THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE STARS

DANA CAMERON

Dana Cameron was always a Pam fan. She wanted to see more of her past, which I only hint at in the books. Dana decided to start with Eric’s creation of Pam as a vampire, weaving that into her own story about why Pam loves being a vampire and the trouble that enjoyment—and Pam’s nature—get her into.

—

The day I died was the day I’d never anticipated. Not in the sense of every oblivious mortal, ignoring what inevitably must find us all. It was the day I felt something, profoundly.

I blame the artists. The men, most especially. They taunt us with ideas of freedom, and fail to tell us that it exists only in their prose, their pictures, their verse. I vowed I would give up the sun, the moon, and the stars for that kind of freedom. When I sneaked out to visit my darling, I thought myself daring, a tragic heroine. After that night, I understood I had been living a mummified existence, bound by corsetry and social niceties.

Before, I did not know myself, with my “wild” ways, to be alive but immured.

And yet if I hadn’t been trying to live, to feel, as the poets claim we must, I never would have drawn my master’s attention. If I hadn’t tried to leave the drab, mortal path I was confined to, I would never have died and discovered true life.

I remember shadows from Before. A shadowy existence, shadows between our garden and that of our neighbors’. I thought that place was Elysium: It housed my closest friend and, occasionally, her cousin, my love. But mine was nothing but a weak imitation of life, soon to be snuffed out entirely, a feeble gesture at something more than a muffled existence. A young lady’s fanciful imagination that her tentative efforts to trammel convention were real, meaningful. Potent.

Then came a series of shocks, too many things wrong all at once. That stranger waiting just outside my garden gate, as he’d waited in the chilly winter churchyard in past weeks.

Watching me.

“I have news, from—” He nodded at our neighbor’s house, where my love was no doubt writing poetry to me at that moment.

His words puzzled me. “I’ve only just left—”

“He has a plan for the two of you to be together, and it demands urgency. We are too visible here.” He followed me through the garden. “You should ask me in.”

I was dazzled. The stranger was blond, an Adonis. Something not quite the gentleman about him, and yet I did not hesitate.

“Please, come in.” I opened the door, took off my cape, and—

One strong hand at my back, the other brushed against my cheek, and a thrill as he pulled me to him. I expected a kiss, but his hand swept over my hair, pushing my head so that I could feel his mouth on the soft skin above the lace of my collar and below my ear.

The touch of his cold lips against my neck and my knees went weak.

He bit me.

I opened my mouth—was it to scream or moan?—and before a noise could come out, I felt the pain.

Sharp teeth sheared through my flesh like scalpels. Blood—my blood—rushed into his mouth. The life was drawn from me by his lips.

And still beyond all that, beyond death, I felt a thumb across my nipple.

It was the most intense thing I’d ever experienced in my life. Shock, fear, suffering, arousal in a moment. The sensation was more than the sum of my parts; I felt my whole body alive at his touch. Primal experiences that no lady should have known, until the wedding night and childbirth.

I’m not certain how we arrived in my room, but he settled me onto my bed and raised his left wrist to his mouth. I saw a flash of white, white teeth, so long, so sharp. His jaw worked; I heard the gentle growling, a dog with a bone, and then the ripping of flesh.

A sharp scent caught me. Rich, dark, earthy, a metallic edge. My body, my being, contracted with need for it. All my earlier thoughts of the physical element of romance, those utterly chaste kisses tinged with hope and illusion, fled in the face of that longing.

That was real need. Real life.

I knew instantly what to do. I grabbed his wrist, drew it to my mouth. I latched on as surely as any babe to its nurse. My teeth sank into his flesh and I guided his blood over my tongue. The dryness that threatened to consume me tightened to an ache, as if resisting the offered nourishment, and then . . .

It began to burn, as if I were being devoured from the inside out. I could no more stop the flow of blood than I could scream with the pain it brought. As I kept sucking, the wildfire devoured me, and all I knew was that if I perished at that instant, I would die craving more blood. A slave to my own torment, a willing victim to a terrible pleasure.

I was a fool, was nearly my last thought. So wrong. This was what I sought, this commingling of fear, lust, life. And death.

Even as all the fires of hell seemed to consume me, I was grateful and remembered my manners.

“Thank y—”

Night. Again. I woke to bitter cold and blinding light.

“Sally, why are the windows open? It’s—”

But my voice didn’t work; my lips cracked as I tried to form the words.

I reached for the water pitcher; my hand hit something slippery and softly resistant, too close to me.

My fingers floated along the cloth. A shiver from my fingertips up my arm, until it felt as if my entire body registered what I felt: satin. I wasn’t in my bed. I was in a lidless box.

I realized it was a coffin.

The light was starlight. I was staring up at the stars. My eyes focused slowly, aching as if there were too much for them to take in. There was too much beauty in the night. The silver music of the stars, the brilliance of the sandy soil as it trickled from the earthen walls that surrounded me. It pattered on my sleeve, making a noise as quiet and as fleeting as mice.

Soil and satin, two things that ordinarily I would keep far apart. But with the shrill fairness of the stars above, the glorious pulse of the dark city around me, the cacophony of worms and voles beneath . . . it was just one more note.

I wanted to cry out in amazement, but I was as parched as the desert. A small noise escaped, barely a croak, but even that was gratifying to me.

The dryness of my mouth triggered something. A terrible hunger seized me, a thirst so awful it was as though I were filled with coal dust and cobwebs. I struggled to sit up, the movement only underscoring the misery of my desiccated body.

“All will be well.”

