Finally — slowly — the man straightened and the detective quickly assessed him: dressed in tan slacks and a dark polo-shirt, he looked like neither the average petty thief nor a patron of the nearby nightclub, the Raven. His shoulders were broad, giving him an air of both strength and agility; he outweighed her by a good twenty pounds though he was a few inches shorter; and he was definitely not pleased by the interruption. When he finally turned to face her, Tracy saw piercing blue eyes peering out from beneath a thick shock of bangs; they were the eyes of someone who had not the slightest respect for the law, her badge, or anything she might have to say on any related subject. He continued to glare at the young woman — holding her eyes with his gaze — as he slowly took a step toward her.

Tracy quickly got the feeling that her gun was not going to be of any use in this situation, though, out of habit — and perhaps a bit out of fear and maybe even arrogance — she refused to holster it. "Freeze," the detective demanded, her voice barely a whisper now, despite her efforts to the contrary. Still he stared at her, still he advanced. The young woman — unable to move, unable to react — resembled a deer caught in a pair of car headlights; then, suddenly, Tracy felt exactly like one as the man slammed into her at a blinding speed.

Her mind could not process the actions fast enough as he grabbed her, rushed her into the dark alley, and threw her against the wall of a building. The one thing Tracy's mind did seem able to comprehend, and thus clung to, was the moment of searing pain drawn out into an eternity as he tore into her neck with his fangs. Despite her need to stay alive, Tracy longed for unconsciousness — anything to still the torture.

Suddenly she was on the ground — the concentrated, shooting pain replaced by a burning which spread like fire over her neck and shoulder — then there was someone beside her, pressing something to her neck. Tracy was aware of a commotion behind them, and she was able to make out a few angry words as they echoed through the dark alley: "Not here!" "Mine!"

The young detective lost consciousness certain that she had heard Vachon's voice.

As she tried to remember what had happened, Tracy ran her hand down her cheek to the area which seemed to be the most painful: the left side of her neck. The detective found a large bandage taped there, the center of it was slightly damp, and she pulled her fingertips away to smell them; the distinctive odor of blood — her blood — caused Tracy's stomach to churn unpleasantly.

It was then that she heard a soft voice: "You're okay, Trace. Just lie still." The familiar tones could have belonged to no one but Javier Vachon. Tracy relaxed slightly as she felt him sit on the edge of the bed next to her. He brushed strands of blonde hair off her face before pressing a cool cloth to her forehead. As he stroked Tracy's bare shoulder with the back of his hand, Vachon muttered words in a manner which seemed to ease her body as well as her mind: Mi angela de oro.... She had looked it up once, though she could not remember the translation just now.

Once the pain had subsided to a manageable level, she spared the energy to speak: "What happened to me?"

"You're going to be fine," Vachon replied, not answering the question, as was his habit.

"Vachon! Tell me," she said as firmly as she could without moving or even tensing.

The vampire's sigh was long and deep. And Tracy waited. Finally he relented, "You were attacked" — Vachon hesitated, clearly unsure if he should be telling her anything she could not remember on her own — "in the alley near the Raven."

This was enough to nudge Tracy's memory. "Yeah, I was on my way to work. I stopped by to see you and.... This guy was rifling through the saddlebags on your bike. I tried to stop him and he.... He was so fast ... so strong.... I couldn't...." Though she had yet to open her eyes again, Tracy closed them even tighter as she tried to further recall the blurry events. "He ... he bit me! A ... vampire...?" The last was uttered barely above a whisper.

Tracy brought her hand up and closed it over Vachon's, stopping him from moving the damp cloth over her forehead. She pulled his hand and the rag away, then slowly opened her eyes to look at him. Vachon's reply to her question was a simple nod, though the pain and regret were clear on his face.

The young woman closed her eyes again as the memory of her attacker tearing at her throat returned. "It hurt so bad." Raw emotion graveled her voice as tears escaped, unheeded, from the corners of her eyes.

The dark man hushed her with more soft, Spanish words, stroking her cheek and squeezing her hand reassuringly. Had she been able to sit up, Tracy felt sure that Vachon would have wrapped her in a gentle, protective embrace. And she did so wish that she had the energy to sit up.

The pair remained silent for a long while. Vachon continued to caress her bare shoulder and upper arm, while Tracy tried to focus on her breathing to keep the pain at bay. It was not long before exhaustion overcame the mortal and she slipped back into sleep, though she found little rest there.

