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“Marie LaFontaine, Therese’s grandmother, kept her grandfather’s journals, specifically the parts about meeting you and me in Pine Ridge. Specifically, the parts about you, how you were made, and your oath to protect Arthur’s family and the families of the men who created you.”

I try not to curse out loud.

“Marie told Therese to contact us, that the town could protect her—and specifically that you could protect her. She is the family of one of your creators.”

“I know, but not by blood.” As if that ever mattered to me before.

I can hear the snicker and picture Jakob’s weary expression. “Listen to a vampire, dear boy. Blood doesn’t matter.”

“I... Don’t want to get involved. I want this to end.” The words come out faster than I can think them. “You’re powerful. You know the ways of our people.”

“That’s true, but—”

“Unmake me. If I do this thing for her, unmake me.”

“I can’t! Only someone with the sacred incantations would.

.. The journals.” Minegold’s voice grows ponderous.

“I suppose if he wrote about your creation, there’s a chance Arthur Sloane recorded or hid the words of life and the words of ending in his journal.

They’d be useless without you there, but he might have left them in writing as some sort of failsafe. ”

“Or some kind of mercy,” I whisper. I think back to the days on the boat, the days where I watched Yvette and Artie start to form some sort of bond and realized I would never have it for myself.

“Whether the words of ending are written down or you have to make them as you go, you are powerful. You could do it. I don’t want to go on like this. Over eighty years, and still empty.”

“I know that pain, but there are things to fill it. There are friends, family, hobbies—”

“Not for me.”

“You won’t even try! Lately, you hide away. I never see you in town. Do you even eat these days?”

I skip the questions and criticisms. It’s different for Jakob.

He was human once, and he’s never killed an innocent.

He still has his human soul. Our positions are different, however similar he may try to make them.

“I have tried long enough! Promise me that if I help this woman, you will set me free.” I resist the urge to punch the mirror as I watch my face working, breaking down.

Sometimes I wish I would turn to dust, but I haven’t, and I won’t. They built me far too well.

“I am going to pray that you change your mind. But if you do not—then yes, I will help you. We must help Artie’s great-granddaughter first. If Delgado’s goons don’t believe she’s moved on and is living a happy little human life, he will stop observing her and send Hellhounds to finish the job.”

“Where is she now?”

“I spoke to her last night. An undercover Interpol agent will have her on a plane this morning. Early this evening, you and I will meet her at the Binghamton Airport. If she’s not being followed, we will hurry her to that little fixer-upper on Ridge View Way, and you will be the plumber who is there doing a full overhaul on the house.

If she’s still got a tail, we will do anything in our power to convince Delgado that she’s moved on and has no interest in him any longer. ”

“Well, what does he think now?”

“Therese didn’t tell him the real reason why she was leaving.

She left after staging a big fight and storming out of their hotel in Rome.

When she got to the airport, she called him and said that she was done with him, that she married him because she wanted a rich, glamorous life of jet-setting around the world with her playboy husband, but she didn’t realize how lonely and empty it would be.

Then, she told him—well, she panicked, I believe. ”

“Oh, no. What did she say?” I try not to groan. I value honesty except in extreme circumstances. Artie and I told many lies over the course of the war. I suppose Therese is in a war for her own survival.

“She told him she had met someone else, a sweet, small-town guy. She met a man with a blue collar and a big heart who would start a family with her and put her before his career, who would let her settle down in one place and not drag her around the world.”

“Ooh. And she didn’t think that would make him mad?”

“She knows him better than we do.”

“Apparently not. She was living with a killer.”

Minegold continues, “She gave her statement in Rome and hurried to London, where she’s been living for several months, cooperating with Interpol and living in a secure flat that’s next to an agent’s.

Because of her, they’ve been able to connect a string of deaths to Delgado—only he doesn’t know that yet.

They must have a very solid case before they can risk it, especially if they try him for multiple murders and he gets off.

Then he cannot be tried again for any of them.

For now, they have Delgado on something else—tax evasion or fraud, something like that, I think.

Once they hit him with a murder charge, all the excrement will hit the fan.

When Therese left, Delgado believed she knew nothing about his criminal or sacrificial activities.

After charges are presented—that won’t be the case. ”

My admiration for the lady goes up. She must be one cool customer. “So, if she is being followed, I’m supposed to pose as what? Her handler and get her to some safe house? Won’t they think it’s odd that she has a bodyguard if she doesn't know her husband is a criminal?”

There’s a waffling hesitation in Jakob’s voice. “No, no one must know that you’re the bodyguard. You’re supposed to be the sweet, small-town man she left Delgado for.”

“What?”

“Wear a nice suit, Reggie. You might have to star in an off-off-Broadway production this evening. You play the groom.”

I hesitate. I’m never going to get married. I long for deep emotional connections, but lack the soul to create them. I rarely speak. Women like communication.

But Minegold? He’s suave. Elegant. A widower. He knows how to be married.

“Why don’t you do it? Take her back to your house, and—”

“I cannot protect her in direct sunlight. I’m too easy to harm with fire or sunlight. You are indestructible. You are also, no offense, far more the picture of a small-town, blue collar sort. You’re actually a plumber, for heaven’s sake!”

“But I don’t know how to fake being someone’s brand-new husband!”

“Take her to dinner. Laugh at her jokes! Fix up the house with her. Newlyweds do those sorts of things.”

“I would imagine there’d be a lot more laying pipe that’s related to consummation than actual plumbing,” I snap.

“Then look besotted when you’re in public.”

I want to refuse, but something sears in my chest.

My oath. To protect.

The promises I made when I said goodbye to Artie Sloane on his deathbed. He always treated me like a person. I told him I would always protect his family. He went with pictures of all his children and grandchildren by his bedside—adopted or otherwise, they were all his out of love.

Maybe I was jealous that a man with such a huge heart made me—and yet never figured out how to give me even a fraction of what he was capable of feeling.

“I don’t want to do this—but I’ll do it.”

“The agents will walk Therese through her paces. You just provide cover and protection that they can’t possibly deliver. They’ll tell us the next steps. I’ll see you at four. Oh, and mazel tov. I hope you and Ms. LaFontaine, formerly Delgado, will be very happy together.”

I hang up and step straight into the shower. I’m going to have to pack. Find my suit and hope it’s not too wrinkled. Oh, yeah, and learn how to look happy. I’m supposedly meeting my new bride this afternoon.