Cold blue eyes, nameless but not unfamiliar, appeared, another constellation in the firmament. A sudden movement, quicker than even I could follow with my newly sharpened eyes, then strong arms around me and a rush of frigid air. My preserver took me from the grave with as little effort as if he’d scooped up a kitten. Just as easily, he cradled me in his lap.

“—you.” The effort of finishing my last mortal sentence made my throat ache. “I am so—”

“Here.”

He offered me his wrist again, and finally, his blood quenched my tortured throat. I began to relax, began to feel . . . more than alive. Sure-minded. Free.

He taunted me a little, as if he could tell the worst was past, and moved as if he’d take his wrist from me.

I clung to his arm, my fingers powerful, my mouth still demanding.

He laughed and relented. “Slowly, now, Miss Ravenscroft. Another moment, only. I did not bring you to life only to abandon it myself.”

I let his blood roll over my lips, felt it spill over and caress my cheek, as if I were savoring the juice from a stolen peach. I swallowed the last mouthful greedily as he firmly took his arm from me. I could make no complaint. I had never enjoyed food so well, never felt it nourish me so completely. So perfectly.

Now that the blood was gone—I wondered if my next mouthful would taste as lovely—I could smell him. Masculine, faintly of horse, laundry soap, and blood—perhaps even some from the laundress who’d washed that shirt. More distinctly I sensed power and lust.

“I do admire a young lady with an appetite,” he said, helping me to sit. A politeness, only; I felt more vital than I ever had. “I am Eric Northman. I will teach you about your new life and I shall protect you as my own. In return, I expect your obedience in all things.”

It was a better bargain than any lady in my acquaintance had ever been offered, and far more honest. I did not hesitate. “Oh, yes, please!”

A present to seal our compact: He gestured and a gaunt street Arab with a vacant look on her face stumbled to our side, obeying the same will that had compelled me to allow a strange man into my father’s house. Her rags were redolent of the perfume of the East End slums. She wordlessly stretched her dirty neck out in front of me.

“Drink,” was all my master said. He didn’t need to say more; the hunger I felt instructed me. The stink of her poverty was sharp but secondary to the entrancing rhythm of the pulse in her neck. It called me, the answer to my killing thirst.

A new and peculiar spasm in my mouth: I felt my teeth lengthening, becoming sharper. A throbbing in my entire person seemed to match the pulse at her throat that filled my ears.

I rose to my knees and clutched her by the shoulders. Without a second thought, or even a first, I bit down hard on her neck, felt the skin puncture and rend under my fangs. Her tiny whimper was a sweet counterpoint to the thumping in her veins, her weak resistance enthralling, as her blood filled me. The most delectable flavors rolled over my tongue like my favorite dinner: roast pork and savory pudding and dark red wine all together. I sucked harder, the tear in her skin wider than my greedy mouth could cover, and the blood sluiced down my chin and neck. The heat of the lost blood warmed and thrilled me as it soaked into my silk dress and my tumbled-down hair.

I felt myself refreshed to the point of ecstasy as existence vacated her forever.

I cast the small body away from me, useless now, an empty foul thing. My strength was greater than I realized. She arced through the air, to land, a broken doll, on a monument of an angel nearby. I licked at my lips and chin in a very unladylike fashion.

I half stood. “More!” The more I ate, the more I desired, and I craved other things, too, though I could not have put a name to them.

“You are wonderful!” My master, Eric, laughed. “There will be more, I promise you. But what if I told you there was something even better than feeding?”

“There cannot be.” There was not even a twinge, as there might have been Before, at such greediness. Every sermon I’d ever heard against the sins of the flesh had been burned out of me. I yearned for more.

“There is.”

Eric raised me to my feet, placed my hand on the front of his trousers. The satisfaction I’d felt in drinking from the urchin diminished beside what I experienced now. The talk of love and eternal passion that—I could not even remember the name of my friend’s cousin—had promised me, was pretty, hollow, gilt-tin words, now banished by an irresistible yearning. Eric’s face was stunningly beautiful, pale, and hungry as mine, and those blue eyes burned still.

“Yes! Oh, yes, please!”

Then the naughty Miss Ravenscroft, whose previous noteworthy transgressions were only silly declarations and clumsy, stolen kisses from a boy whose name she couldn’t remember, truly became the vampire Pamela. No thoughts but my own satisfaction troubled me, and as I hauled up my skirts and petticoats, Eric lifted me to sit on the edge of a monument. An instant later, I felt him slam inside me, and I knew he was right. This was nearly the match of feeding, but in a way I had never experienced. I wrapped my legs around him, locking my ankles behind his back, and felt his being—no pulse, no heart—merge with mine. The blood he shared with me now linked us in a divine knot, sharing each other’s pleasure.

Even as I moaned my climax—only dimly aware of the chilly London air, the cooling corpse of my first meal nearby—I felt a pain that threatened to eradicate me. It grew and grew and I panicked. As the spiraling agony threatened to swallow me, I was certain I was entering hell.

More than a hundred years later, I am in hell.

I wake, remembering with longing my happy dream of sex with Eric. And now . . .

I’m facedown in a pile of blankets. My head feels as if it’s lined with silver as shiny black millipedes with leaden feet tap-dance inside my skull. The pain threatens to shatter me, and it’s only after a bit that I realize I was dreaming of my making. My most treasured memory, the night my life After began, came to console me. Given my circumstances, I’m worried that this may be the night my After life ends.

