He saw the clearing well in advance of entering it, but the first stumps were so unexpected, he almost tripped and fell on his face for the first time in a century. "What the hell—?" he muttered to the wilderness at large, staring in amazement. Someone apparently harbored a deep-seated antipathy toward foliage — for more than half a mile ahead, every tree was gone. "That must be a damned big beaver...." The fire smell was stronger here, and even in the near-pitch darkness he could see a thick column of gray smoke rising from the other side of the blank space....

Then he smelled the blood, a scent that called him faster through the stumps, almost running toward the source of the rhythm that pounded in his ears like a war drum, dancing through the frozen marrow of his bones. This had become his favorite way to hunt these endless woods — running through the dark, scooping up his prey like a hawk with no words passed, no pause for breath or prayer. Sometimes he even took them into the sky in a hawk-like swoop, dropping their empty bodies back into the black woods as he flew, never looking into their faces. Sometimes he stayed on the earth, praying over the dead in the native fashion, thanking them for the lives they gave as if they'd had a choice. It had begun as a joke, a mockery of his food, the solemn warriors who prided themselves as running as swift and as silent as the deer they hunted. But sometime after his return he had begun to take it seriously, to crave the wild ceremony of the hunt almost as much its crimson fruit.

The heartbeat was coming from the center of the burning stench, and the smell of rot stung the vampire eyes that were impervious to smoke. He stopped at the glowing embers that represented all that was left of what had obviously been a fair-sized cabin, English or Francais. "That explains the stumps," he muttered to himself, turning away in disgust. The Europeans encroached further into the wood every year, but he had never encountered settlers so far inland before — soon the north would be as unbearable as the west, and then where would he run?

Still, whoever had lived here wouldn't be writing home for reinforcements any time soon — the war party had made certain of that. No sign of bodies in the wreck itself, but that smell ... maybe they ate the settlers, he thought, falling gracefully to a crouch as he moved around the edge of the fire toward the source of the repulsive rot and the ever-beckoning blood. The Huron had been known to turn cannibal for a good cause, and so much the better for him. God could hardly fault him for feeding himself on the single heart they'd left behind to guard their handiwork.

But the heart wasn't Huron, and it wasn't the heart of a warrior. Another fire was burning itself out just at the edge of the trees behind the cabin, and strung over it was a gruesome bit of art Vachon didn't need to see any more closely to recognize — what the red men could think of to do to the corpses of their enemies never ceased to amaze him, vampire or not. And crouched on the ground nearby was a woman. A living, breathing, sobbing woman with hair the same color as the fire she wept by. "Son of a bitch, little one," he whispered, moving closer so silently she would have no clue he was there. "How did they manage to miss you?"

The woman was praying in English, snatches of the Our Father and bits of rubbish he didn't recognize, the guttural singsong the more cultured of the mad dog sailors he had known resorted to in times of intense strife. She seemed to be trying to tear the sod up with her fingers as she prayed, her back turned resolutely toward the horror that must have made her stomach roll with its stench. Just take her, Vachon scolded himself. What do you care if she's praying? She's crazy, run mad with shock — to end her misery would be naught but a blessing at this point. He lunged toward her without a sound, the wolf springing out of the darkness—

But then she looked up. Just as he was reaching for her, to tear her up from the ground and into his killing embrace, she turned and looked back into his face. "Oh dear God in heaven," she cried, falling back on her ass into the shallow ditch she had managed to claw out of the earth. "Who— where did you come from?"

The hair, he thought with an inward groan. She's knows I'm not Huron because of the hair. Ignore her, stop looking at her eyes—

"Parlez-vous anglais?" she inquired politely, brushing the hair back from her face as if she weren't covered in mud and mad with grief in the middle of an unforgiving wilderness.

"Oui, madame," he heard himself answer as he felt himself smile. "I speak English."

"Oh thank God," she answered, her face collapsing into brutal sorrow again. "Please, sir, you must help me...." She glanced over toward the corpse hanging over the fire and went as pale as Vachon himself. "I must ... I can't seem to dig very well...."

Give it up, Vachon, his wiser mind grumbled in resignation as he dropped to his knees at her side. "Hush, little one," he soothed, taking her into his arms. "You needn't dig any more — let me take you away from here—"

"No!" she shrieked, pushing against him with surprising strength. "I cannot — I can't leave him." She tore out of his embrace and lunged for the earth again. "I have to put him in the ground before they come back," she explained, cool English reason edged in hysterical weeping. "If I don't, they'll do more things to him ... can you imagine what they'll think to do next?"

The vampire glanced up at the mutilated corpse and shuddered. They had apparently done quite a bit already. "All right, little one, all right," he said, taking her gently by the wrists and silently cursing himself for a fool. "We will bury him first, I promise."

