugular, damn near decapitating you, otherwise I would have rushed you to the hospital. But there was no time, Sam, no time. You were dying. You were leaving me and I couldn't stop it.

The wind picked up, its shrieks painful to my ears.

But I'm alive now, I said, still confused about what happened. So much of it was a horrible blur in my mind.

Paen said nothing, just watched me with a face that bore so much guilt, I wanted to weep for him.

I held out an arm. It was shaky and covered with blood, but it was my arm. See? I'm here. I'm alive. I'm … I stopped, horror crawling over my skin as I realized what was wrong. The wind that roared so loudly it hurt my ears wasn't coming from outside… It came from within me.

From the place my soul used to reside.

'Sweetheart, if you keep trying to scream, you're going to bring the ghost hunters down on us, and you really