Finally, someone turns off the damn klaxon alarm, and my head reverberates with its dying echoes. Agony, as if I’ve been sunbathing, but I don’t smell smoke, don’t feel flames. I’m awake, so it must be night.

I’ve been poisoned, captured, but I can’t remember anything.

I burrow deeper into the blankets despite the fact that they reek of mothballs and mildew.

A grating noise—a door opening. I wish my head would just explode and be done with it. I must get up now, because I know I am in the worst kind of trouble.

I’m still trying to pull myself up when I hear the voice. Of any in the world, it’s the last one I want. It fills me with dread.

“Pam Ravenscroft. I’m sure you remember me.”

I can’t see past his motorcycle boots, but I remember flaming red hair and, incongruously, a scatter of freckles.

“Of course, Morgan,” I mutter to the damp cement floor. “I keep a scrapbook of degenerate monsters. You’re my prize.”

Not my best retort, but I’ve a head full of silver filings I can’t account for.

“Well, you put up quite a fight, though I’m not sure what tipped you off. Exactly how old are you, that you can smell trouble like that?”

Idiot. Never ask a lady her age. If she’s human, she’ll lie and say younger. If she’s vampire, she’ll lie and say older and more powerful. “As old as sin itself, and twice as sexy. Where’s Eric?”

“Unaware of my intentions. For the moment.”

“Good. He’ll be on his guard and you’ll shortly be a puddle of guts.”

“I think not. He suspects nothing.” Morgan stoops and shows me my phone. “He imagines you’ve secured the perimeter of the ‘Out-of-the-Coffin Day’ anniversary dinner party and are meeting Lily for a private celebration. I owe him a lot of money and don’t want to pay him, so I’m going to make it look like human fang-haters when I kill him. I can be as gruesome as I want and still have people believe it’s a human attack.”

Simple math, if you’re a vampire. Plus, Morgan is a pervert, so “gruesome” would only be the start of it.

I must escape and warn Eric, but—

Morgan might have been reading my mind. “That silver will be in your system for a couple of hours. By the time you can sit up straight, I’ll be solvent and Northman will be dead.”

“Eric shit bigger things than you when he was human.”

He laughs. “Maybe I’ll keep you around as a pet. Or I could feed you to Lily. You disappointed her so terribly, that would be a thing to see.”

Oh, hell. Lily. I slump. Years ago, Morgan killed Lily’s maker and took her as his own, treating her vilely.

Morgan laughs again and leaves.

I give him a few minutes to get out and then manage to sit. I’m not as sick as he thought; I don’t think they got the full dose into me, but I’m still feeling rough.

I must do something, so I go for the low-hanging fruit. “Hey! Hey!” I bang on the door.

A vamp so green you can still smell the dirt on him opens up the peephole. “Shut up in there!”

“Unless I get something to eat, this silver will kill me. You don’t want that.”

Instead of telling me, Yeah, he does, he says the most wonderful thing in the world.

“Huh?”

Oh, thank you, fates. “If I die, Eric will sense my death. He’ll know something’s up.” I try to look pathetic. It’s not hard.

He actually bites his lip, he’s trying so hard to think. I’ve seen more wit in Bubba sizing up a three-legged tabby for dinner.

“Get me a bottle of TrueBlood.” I hate the stuff; it tastes like a Barbie smells. “If you don’t want Morgan’s plan to fail.”

The door shuts. I’m alone with my worry.

It opens again shortly, and I can’t believe my luck. I raise my hand weakly, then let it fall back, as if exhausted.

The little idiot actually comes in. I wait until I can almost see where his pimples used to be, before he was made, then spring up. I grab his arm and yank down, seizing the back of his head, which abruptly meets my knee. Then, since I still appreciate the housewifely virtue of “waste not, want not,” I drain him dry.

His body collapses into a pile of nasty black gunk that will require a squeegee to clean up. I toss back the TrueBlood as well; I’ll need every bit of strength I have to get through the night alive.

I know the house. It doesn’t take me long to find my way out.

There’s one other guard, and he’s bigger and meaner than the puppy I ate downstairs, but I’m warmed up and feeling feisty. Once he’s returned to primordial ooze, I take his phone and car keys, and then his car.

Eric’s not answering. He’s probably so far underground the cement is blocking the signal.

As I drive, I wonder. I may not actually be as old as sin, but I’m not being vain when I consider that the junior varsity shouldn’t have been left to guard someone like me. It seemed far too easy to—

Oh. I get it. The A-squad is reserved for taking Eric out.

Shitballs.

I gun the engine and race hell-for-leather toward the party. I can’t concentrate on a plan. The only thing in my mind is seeing Lily right before the silver-filled hypodermic needle hit my neck.

I loved the twenties. I roared through them. Jazz and gin and shoes made to dance in. Beaded dresses, no more than scraps of silk but so heavy, so sensual, they might have been designed with a vampire’s heightened senses in mind. Feeding at that time was like ripping open an expensive box of chocolates. After years of thousands of tiny jet buttons and yards of wool, it was easier than tearing the plastic off a Twinkie and twice as sweet.

I met Lily while I was hunting on New Year’s Eve. The woods of the Scottish highlands in 1926 were as pretty as a picture as I tracked two partygoers who’d sneaked off for a chilly game of slap-and-tickle.

The stink of their fear as I chased them was sauce on game, lemon in tea, whiskey on cake. My stomach wasn’t actually growling, but the idea was amusing. Every time I ate, it was as if I were rediscovering the act, finding some nuance revealed, some ecstasy not yet explored. Terror, exhaustion, and confusion added indefinably exquisite layers to taste. Maybe we lacked the need for other mortal organs, but vampire senses and appetites were enhanced to joy almost beyond bearing.