Digging himself into the ground with his hands every morning took approximately fifteen seconds. Digging an acceptable grave with a shovel for this smelly dead mortal he didn't know from Adam took him more than an hour. The woman had wandered away as soon as he began, turning her back on the proceedings and walking off into the moonlit clearing like a slightly unbalanced wood sprite. He considered calling her back when the hole was complete but decided he had seen enough hysterics for one night. He cut the poor bastard down with a knife she had left on the ground and dropped what was left of him into the ground as gently as possible, resolutely ignoring the roiling of his stomach at the smell and the far more insistent pangs of blood hunger that were making chivalry seem a sublimely misguided concept.

"Did you cover him well?" she asked as he joined her in the clearing, her voice stronger, calmer now, if still somewhat shaky.

"Not even the bears will get at him," he promised, staring at the tendrils of flame-red hair brushing the back of her slender neck. "Was he your husband?"

"Yes," she answered, her sigh catching up in a sob. "Forgive me, sir, I—"

"You don't have to talk about it," he interrupted, touching her shoulder, the heat of her burning through the thin material of her dress. She turned to him with a look of such misery his heart ached for her even as he hungered for her blood, and when she threw herself into his embrace he simply held her close and let her cry ... let her live another hour, Vachon.... You've wasted this much time on her already; you may as well know what you kill.... He closed his eyes, learning her by feel rather than by sight as his hand brushed over her tangled hair. "It's all right, little one," he soothed gently.

"Elizabeth," she corrected, extricating herself from his arms and offering her dirty but delicate hand with its broken nails and bloody scratches. "Elizabeth Edwards, born in Sussex, late of the American frontier."

He had a dear compadre in blood who said an English girl was harder to land than a mermaid, and he was beginning to see why. "Vachon," he said, taking it — the name would pass for French, and he supposed he looked as much like a beaver trapper as he did anything else. Besides, English or not, she would hardly live to repeat it to the masses. "Javier Vachon."

"Delighted," she said with an ironic laugh as she made a quick curtsey. "I simply can't tell you how much...." She turned and looked back at the remains of their cabin. "I was beginning to think ... I was sure, actually...." She turned her eyes back on him. "I intended to bury Robert, then use that knife on myself—" She laughed nervously. "I'm not even sure how exactly — is it possible to slit one's own throat?"

"Yes," Vachon answered conversationally. "But I wouldn't recommend it."

"Yes, well, I knew they would be coming back," she explained, her calm unraveling before his eyes, a fascinating process. He had seen another woman in such a state not so very long ago in vampire terms, but he had been too personally involved to really make a study of her. "They left things behind — mirrors and food—" She looked up at him, pleading with her eyes. "They will come back, won't they? We have to leave — I don't want to leave him, but we have to, or they'll kill us—"

"No Huron is going to kill either of us," he promised. He considered touching her again, playing the angel of comfort, but suddenly he didn't think his hunger would allow it. He had to feed, and soon, or the natives were going to be the very least of pretty Elizabeth's worries. So just take her, the voice of reason urged impatiently.

She was looking at him still, watching his face with minute attention. "You seem so certain, Vachon," she said. "How can you be so certain?"

He smiled at her — this one was no resister. "I just know, little love," he promised, his voice changing subtly, locking out the chatter of the night creatures and the whisper of the wind — all she would hear now was him. "You're safe from them now."

"Safe," she repeated, her eyes never leaving his face as he lifted her hand to his lips, torturing himself with the taste of blood from the scratches and cuts in her skin. How could a girl so prim have blood so luscious...?

"I have to go away for a while," he said, letting her hand fall but holding her attention, her mind.

"No," she protested weakly — if she hadn't been hypnotized, she would have sobbed the word. "You mustn't—"

"Hush," he soothed, quieting her with a single touch to her cheek. "Do you have a hiding place? Where did you hide before?"

The perfect trust in her eyes was heartbreaking and maddening at once. "The root cellar," she answered. "The entrance is hidden. Robert—" At the mention of the dead man's name, her face clouded, the trance breaking—

"Good," Vachon interrupted her, capturing her again. He could almost see the image in her mind, the man he had buried whole and handsome, the loving god of this little one's idolatry. Suddenly he had a powerful taste for Huron.... "Go back in the cellar and wait for me," he continued, his vampire's voice almost tender. "I'll be back before the sun rises."

The simple thing would be to take this rogue out first, truly feed on him, then strangle the others in their beds and leave their bodies for the wolves. But something in the night air or perhaps his own frozen heart demanded a larger gesture.

He caught the waking one by the throat with a roar and flung him over the fire at this brothers. "Wake up, my hunters, the dogs of my hearth!" he shouted at them in their own tongue as he kicked the crackling embers at their shocked and babbling faces. "Your master has come to reward you!"