Tracy sat up from her nightmare trying to scream, but unable to, as she gasped for breath. Still frightened, and disoriented by the engulfing darkness, she bolted from the bed; frantic, and instinctively knowing she was not in her own room, she blindly searched for a door. An iron candelabra crashing to the floor startled the young woman, causing her level of panic to increase. Tracy's blonde hair lashed at her face as she spun about, madly trying to escape. Finally she met with a wall and followed it until she came to what felt like a door. She turned the knob and pulled, but it did not yield. Desperately, Tracy continued to yank on the handle, tears streaming down her face. A thought managed to break through the confusion in her mind, and she began to feel the door for a lock. A few inches above the knob was a dead-bolt, which she immediately threw back. The young woman then tore the door open and ran.

She ran out of what she would later recall as Vachon's church, down the front steps, through the shadows created by the late-autumn moonlight behind the trees, and into the street. For the second time in her life, Tracy Vetter resembled a lanky, woodland deer as two bright lights bore down upon her.

The next thing she remembered was lying on top of a car hood. And a voice — another familiar voice — filled with questions and anxiety. "Tracy? Are you all right? Don't move. Just don't move!"

She tried to obey, but the icy metal of the car was agonizing against her bare back. Tracy felt cold hands running over her limbs, checking for unseen damage. Then she was covered with a heavy coat, though her back remained in contact with the frigid metal. Unbearably cold, the young woman struggled to sit up, but firm hands on her shoulders prevented the movement.

"Tracy, you have to remain still," Nick Knight insisted. "You can't...." Tracy felt her partner's fingers on her neck, trying to examine the bandage and what it covered. "What the...?"

When Nick pushed her head aside for a better view, memories of the attack — and the dream — engulfed the young woman. Reflexively, Tracy sat up, thrashing her hands in front of her to ward everything — real and imaginary — away. "No!" she wailed as she struggled to slide off the hood.

Within a heartbeat, she found herself in Nick's protective arms. He held her tightly, despite her resistance. "Let me go," she pleaded as tears again began to course down her cheeks. "Please." Instead Nick held her closer, until she finally gave up and simply wept on his shoulder. Only then did he move to adjust his almost-forgotten coat about her shivering frame.

Sometime later, once the tears had ceased, the older detective helped his partner into his Cadillac. For many blocks they rode in utter silence, save for a few stray sniffles emanating from the young woman, until Nick finally spoke: "What happened to you, Tracy? When you didn't show up for our shift tonight...."

Her mind screamed; what could she tell him? How could she explain freaking out because of a dream, a nightmare caused by someone who had tried to rip her throat out and drain her dry?

Stopping at a red light, the older detective turned to Tracy; his voice quiet and gentle. "I'm not going to tell you that I understand how you're feeling right now, and it's all right if you don't feel comfortable talking to me about this...."

Tears welled up in Tracy's eyes, but she willed them not to spill over onto her cheeks again. Nick was her partner; she had trusted him with so many things every day since her transfer to the 96th Precinct. She wanted to be able to trust him with this, to confide in him, but she could not — it was too dangerous. Not to mention the fact he would think her out of her mind, especially under the circumstances.

Moments later, Nick pulled the Cadillac up in front of the Coroner's Building; Tracy had assumed he was taking her home. She wanted to go home! She stared at her partner, not comprehending his reasons for this strange stop. It seemed her destiny to end the night at the Medical Examiner's office, one way or another.

"What are we doing here? I'm not dead, ya know. Honest," she quipped, but the tone was hollow.

"Tracy, you need to see a doctor." Though Nick's voice was still low, it now had an edge to it which Tracy had never heard him use with her before. "I can take you to the emergency room" — she firmly declined Nick's first option — "or we can go see Natalie. Your choice."

It was not much of a choice. And he had left out her preference — home. "Nick ... I'll be fine. Really," she tried once more, but to no avail.

"Sure you will, but I'd still like a second opinion from Nat. Humour me, okay?" Nick stepped from the car and came around to hold the door open for his partner.

Tracy did not have the energy to argue with him — knowing that he was probably right anyway as she had no idea how bad off she really was at the moment — so she relented. The young woman stood, allowing Nick to take her arm and help her inside the building, down to Dr. Lambert's lab.