My hunger lent lightness to my step and wings to my feet. I’d cast off my dainty dancing slippers, rather than lose them—I’ve always taken care of my nice things—and gave in to the chase so quickly, I made no tracks on the snow.

The pair were weighed down with their meaty mortal bodies, their fear, and their clumsy will to live. They had no concept of what living was. Despite their every pretense at decadence, this would be the most lively night of their lives. It would be my gift to them.

A faint rustle, a skitter of ice pellets across the crust of snow. A rabbit? Some bird stirring?

My pace slowed as I warily tried to identify the source of the noise.

Another vampire, a stranger. There might be additional violence before the evening was through.

Best not to anticipate. It could as easily be happy violence as angry. Either would please me.

Like a breath, the rustling was gone. My fellow hunter had gone ahead, like a lioness circling around prey.

A shriek in a clearing ahead of me. The other vampire had appeared out of nowhere. She set down a lantern on a stump.

The light showed a man who’d been stopped by a slight woman, apparently in her late twenties, her black hair in a fashionable shingle, ornamented with sparkling jewels and graceful white feathers. The beads of the fringe on her dress were green on white silk, and the way they swayed reminded me of windblown pine boughs.

Her mouth was perfectly formed, a Cupid’s bow in scarlet that matched her nails. I had not seen such pallid perfection in skin since meeting Eric. Her features hinted at a delightful mix of Asian and European ancestry.

“Shall we share?” Her voice matched any Bloomsbury bluestocking, educated and precise. “Or shall we fight over them? You found them, but I stopped them.”

“What do you mean, share?” The big man had found his balls again. It was now clear that he believed he’d been chased by devils, who turned out to be two flappers from a New Year’s party. “Get away from me, you thieving tarts!”

“I do not tolerate interruptions!” she snapped. “Sit down and be quiet!”

Under her glamour, he sat down on a log, quite ignoring the thick layer of snow on it.

His companion was a slight thing, shivering with fear and cold; her thin dress was garish red and cheap. She should have taken a lesson from me; my dress was far nicer and the deep rose red suited my complexion. “He has money,” she said. “Take it, let us go!”

“Now, now,” I said, chiding her. “Money is a good and useful thing, but it is not all, my dear. Sit down.”

She sat down on the log beside her beau, trembling, her eyes glazed with terror. A small nosegay of red carnations fell from her hand.

“So, what is it to be?” Lily asked me.

I was quite fascinated by her. “What are your plans this evening?”

She affected casualness. “I had nothing particular in mind.”

All thoughts about meeting Eric for hunting and a late dinner had fled. It was the first time I’d ever found anyone who could distract me from him. “Perhaps we could share these, and then find some diverting way to see in the New Year together?”

She clapped her hands. “C’est tres agréable! Shall we start with the big one? Let the little one stew a bit, save her for pudding?”

“My thoughts precisely.” I held out a hand. “I am Pam Ravenscroft.”

She shook. “Lily Macintosh.”

“A pleasure.”

“I hope so.” She clapped her hands again, and said, “You! Big ’un!”

The man roused from his dullness, and without another word, Lily clawed the collar down from the man’s shirt and tore into his throat. His face was a mask of horror and ultimate torment, but he was helpless to resist.

I took a moment to admire the reflections of Lily’s beads against the hard snow, the spatter of blood in the flickering lamplight, and the eager way her head bobbed as she fed.

And, oooh! She liked nice things, too; her dress was by Worth!

The big man fell, a slave to weakness and gravity. I saw the blood flowing still, heard the faint flutter of his still-beating heart, and took his wrist before she could drain him entirely.

He tasted of rare roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, a reasonable Bordeaux, followed by champagne . . .

Nothing like good traditional British fare in winter, shared by lamplight.

Lily’s appetite was as great as mine. She licked the tears from the sobbing girl’s cheeks, and I couldn’t resist doing the same.

Sublime.

Lily grabbed a meager wrist and I took the carotid. Even though we dug in with all the gusto of schoolgirls sharing a chocolate sundae, I realized I was no longer hungry for blood.

Lily stared at me from across the body of the girl, who was dying but far from gone.

My new friend reached over, removed a drop of blood from my lip with a finger. Popped it in her own mouth with a mischievous grin.

I moved the hair behind her ears, wiped a smear of blood from her chin.

Lily stood and hooked her thumbs under the straps of her dress. The weight of the beads pulled the silk down as quickly as any stage curtain. Besides her shoes, she wore nothing but the most charming camiknickers.

I undressed instantly and we embraced. Our bodies weren’t much warmer than the snow. The girl watched us make love, helpless to escape, as her blood slowly seeped out and colored the snow around her.

After, we stirred only when daylight was nigh. The girl had finally died, but I didn’t begrudge the waste of food or my wrinkled, damp dress, for Lily was quite simply the cat’s meow. She was delicate and fierce at the same time, and her body was delicious, with a superb rump and delightful little breasts.

In a giddy mood, besotted with my new friend, I plucked three red carnations from the fallen nosegay and set them on the remains of our dessert.

Lily cocked her head. “According to my grandmother, that means . . . fascination and love.”

I was taken aback she understood me. “You know the language of flowers?”

“She called it hanakotoba. My grandmother was Japanese. She taught me years ago, before I was turned.” She looked me straight in the eye. “That is the same flower I would have chosen. For you.”