"Who are you?" one of the sleepers demanded.

"A Francais dog who wants very much to die," the thief hypothesized, reaching for his rifle and firing a shot at the vampire.

The ball sank into his chest, a burning goad to action that his body would soon consume. "I cannot die, little puppy," Vachon answered, snatching the thief up from the ground as his eyes went red with hunger. "Don't you know that you cannot kill Death?" Tearing the thick neck open with his teeth, he drank deeply of the spurting fountain, his ears drinking in the screams of his victim's companions.

"Spare us, spirit," one of these begged as Vachon let the empty corpse drop onto the scattered fire. "Tell us your bidding, your name—"

"You know my name," the vampire answered, moving toward him slowly, an evil smile twisting his bloodied lips. "And you have long done my bidding — you have fought my wars with a joy to warm my devil's frozen heart." He lifted the warrior by his chin, his gaze burning terror into the flat, black eyes. "And now I would have you return to my fires."

The rest was a blur — the other two were moved to fight back as he took the second one, but their efforts proved more exhilarating to than effective against the evil spirit who possessed them. The last one died still gripping the battle hatchet he had buried in his murderer's breast.

Removing the weapon with a muffled Spanish curse, Vachon flung it away and surveyed the damage. The wolves and other carrion-eaters would make short work of the bodies, and their supplies hardly seemed worth the effort of examination. Still, some of what they had might belong to Elizabeth....

The woman waiting for Death in her cellar? What need would she have for her knickknacks? Dropping the sack with another curse, he swooped up into the darkness....

She sighed a little, a child sensing the angel at her bedside, but she didn't wake. Crouching beside her, he allowed himself the luxury of touching her hair, letting the tendrils fall between his fingers. "Sleep well, little one," he whispered, stretching out on the earth at her feet.

He awoke long after dawn to the sound of screaming sobs. "Robert!" she was crying, stumbling in the darkness that to him was brighter than daylight. "Let me come ... let me help you, please...."

He caught her against him in a moment, falling to his knees on the floor with her struggling body clasped to his breast. "Hush now, Elizabeth, hush," he soothed, twisting his accent to match her own for reasons his brain hadn't awakened enough to make clear to him. "It's all right, my dearest girl...."

"My God!" she wailed, throwing her arms around him and clinging with all her might. "Thank you ... thank you, my dear sweet Jesus...."

"That's it," Vachon whispered against her ear, reaching into her mind for the words, the right way to hold her, the memory of kisses.... "Don't cry, dearest, don't cry...." He brushed his lips against her tear-wet cheek, his demon's hunger held at bay by pity and something deeper, some tenuous thread of connection woven from her breaking heart to his dead one by her thwarted love and fury. "All will be well, I swear it...."

"My own," she murmured, nuzzling her face into the hollow of his shoulder as he settled back against the wall. "My husband...."

"Yes," he lied in a dead man's voice as he held her possessively close. And her beating heart lied to him in return, echoing a heart long lost, a heart he himself had destroyed. "Sleep now, angel ... we're safe...."

"Safe," she echoed drowsily, her heartbeat slowing but strong as she faded in his arms, dead weight with a dreaming, trembling soul. Kissing her slackening lips just once, gentle but firm, the kiss of a loving husband, he sank into a dream of his own.

No, he told himself firmly, mentally crushing the demon under his foot. Better to take down a deer or even a rat than to destroy this pretty dream. Turning her face up to his, he kissed her awake, knowing she would be afraid, knowing the truth would destroy her if he didn't capture her dream in his eyes.

"It's all right," he purred in his own vampire's voice as her lids fluttered open — he had never tried to hypnotize a waking girl before, but he saw no reason why he couldn't, particularly when both of their needs were so dire. "Trust me, Elizabeth ... stay in my arms...."

"Yes," she said softly, her eyes limpid as she smiled. "An angel to keep me safe...."

Climbing out of the cellar with her arms draped around his neck was a fair exercise in creative physics, but once they were free of the ground, taking to the air with her was no hardship. He carried her cradled against him, worried the cold would break her trance, but she hardly seemed to notice, hiding her face against his throat, sheltering beneath the dark brown curtain of his hair. When his feet touched the ground again, she was asleep....

The English doctor at the fort was suspicious of this strange apparent Frenchman who claimed to have walked out of the woods with a sleeping English housewife in his arms, but his wife was more forgiving. She led him to a bed without a word, so silent Elizabeth never woke, even when he lay her on the quilt and let her go.

"She will ask for you, monsieur," the doctor's wife cautioned him as he turned to walk away. "What shall I say to her? Where shall I say you have gone?"

"It isn't me she'll ask for," he said curtly. "As for the other — tell her he'll wait for her in heaven."