The coroner had a cadaver on the table when the pair arrived — she appeared to be just finishing up an autopsy, probably her last one for the night. Being inside the morgue brought the events of the surreal night home to Tracy; the young detective was very glad that she was not the one lying on the dissection table, another unsolvable murder for her partner and the Metro Toronto Police.

Nick helped Tracy into a chair as Natalie covered the disabused corpse, then stripped off her gloves and came over. "What happened?"

"She's been ... assaulted." Nick's tone rang cold in Tracy's ears, like he was speaking of some nameless, faceless victim; the tragedy of the scene overwhelming him, forcing his detached, professional manner to the forefront. Part of her mind understood this reaction, could mimic it, almost forgetting that she was the victim this time, until Nick's touch brought her back to reality; her partner gingerly brushed her blonde hair aside and held open the collar of the coat to show Natalie the bandage on his partner's neck.

Tracy desperately did not want to be sitting in Natalie's office. She did not want to be poked and prodded and examined. And she did not want any more people to know about this, for their own safety. "Nat, I'm fine. I just need to get some sleep. Would you tell Nick he can just take me home?" she asked, trying to act as calm and rational as her police training had taught her, as she pulled Nick's warm coat closer about herself.

"Tracy, this bruising looks pretty bad. I'd like to get a look at what's under this dressing." The doctor placed a gentle hand on the younger woman's shoulder to reassure her. "It'll be okay, Trace. I promise."

Tracy tiredly nodded agreement, then caught a look exchanged between her partner and the coroner — an odd look she did not have the energy to even try to understand. As Natalie went to retrieve her medical bag, Nick kneeled down in front of his partner.

"Tracy, you're going to be fine. Just let Natalie take care of you, all right?" As Nick patted her knee, Tracy covered his hand with her own, nodded, then managed to give him, what amounted to, a pretty-decent smile under the circumstances.

Natalie returned to Tracy's side, just as Nick stood again. She handed the younger woman the top to a pair of green scrubs: "You can put this on when we're done, okay?"

It was the first mention of Tracy's state of undress — really the first time that Tracy herself realized she was without both the blazer and the shirt she had been wearing at the beginning of the evening. She could only guess that they were back at the church — probably covered in her own blood — and she wondered if Vachon would destroy them as evidence of what had happened to her. Her world had become so much more complicated since meeting Vachon, since finding out about the existence of vampires. For Tracy, police work had always been about fact and truth; now she found herself in the position of having to cover things up, to lie, to alter or even destroy evidence. Somehow she had grown up thinking that the world was black and white, only to now discover that it was really a thousand shades of gray.

"All right, Tracy. I'm going to remove the bandage. Let me know if this hurts...." The doctor gently peeled off the tape and eased the sodden gauze away from the wound. "Huh. Nick, take a look at this...." But Tracy's partner was gone. "Nick?" Natalie dropped the old bandage into the younger woman's lap and ran to the door.

Tracy heard the coroner calling after her partner out in the hallway. As she waited, the young detective felt a slow trickle of blood start to run down her neck, so she pressed the used gauze back onto the wound. As she waited, Tracy wondered why Nick had suddenly left; people around the station had told her how squeamish about blood Nick used to be, but she had never seen any evidence of it since they had been partnered, perhaps because she had always been too preoccupied trying to keep her own adverse reactions under control. And she wondered at Natalie's reaction to the wound; she wanted to take a look at the damage herself, but there were no mirrors handy in the examination room. She had expected extensive bruising, which Natalie had confirmed, and a pair of bite marks.... This last thought made Tracy immediately regret consenting to Nat's examination. She now wanted to be home more than ever, but the doctor returned before Tracy could act on her impulse.

"Sorry about that. Well, let's get you fixed up here." Natalie looked worried, though she smiled comfortingly at Tracy before removing the gauze again and wiping down the wound with an antiseptic solution. "Tracy, can you tell me what happened?" There was that dreaded question again. "Can you tell me who put this dressing on? Whoever it was did a pretty nice job."

Tracy still had no decent lie to tell, and she hated that she should have to lie at all. "I don't really remember much, Nat."

"Well, you've got two long, deep gashes here. I'd like to stitch them up. Okay?"

Gashes?