“You are delectable!” I exclaimed. “We must meet again.”

“We were clearly made for each other,” she agreed. “So I shall make a point of it.” Stooping, she took two carnations from the corpse, tucked one in my bosom and the other behind her ear.

I sang as I made my way back to Eric.

Lily and I met again over the years, never for long, but renewing our affection and passion every time. Eventually I learned that she’d sold her human life to her maker, Frederick, her servitude in return for the payment of her father’s gambling debts.

“My father had three choices: Be killed, turn my little sister Rose out as a whore, or sell me to Frederick. It was not a difficult choice: Rose is everything to me. To protect her, I would undertake far worse than turning vampire.”

As always, I marveled at how human affection survived the transformation and even grew with the intensity of vampire feeling. I admired Lily for it.

But then Morgan had killed Frederick and taken Lily as his own. He made her swear an oath to obey him for a number of years, but each time her term was nearly up, he found another reason for her to swear again. I suspected Morgan arranged more of Lily’s father’s gambling debts so as to torment Lily for his own amusement. I thanked heaven and hell for Eric, for he was as decent a master as one could ask for. More than giving him my obedience, I was thankful for Eric.

“My word is everything to me,” Lily said, late one night in Paris. A prostitute lay drained at the foot of our bed. “But almost . . . I would run away from Morgan. I would break my oath. Almost, I would, Pam, for you.”

“And almost I would leave Eric for you,” I said. It was untrue, of course, but she was well worth the compliment. I nuzzled her neck and nibbled her ear. “Merely say the word, and I’ll help you escape.”

“Pam,” she said sternly, giving me a little shake. “I made a promise. My sister’s safety depends on it.”

“My apologies, Lily,” I said. “I understand.”

We nestled together as the sun rose, but secretly, I considered how short a mortal’s life was, and that when Rose died, Lily and I might be together.

I park a block from the front of the party venue—an establishment with huge underground rooms to accommodate vampire events. I don’t want them to recognize the car and wonder what the guard from the house is doing here. There is a raincoat in the backseat of the stolen car, and I pull it on to cover most of the blood, a temporary solution until the odor betrays me.

The place is crawling with the dignitaries’ guards. I recognize a lot of them but don’t remember seeing them on the way in. There are far more of Morgan’s people, and I wonder who else Morgan owes money to.

I need to find another way in. I circle around to the service entrance in the back. The security is looser here, which makes no sense.

Until I see who’s running the show—no one would cross him. I walk purposefully toward my potential ally. There’s a slim chance, but I might make it past him.

But will I make it out again? As I approach the entrance and the big man with the clipboard, I remember that hypodermic earlier, and how I failed Lily so badly so long ago. She’s in on it, has to be. No love for me, and none for my master—she has everything to gain by helping Morgan and, as much as she dislikes him, she’ll never turn on him.

I gather up my courage, for Eric’s sake. I owed him all. I once had said, with a mortal girl’s silly bravado, that I would give the sun, the moon, and the stars for true freedom. With Eric, I’d only had to give up the sun.

The last I’d heard from Lily was in 1955. I’d been cleaning my house when she called, nearly hysterical.

Another gambling debt: Her father was old, but not too frail to find a bookie. His debtors wanted an exorbitant amount of interest, and Morgan, again, had offered help.

“You got the money from him . . . by promising another fifty years of service?” I said. “But . . . I have some money and I could ask Eric—” Though I didn’t think he would give me the cash, I thought he might loan it to me. With interest, of course, but never with such unreasonable demands as Morgan.

Again, the thought crossed my mind that Morgan might be using Lily’s family to torture her.

“It was the only way. And Morgan insisted I find someone else to deliver the payment. Pam, I’m asking you. Will you save my sister?”

I had promised to meet Eric in two days, but I was closer to the Chicago suburb than Lily was. “I’m on my way.”

“Thank you, Pam. If anything happens to Rose—”

“It won’t. I swear.”

“Go now, my darling! Come back to me with good news!”

I ran to my car without even changing from my jeans into a skirt. I drove like the demon I am but had miscalculated the distance to the town I intended to spend the day in. My skin began to tighten as I raced the coming dawn, but the city limits were still ahead of me. I considered digging myself a hole in the ground, but I saw an abandoned barn. I pulled my Thunderbird into it and there was a distinct smell of burning bacon when I finally put myself into the trunk, pulling the door down just shy of locking. My skin felt as though I’d had a blistering sunburn as I pulled a blanket over me.

June days are hellishly long.

I drove dangerously far the next night with the gas gauge needle pinning E. Relieved when I saw a service station, I cursed the slowness with which the tank filled.

Halfway between the gas station and my goal, disaster. A tire blew out.

It was a bad puncture, possibly made by a piece of ragged metal from my day in that rubbish-filled barn.

I changed the tire, rather than running the rest of the way. I might need the T-Bird to escape.

I got to the rendezvous, a small house in the suburbs, with a minute to spare. The race across country, the fear, the happiness I’d bring to Lily, the rush of triumph—my emotions were so heightened they bordered on the erotic.

Then I noticed the door hanging open, not even latched, let alone locked.

I sniffed tentatively and dread replaced my fleeting sense of victory.

I was too late. If I was a minute early, the gangsters had been thirty minutes early. They’d gotten bored, perhaps, or didn’t believe Lily would come.

Maybe, now that he had fifty more years of service from her, Morgan had finally decided to remove this distraction from Lily’s life.

