Page 67

Funerals

Thoughtheentirepoolarea was hidden from the prying eyes of neighbors, someone had heard enough to call the police. It was Étienne who opened the door and somehow persuaded the officers that the reported commotion had been nothing more sinister than a faulty TV volume control. Samantha stood by his side, trying not to look like the zombie she was. When the uniforms left, appeased, and the door closed again, she fell back into his arms. He held her, quietly caressing her back.

After a while, her brain started working again, and she stepped back with a sigh. “We should move them. While they’re still manageable.”

Étienne frowned. “Quoi?”

“C’mon.”

It was shocking how swiftly and easily this relationship was progressing from first “bonjour” to “let’s hide some bodies.” He accepted her explanation about what would happen at sunrise without comment. Then, as though they had done it a dozen times before, Samantha and Étienne dragged two of the corpses deep into the foliage surrounding the pool where it would be simple to disperse the soon-to-be ashes.

With the third corpse, Natalia, Ryan adamantly refused their help. He lifted her body out of the hot-tub by himself and placed her on a satin bedsheet, arranging her head with the help of two pillows. Natalia Bogomolov looked almost whole and peaceful lying there, her small hands crossed over her sternum, another sheet draped to preserve her dignity. Ryan, attired only in his swim trunks, lay by her side and gently stroked her forehead with a thumb. In soft murmurs, he told her not to be afraid of the coming dawn, that he would stay with her, that they would be together again. Samantha’s heart broke for him a little more with every word.

“Is this what Dominique has with Cassidy? This bond you told me about?” Étienne murmured. He sat on the grass with Samantha at a respectful distance from Ryan’s tormented vigil.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Just like that.”

“Just like that,” another voice echoed reverently.

Étienne startled, but Samantha smiled sadly as she turned to meet the puppy dog eyes. “Hello Serge.”

“Golden one,” he murmured. He was still damp from however he had rinsed off the night’s gore, clothing included.

She reached out to touch him and was shocked to feel a moment of hesitation. “Thank you, Serge. For everything.”

He looked at her hand on his forearm and reached for it, but stopped. Dark crescents of blood still marked his nail beds. “Are you feeling better?”

“I think so, yes. It’s not my first blood bath, after all.” Only the very worst. Is this what it had been like for Jackson, she wondered? To see his twin dismembered?

“Did you tell Dominique what happened here?” Serge asked.

She removed her hand and picked up the phone in her lap. “Yes. They know.” She had only called Cassidy, who had been beside herself, and disconnected the call in her hurry to contact Dominique with the news.

Serge nodded. “Then all is as it must be.”

There was a gut-wrenching sob from Ryan.

“Is he going to be all right?” she said so softly only Serge would have heard her.

The vampire watched the grieving man for a long moment. When he turned back, he didn’t meet her eyes. “I must apologize, golden one. I have behaved…beastly these last few days.”

“Very lucky for us this morning,non?” Étienne said, a nervous edge in his voice.

Serge shot him a look that said he wasn’t talking to him, and the human man studied his coffee. Serge met Samantha’s eyes. “I have found unimagined treasure in you, golden one. I knew you would not be mine forever, but I never wanted to believe that this…we could…could end so soon.”

“Oh, Serge, please—”

He raised a hand to stop her. “Samantha Reynolds, you are free to do as you will with”—another glance at Étienne—“whoever you wish.”

She blinked at him, mouth agape. Really? Was he saying she hadn’t been free before?

Apparently still tapped into her mind, the vampire placed a hand on his breast and tried again. “What I am saying is…your destiny…it’s no longer with me.” He blinked, rubbed at his nose, squinted to the east where a bright ribbon of color grew over the barrier island. “Find your peace today, my friend.”

With that, Serge blurred away into the shelter of the house and vault.

Samantha watched him go, trying to wrap her head around what had just happened.

“Intéressant,” Étienne said.