Tracy agreed, knowing that the doctor was not really giving her a choice; she was almost immediately rewarded for her compliance by several needle sticks around the already tender wound. Natalie offered her patient the opportunity to lie down, but the young woman declined; being horizontal in the morgue was something Tracy really did not want to be, not now, not for a long time.

As Natalie began to stitch the now-anesthetized wound, the detective tried to rationally piece together the earlier events of the night. The man who had attacked her was a vampire, that much she knew for certain from Vachon — though, thankfully, Natalie did not seem to think her wound resembled a bite mark. Tracy focused her thoughts on the attacker: his face was clear in her mind now, his eyes had been the blue of a summer sky and as distant as the horizon, yet they had bored into her skull, as if he had sought to control her with only his gaze. The detective had heard no words in her mind, as she had when Vachon had tried to hypnotize her so many months ago; this time, she felt only fear — terror, really — on a level nothing but her experience with the Inca even neared, and that fell well short.

Tracy pondered this line of thought for a moment. The Inca — though she later learned that he spoke English quite well — had initially spoken to her only in what she assumed was Spanish. Certainly he had threatened her, and he probably would have killed her, but Tracy had felt that his finding Vachon was the most important thing in his mind. More likely than not he would have used her only as bait, judging by the words of sacrifice he had spoken before helping to save the city from that insane bomber. Tracy could not believe that a man who had dedicated centuries to protecting those who valued life and bringing those who did not to justice would kill another who had dedicated her life to the same goals by becoming a police officer. Even Vachon had spoken, with more respect than he would ever admit, of this man's great sense of honor and commitment.

Her attacker tonight, however, seemed to have no sense of honor, no value of life or justice. He killed on impulse. A hunter who murdered without thought, without mercy. A monster of her deepest, darkest nightmares....

"Tracy? You okay?" Natalie's words broke through the downward spiral of her reverie.

She nodded. "Sorry. I'm just really tired, I guess," she feebly explained. "Are you done yet?"

"Fourteen stitches! Yeah, I'd say I'm done. I can prescribe something for the pain ... if you want," Natalie offered, though Tracy suspected the doctor would have a hard time finding her prescription notepad, since it was not a normal thing for her patients to require, so the younger woman declined. "Well, then let me drive you home so you can get some rest," Natalie offered.

The car ride back to her apartment, in the bright morning sunshine, was a sobering experience for Tracy. It was the first daylight she had seen in weeks — in far too long — and her near-fatal experience made her appreciate it like she never had before. She could not imagine what it must be like for Nick, allergic to the sun, having to minimize his exposure to such a drastic degree. Though there had been that time the previous year, some new treatment he had tried.... She had seen a picture of him and his previous partner standing in the brilliant sunshine outside the precinct. He looked so happy in the photo and the memory caused Tracy to smile.

"Trace?" Natalie's face was full of confusion as she took her eyes off the road just long enough to glanced over at the younger woman. "What are you smiling about?"

Tracy shrugged with her right shoulder — the only one she had complete feeling in. "I was just thinking what a really beautiful day it is."

Instead of heading straight to bed — completely forgetting about her promise to Natalie — Tracy swapped the scrubs the coroner had loaned her for a clean shirt, swallowed a couple of over-the-counter pain-killers, then headed out to the bus stop. She had to know if Vachon was all right — and she had to know what his involvement in her attack had been. As she rode to the church, she tried to concentrate on the events of the previous night once more. This time, she back-tracked: Vachon had been with her when she had awoken the first time. She had seen him. She had spoken to him. And it was his voice — she was certain now — which she had heard in the alley before losing consciousness.

Her thoughts were momentarily interrupted when the bus pulled to the curb just a short block from the church. As she walked the remaining yards, Tracy tried to recall the words she had heard last night — Vachon had said something in the alley, but ... what?! Upon entering the deserted building, she shook off the frustrating thoughts and concentrated on her surroundings, having been surprised one too many times within the darkness of the old church. After being outside in the bright sunlight, it took more than a few moments for Tracy's eyes to adjust to the dim interior; but once they had, the sight which greeted her as she entered the defunct chapel was thoroughly unexpected: formerly-whole pews were smashed to splintery bits, wine crates were crushed as if they had been thin-cardboard boxes, shards of green glass in pools of red liquid littered the floor. And Vachon stood with his back to the entryway, trying very hard to look like he was intent on cleaning up the mess, though the corner in which he stood showed no more signs of effort than the rest of the room.