The headless corpses of Rose and her father were in the living room. I reached out to rearrange the soaking, bloodied dress of the girl, place her head closer to the top of her neck, for the sake of decency.

I left, following the trail of the killers. I had little time, with two pressing demands on me: the coming day and my meeting with Eric. But if I’d failed to save Lily’s family, I could still act on her behalf.

“Hey, you! Hey, stop!”

I’m almost to the guy with the clipboard when I hear the voice behind me. It’s the type of voice usually followed by chambered rounds or drawn stakes.

I rush forward, waving. “Quinn! So, so sorry I’m late!”

He recognizes me and dismisses the guard. He’s frowning in a way that still means mine is a slim chance.

“You have to help me.”

“Oh, yeah?” The bald weretiger gives me a glance meant to wither. “Listen, Pam, why aren’t you inside? Through the front door, with the other vampires?”

“There’s a trap, for Eric. I don’t trust a note, and he’ll need my help to escape from Morgan—who owes Eric money. I can’t go in through the front because they’ll recognize me.”

Quinn shakes his head. “I have a reputation to maintain, professional discretion. And I don’t like your boss.” He makes a face at my blood-soaked outfit under the raincoat. “I don’t like you.”

I go straight for his soft spot. “If I don’t get out, and Eric with me, the first one Morgan will go after is Sookie Stackhouse. You know how useful she is to vampires.”

He growls. I must admit his warning makes me go all gooey inside, which helps focus my nerves. I have no idea what I’ll do when I get in. Eric might sense I am in trouble, but he won’t know that the danger comes from Morgan.

“Morgan’s a sadist; there’s no way you’d want him near Sookie.” Then I apply the coup de grâce. “You don’t want these fuckers to get one over on you, either. Using your event as cover.”

“No one screws around with my business.” He looks me up and down. “And no one, but no one, messes with Sookie if I can help it. Okay. But you can’t just go onstage like that. And they all have props; you need one, too. It’s a parade of costumed blood donors; Missy must have seen a movie about the elaborate displays at court banquets. A show of grotesques before dinner—it’s not as shocking as Missy thinks, but it’s a way to get you in.”

“Well?” I can barely keep from tapping my foot. “We don’t have time to waste.”

“All I have left is a chimp and he’s not feeling well.” A smirk crosses that pretty face. “I hate to think what he’d do if he smelled vamp up close, in his state.”

“A chimp isn’t enough,” I say, biting my lip. “I need to bring the house down, literally. We need more impact, I need all eyes on me until the last moment. And enough cover for me and Eric to get away.” Inspiration strikes and I look up at Quinn. “I need a tiger.”

“No way.”

“Not even for Sookie?”

He pauses. I hold my breath, metaphorically speaking.

Quinn finally sighs. “Fuck it. Okay.”

I’m starting to like this idea; I’ve always had a certain flair for entertaining. “Do you have a leash?”

His shaved head flushes dark and he says through gritted teeth, “I’m not going to let anyone put a leash on me!”

I shrug. “Fine, but you’re going to have to do something spectacular when I get out there. You do have a reputation to live up to.” Even though I think what he is doing is tacky, a higher-end version of serving sushi on a naked woman. Honestly. If I’m going to diddle my food, I want to do it in private.

He nods.

It isn’t fair; he’s only a man, after all. There are only so many routes you need to try: offer to protect what he desires or appeal to his ego.

Quinn starts stripping. When he gets down to his boxers, I pause to enjoy the rest of the show.

I’ll give this to Sookie; the little sun-sucker and I have our differences, but I admire her taste in man-flesh.

I’m enjoying the view of Quinn naked when he says, “And now you. You can’t go out there looking like that.”

I frown and look down. The weretiger had a point. The raincoat is filthy, my twinset is torn, and I am blood-soaked down to my capris. I didn’t have time to change after checking the security, so at least my lovely dress was spared. But then I see the full extent of the ruin and curse: Fucking Morgan owes me a new pair of driving mocs! That’s it: I’m officially going to kill him myself.

“Fine, give me anything. Just make it quick.”

“The only thing that will fit you is . . .” A sly look crosses his face.

He pulls the dress off the rack and hands me a bag of accessories to match. The bag is marked Wonderland/Alice.

“Oh, hells to the no.” The bane of my life Before . . . there was no way I’d sully my life After with that.

“Come on. I’ve seen the Morticia drag you wear at Fangtasia. You’re not bothered by that.”

“Strictly a marketing device. Eric’s orders. This—” I shake my head.

“It’s either that”—he nods at the hateful costume—“or—”

“I’ll go naked.”

“You said you need to make a big impression. This is bigger than naked.”

I snatch the garments from him, snarling. “Fuck you, tiger.”

He grins at me. “Fuck you, vampire.”

I saw Lily only twice after my catastrophic failure. The first was when I told her what had happened. She went as close to catatonic as I’d ever seen in a vampire. The grief came off her in waves, but I watched her go carefully about her duties as usual, managing the motel she ran for Morgan, checking the security, giving orders to his day man. I explained what happened, how I was late and the enforcers early. I didn’t mention my suspicions about Morgan.

“But they paid, I assure you,” I said, putting a hand on hers. “I followed them home. I slaughtered their children while their wives watched, letting the women know their men were responsible. Then I killed them all, too. The one with no family, I followed to the construction site they used as a cover and knocked him unconscious. I nailed him to the studs of a new wall. When he woke up, I told him he had fifteen minutes. If he could pull his hands and feet and ears from the nails, I’d let him go. He failed, but that was only because I’d used an epoxy underneath him first. I had only a short time before I had to meet Eric, but I made them suffer as much as I could.”