"Vachon?" Tracy prompted when he failed to acknowledge her presence, though she knew that he had to have heard her arrival — he always had in the past. She stood in the archway and waited.

"It wasn't safe for you to leave here," he finally said, flatly.

"It doesn't look like it was safe for me to stay." But the flippant remark died on her tongue as Vachon turned to face her. He was bruised, scraped, and cut, and — save for having all of his limbs intact — he looked worse than the night of the plane crash he had survived, the night they had met.

"Ohmigawd! What happened to you?" Tracy exclaimed as she rushed over to him. He did not reply, so she pressed, "Who's responsible for this?" All her fears about her life and his now appeared to be well-founded, instead of over- reactions as she had hoped. "Was this because of me? Because I was attacked? Because you helped me?"

Vachon still did not answer; he continued to meet her eyes with a steady gaze which revealed nothing. They stood facing each other, not two feet apart, and Tracy waited. But Vachon did not move, did not speak; his features did not alter in the slightest. And she had no idea how he could remain so still for so long, nor what it might mean. Finally, she asked the only question she had not yet, "Did this happen because someone saw me leave?"

The vampire's only movement was to drop his fathomless eyes from hers.

"I'm so sorry, Vachon. If I had known ... I mean, I never would have...."

"Why did you, Trace? Why'd you leave?" The hurt was all too plain in his voice.

Now it was her turn for silence. She had no idea how to answer him without hurting him even more. She had been upset by her dream and ... frightened, at the time, partly of him. How could she tell him that, when he had tried to help her and had then been beaten because of it?

But Vachon did not wait as patiently for her answer as Tracy had for his. Anger flashed across his formerly placid features, thunder clouds suddenly blackening a beautiful spring day. "Why!" he shouted, grabbing her wrists in a crushing grip. Fear washed over Tracy's face preventing her from either breathing or moving. Then, instantly, Tracy was released and Vachon appeared at the opposite end of the room, his arms crossed over his chest as if physically holding himself back.

"Vachon ..." she began, her voice a bit shaky, but he interrupted her before she could think of anything more to say.

"Go home, Tracy Vetter. Just forget about this — about everything — and go home," he said, all but turning his back on her.

"I can't. You know that." Tracy was breathing normally again, forcing her emotions back under control. "I need to know what happened."

"You were bitten by a vampire. You survived. Count your blessings."

Tracy was taken aback by the bitterness in his tone, but she tried to ignore it as she willed herself to move calmly down the nave toward his new location. "You know who attacked me." It was not a question.

"Yeah, I'm the one who tore him off you, remember? Or maybe you don't." His snide remarks were meant to hurt her, probably as much as she had unintentionally hurt him.

Tracy put a hand to the bandage at her neck, now knowing why she had a pair of long gashes instead of two neat, little puncture wounds. "No, I mean, you KNOW him. He's, like, some kind of friend of yours or something." Tracy continued her slow progression across the room, steeling her nerves with every step, vowing not to give in to any fear the attack or the dream had left her with, nor to be intimidated by Vachon's current mood. "Right? You guys go way back." It was only a hunch, but she bet everything she had on it.

The hardness left the vampire's pale features and he dropped his eyes to the floor again. "Tracy..." he breathed.

"Vachon, tell me." Without shouting, she made the request an order, then a threat: "Or I'll go find out on my own."

A sardonic smile crossed his face. "You'll be dead before the next sunrise."

"Then tell me," she said, gambling that her death by those means was not something he wanted to occur.

"Trace...." The vampire sighed and shifted his stance as he shoved his hands into the front pockets of his pants. "His name's Bourbon. He was here for a few days. Now he's gone."

"Gone?"

Vachon nodded. "He shows up every once and awhile, but he never stays. It's been that way for almost a hundred years now." A small grin flitted across his features. "We don't see eye to eye on a lot of things anymore."

"Why — what happened?"

He shrugged in that lazy manner Tracy now found so innately Vachon, then stood silent for a long time, as if he were staring back across the decades. "Things just changed. Circumstances. Maybe I changed. Or maybe we were always just too different." Another shrug rolled over Vachon's shoulders. "The military was the perfect mortal job for him — he loved the battle ... the intensity ... the adrenaline. He didn't care what the cause, as long as he got to fight. I don't think Bourbon could ever have been called idealistic." Vachon rolled his eyes for emphasis. "As for me ... well, you know about me," he finished, with a small smile on his lips.

Tracy shook her head, knowing that with almost five-hundred years of history, she could never know all there was to know about Javier Vachon, which prompted a question she had never thought to ask before: "Why DID you become a conquistador?"

He pursed his lower lip before answering. "Something to do, I suppose." Then he smiled. "There is a blessing in Spain which begins, Que tenga un hijo y muchas hijas — May you have one son and many daughters. My parents had many daughters, but they also had many sons. If the eldest survived, which in my family he did, there was not much in the way of prospects for the younger sons. So, pretty much, it was either Pizarro or the monastery...."

Tracy grinned at the image of Vachon, with tonsured scalp, wearing a coarse, brown tunic. "Somehow I don't think you would've made a very good monk."

A small laugh escaped Vachon's lips. "Well, I don't think I would've enjoyed it nearly as much." He smiled broadly, causing Tracy to do the same. "And, I probably would have lost my mind cloistered inside four stone walls for the whole of my mortal existence. Besides, sailing off to the ends of the earth sounded pretty exciting. For me, it wasn't about conquering the natives, possessing the lands, or even about the gold. I never did care about the gold." A wistful air came over Vachon's features as he paused, deep in thought. "There was this ... huge world outside of the little villa I grew up in and I wanted to see it — to experience it. Not that I liked being a conquistador, I didn't much care — they ordered you around like everyone else of better family or better means did back then — but it got me somewhere new, which was all that mattered. Bourbon could never understand that sort of excitement."

At the mention of that name, her attacker's face flashed through Tracy's mind — the eyes, so blue, so cold, like the icy-winter waters of Lake Ontario, never revealing the deadly currents beneath until too late, until he.... "Why did he attack me?"

Vachon lifted his left shoulder in a small shrug. "He likes his women brunette and docile. I don't think you were his type."

Tracy scoffed as she narrowed her eyes at the vampire. "Still a bit of an extreme reaction, don't you think?"

"Bourbon has always been ... impulsive, a bit of a hot-head. Serves me right for hooking up with a former Musketeer."

"Musketeer? As in" — Tracy made swishing sword movements with her index finger — "D'Artagnan?" she asked incredulously. Vachon nodded, obviously amused by her reaction. "Wow! Life sure doesn't get boring around you guys."

"Try hanging out with us for a couple hundred years; I bet you'll change your mind. That's part of the problem, especially for someone like Bourbon."

"And what about you?"

Vachon shrugged non-committally. "The Inca always had a knack for showing up before things got too routine."

"And now that he's gone?"

"Well, things haven't gotten dull — not yet — not with you around."

Unsure if that was an off-handed compliment or an actual dig, the young woman merely stared at the dark vampire. Vachon continued to wear the amused smile Tracy was sure had been melting hearts for more than a few centuries; she, however, did not buy into it. On the contrary, the detective had to force herself not to move away when he stepped towards her, closing the final few feet which remained between them.

"Tracy, I...." Vachon reached out and lightly ran his fingertips over the bandage on her neck. She recognized the gesture for what it was — sympathy for the pain she had suffered. She closed her hand over his and smiled weakly, breathing deeply to remain in control of her nerves.

Vachon stroked the back of Tracy's hand with his thumb. The small, slow motion calmed the young woman and made her realize that she was tense despite her best efforts. Vachon was nothing like the man who had attacked her, and Tracy allowed herself to relax slightly as she stared into the warmth of his brown eyes. In spite of her dream, Tracy now knew, somewhere deep inside herself, that Vachon would never hurt her — he never had before despite numerous opportunities, and now was no different. The dark vampire reached up with his free hand and gingerly touched the young woman's cheek, then ran his fingers gently across her chin. Vachon was not like Bourbon — not now, if he had ever been — Tracy told herself.

Vachon lost his fingers in her pale hair as he moved beside her, and Tracy fought to keep the memories of her attack at bay. He had protected her from Bourbon. When Vachon whispered low into her ear, his icy breath sent a small shiver down her side: "It doesn't have to be that way, mi sangrecita." He was nothing like Bourbon, she told herself.