She looked up with an unreadable expression in her eyes. I had never seen anything like it in a human, vampire, were, or animal. She opened her mouth to speak, but Morgan came in.

“Visiting hours are over. Back to work, Lily.”

“You’re a real prick, you know?” I stood up, furious and foolish enough to take him on. I might not win, but he’d know he’d been in a battle.

“In fifty more years, Lily can call her time her own.”

“You have a lot to learn about your responsibilities as her master. It goes both ways, Morgan.”

“Time for you to run along now, Miss Ravenscroft. Your huffing and puffing and strutting do not impress me, and Northman wouldn’t like it if you forced me to rebuke you in a permanent fashion. Take your cheap sentiment and be gone.”

“Not cheap. Not sentiment. I gave my word.”

Lily looked up. “Go now, Pam.” She stood suddenly, almost faster than I could see, and was holding the door open. “You’re not making things better by being here.”

I sent purple hyacinths, white poppies, and crimson roses to her. In my Victorian world, it meant, “I am sorry. Be consoled in mourning.”

I hadn’t seen her again until tonight, when she betrayed me.

There is torchlight everywhere as we enter the staging area, the better to set the air of fantasy Quinn has set up. Our hostess, Missy Van Pelt, was making a dramatic point about how hard she was, because fire is one of our few vulnerabilities. My eyes adjust quickly and I can see the layout: The small backstage area leads to an arena where the other meals are displayed. The rest were already out there. Just ahead of me I saw identical twins with an orangutan, all in matching harlequin; a pixieish fairy—not one of those big, evil fuckers, but fluttery, like Tinkerbell—with a poodle on a leash, and in its mouth was another leash, holding a submissive in full bondage gear, complete with a full mask and ball gag.

I admire a skillful tableau vivant and don’t mind ostentation. I pride myself on setting a nice table. Anyone can serve blood in the skull of an enemy; it’s been done to death. Yawn. Much more attractive to have the top of the skull carved into a proper cup, and then add a nice stem.

All this is pretty enough, but lacks a certain je ne sais quoi, and I tell the tiger so. I begin to describe the ball I attended in—

He responds with a growl only I can hear. I can feel it as well, and it is a memorable moment. I admire animal pelts—one could hardly live for decades with Eric and not develop a taste for furs, a little touch of the barbaric. But I have never ridden a tiger in what could only be described as a too-short skirt and petticoat, a garter belt, and not much more in the way of underthings. Those big back muscles between my thighs, the pacing gait, is inspiring. The rumble of his protest adds an unexpected extra vibration. It’s been years since I’ve been surprised by anything so carnal.

“Ooh, you great, nasty pussy. Do that again!” I whisper, wriggling around. “Growl again!”

Any life is too short, I say. Take your pleasures while you can.

Quinn turns and snaps at me, which inspires another frisson. The look in his eyes is sobering, and I get the impression that if he could, he’d say, I will dump your skinny blond ass right now if you don’t shut up.

“My apologies, Quinn.” I lean down and whisper to him. “We’re here for work, and you’re doing me a favor. It’s just that going into battle makes me a little—” I dig my fingers into the soft fur behind the tufted ears on his massive head and growl back at him.

Another snap of those giant teeth, and I collect my capricious thoughts. “Right. It’s showtime.”

We are preceded by a half dozen doxies in eighteenth-century dress; there are gory bandages across their white faces, as if they’ve been blinded. They carry matching white Persian cats. And suddenly I am the main event. Main course. Vampires like shiny and tawdry, and we get bored quickly; hence the display. The only thing left on Quinn’s rack that would fit me was a short pink dress and a blue pinafore, meant for a living “doll” who hadn’t shown up. I’d been told over and over, in three different centuries, that I resemble the Tenniel drawings of Lewis Carroll’s Alice. Through the looking glass, indeed—an hour ago, I was bashing out the brains of two flunkies. Now my hair, pulled back with a headband, is brushed to a gleaming gold that cascades down my shoulders. The abbreviated petticoat flares prettily out at my knees, giving tantalizing glimpses of striped stockings and boots. And as I ride in on the back of the tiger, I have to admit, it’s a nicely aesthetic moment. I would have chosen to have it rendered by Burne-Jones, or perhaps Maxfield Parrish, but—

But they are dead and I have killing to do.

“Go quickly and smoothly, please, Quinn. Two circuits of the arena, and on the second, I’ll strike.”

Quinn chuffs quietly, and I sense his big golden eyes picking out Missy and her progeny; he’ll want to know what they knew about using his event as an ambush.

I stand on the tiger’s back, finding my balance easily enough. A slight “ooh” from the crowd tells me I am making the picture I wanted. I keep my face pretty and blank, all the while projecting my worry and excitement to Eric.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him carefully set down his blood and lean back as if enjoying the spectacle.

Good. He understands something isn’t right and will watch for a cue.

As we pass the halfway mark in our circuits, I throw my head and arms back, the picture of rapturous abandon. The audience tenses, waiting for what I’ll bring next.

Quinn picks up the pace, but I have the trick of it now. As we pass the last torch, I grab it. Before anyone has the chance to gasp, I spring from the tiger’s back, screaming.

“Eric! Beware Morgan!”

I’m quite certain that the poor human Happy Meals are terribly confused. It must be a bit of a blur to everyone but us vampires.

It’s a shame they should miss any of it. I am wonderful.

As I swing the torch at Morgan, who is outraged to see me free, Lily is instantly there.

Lily is what I most fear. Most crave.

Time stops while I drink her in.

She is tricked out in black leather slashed with scarlet. Her dark hair is streaked with cobalt blue, razor-cut, asymmetrical. She’s a blur of midnight colors and I approve.

I don’t much approve of the fucking katana she’s flashing, though. I’m sure it’s an ancient masterpiece and probably was given a name—Lily still likes nice things—and that some believe it would be a privilege to die by its blade.

Only one of us can walk away alive. She won’t break her word to Morgan and I must protect Eric. As much as I don’t want to kill Lily, I don’t want to die, either. A good, honorable death someday, defending Eric, perhaps, but right now I’m not done living. Not by a long shot.

I’m more than spoiling for a fight now and thankful that I might save Eric. There’s a growing sadness that I will have to kill my darling to do it.

The choice is made. No time for regret. If I must kill Lily, I shall make it a masterpiece.

Time starts up again.

I can’t change my trajectory, but I can change my target. I adjust my swing so that I catch Lily in the gut with the torch.

The leather keeps her from burning but it doesn’t protect her from the blow, which is so great it tears the torch from my hands. She screams and sprawls on the floor of the arena; her sword sings as it flies from her grasp. She leaps back up at me, hissing, her face contorted.

I dive into a roll, snatch up the katana. She grabs my shoulders. Even as I swing around to slam my elbow into her face, I hear her whisper, “Pam, my darling.”

I know how fierce Lily is, how loyal and passionate. I don’t expect tenderness, so I won’t fall for it. She punches me, hard, in the neck. I stagger back, but her face is a mask of blood.

It would take only one swing—

My eyes might be blurred with bloody tears, but my hearing is as acute as ever. She shrieks, and it carries over the mayhem and confusion in the audience. “You can try, Pam Ravenscroft, but I’ll kill you as quickly as I snuffed out that little bitch in Scotland!”

The words race through my brain. The girl in Scotland died slowly, watching helplessly while we fucked in the snow. Lily is giving me a signal.

One of the reasons I am so fond of Sookie Stackhouse is that despite her ridiculous refusal to let Eric turn her, she makes the most of her opportunities. It’s a quality we share, and it’s what attracted me to Lily close to a century ago.

Go.

I step forward, and Lily does, too. It feels as if we are both moving in slow motion. While she would never break her word to Morgan, Lily might well engineer a situation where someone else must kill him. And while it might make sense for Morgan to bring his best troops with him, only Lily could have arranged such runts to guard me and given me a too-small dose of silver. If Morgan succeeds, Lily will get more power as his fortunes improve; if he fails, she’ll be free of him, one way or another.

I have to decide how much I can trust my instincts. Trust her love.

I bring the sword down. It bites deep into her shoulder. I hear it cleave through muscle and bone.

It’s a magnificent blade; the balance is perfection. I don’t take her head, but it looks as if I’m fighting for my life. Even if I’m wrong about her, Lily won’t be able to follow me.

She collapses. When I see the faint smile on her face and her hand twitch, I know for sure. I follow the direction she indicates, out through the confusion; the animals are yowling and scattering, the vampires fighting, and the orangutan is shitting all over the place as it bites the guy in the gimp suit. I need to get out front, because Eric and Morgan have disappeared and that’s where they’ll be heading.

I find something unexpected at the top of the stairs off the arena. Scarcely believing that I correctly interpreted Lily’s plans, I pull the tarp from it. Something small and light falls as I do.

Underneath the tarp is a gleaming red motorcycle.

I bend down to retrieve what has fallen. A sprig of bluebell tied up with a stem of lavender. Gratitude and faith, in the language of flowers.

This is a gift, a fast exit for me and Eric. This is Lily’s good-bye.

I tuck the flowers into my pinafore and start the bike. It thunders to life, as beautiful and deadly as Lily herself.

As I reach the front of the venue, the crotch rocket swerves dangerously. I fight to keep from ditching, feeling my fangs poking out. It’s almost as exciting as a tiger between my legs.

Chaos: I see Quinn, still a tiger, batting combatants apart. I see Eric tangled with Morgan.

I love to watch Eric fight; you can see his Viking heritage in his berserker glee. Eric is my everything: sun, moon, and stars.

Lily is the perfect reflection of my joy in being a vampire.

But I’m the one who should kill Morgan.

Eric lands a crushing blow—he’s using a stanchion to beat the shit out of Morgan—and draws back for another.

“He’s mine!” I shout. Eric cocks his head at my costume and my demand, then nods graciously. He steps back and pulls out his phone.

I stand and raise Lily’s sword.

I swing, screaming her name.

I let the blade have its way now. When it strikes, Morgan’s battered and bloodied head comes off cleanly, suspended in the air a fraction of a second before it goes to goo.

I hear a click, somewhere beyond the roar of the engine, the screaming.

Eric has taken a picture of me as I kill Morgan. A blood-streaked, katana-wielding Alice wreaking vengeance astride a Ducati.

I adore Eric. He has as much an eye for a moment as I do. As much a taste for retribution, too.

But my inattention means I lose control over the motorcycle. I vault away, before it crashes into a wall and bursts into flame. You have to admire such a grand finale to the party.

I tumble and roll. I’m careful to protect the katana, because when the dust settles, and Morgan’s treachery is revealed, Lily will be gone, fleeing the memory of her ill use by Morgan. But someday she might seek me out, and if she does, she will certainly want the sword back.

Until she claims it, however, her katana—like her heart—belongs to me.