Behind her now, Vachon ran his hand down the unmarred side of her throat; Tracy forced herself to relax against him as she closed her light eyes. He would never harm her; she had to believe that. "It can be sweet," Vachon breathed. She trusted him. Puede ser agradable," he continued before placing a brief kiss on the warm skin of her neck. Se debe desearlo." Tracy remained calm as Vachon's hand came around her waist; she felt safe in his arms, she reminded herself. "It should be longed for. It is all that you are, all that I am ... and more."

Caressed by both his words and his hands, Tracy sank deeper against him. She felt Vachon's breath, thrillingly cool, on her neck, and his soft lips brushing against her warm skin. The moment encircled her, embraced her, engulfed her until she cared not for tomorrow, could not recall yesterday. The moment was enough. It was more.

His lips were against her ear again — his whisper slurred by descended fangs, as he breathed, "Eres mia."

Mia — Tracy thought she knew this word. "What?" she asked, her voice barely audible. As she turned in his arms, Tracy caught Vachon blinking the golden fire out of his eyes. She stared wide-eyed at the vampire, and he instantly released her. Off-balance with his arm no longer around her waist, Tracy stepped away, tripping over the broken section of a pew and falling backwards, hard, onto the floor. Brushing the blonde hair out of her face, she looked up only to find Vachon gone.

Tracy rose to her feet again, rubbing her now-bruised hip. As it was not even noon, Tracy knew that Vachon was still somewhere inside the church. She hastily retreated down the nave into the foyer, but she stopped short of the front door.

"Mia. Mine?" Had Vachon saved her from Bourbon, or had he simply been saving her for himself? Tracy placed her hand on the large door and swung it wide. Or had they just gotten caught up in the moment again? Sunlight flooded over her as she stood in the open entryway. She felt the warmth of the rays soak through her clothes and into her skin as she leaned against the door. Then Tracy slowly sank to the floor, where she sat, on the edge of her world and his — sunlight intruding on the dark, the finite of her life staring at the horror and wonder of forever.

"It's a fine line between death and immortality." The voice came to her from somewhere within the black recesses of the church. "Just a few drops of blood, really."

"Nothing but darkness either way," the young woman replied pragmatically.

"I've seen six thousand moons, Trace." Wonder filled his rich, deep voice. "... More than I ever imagined."

"And how many sunrises?" Tracy held her hand out as if to grasp the bright rays, wishing she could give them to him, an early birthday present, or would it be a late one? "Don't you miss this?"

But no answer came to her. She dropped her hand into her lap as she leaned her head against the door, certain because of the silence that Vachon had gone again — back to some dark corner of the run-down building with its broken pews and boarded-over stained-glass windows — until something appeared just beyond the edge of the sunshine streaming through the doorway.

The detective stared into the darkness, but the glare of the light prevented her from making out any details. Finally, she leaned over to inspect what turned out to be a small pile of items: her gun and holster on top of her neatly- folded, bloodied shirt and blazer. Still on the floor, bathed in warm sunlight, Tracy reached into the shadows to retrieve her things, only to be stopped by a hand on hers — Vachon's hand — his cold, not-quite-dead hand.

She did not move for a few moments, not quite knowing what to do, what he wanted her to do; finally she softly said, "Vachon, I have to go." And, instantly, her hand was released.

She gathered her things, but did not rise. Instead, she sat up and leaned back on the door again; she just could not bring herself to leave yet. The young woman closed her eyes against the sunshine and tried to imagine Vachon sitting nearby in the darkness. A moment later, she felt a pressure on the door; she imagined that it could only be Vachon leaning against the dark side of the wood, mirroring her own position. Tracy knew it was as close to her as he could safely place himself, and she found it ironic — she was usually the one at the disadvantage, the night being his world. But the day was hers, and she recognized the responsibility of that.

She leaned around the door and found him sitting with his eyes closed, inches from a thin shaft of light which had snuck between the door and the jamb. Tracy smiled at him, though he did not see it. And she stayed.

These characters belong to Sony/TriStar, James Parriott and Barney Cohen.... You're great sports for letting me borrow them!!

Great thanks go to Amy R., Nancy W., Barbara S., Jesse V., Toni S., Maria L., Betsy V. And thanks to Mike Nesmith for helping me realize what I like to think of as an illustration more than a story.

(August 1997)