"Now-throw the torch!"
"What if it goes out?"
"It won"t go out. There"s peat packed down here. It will burn. And burn. Throw it!"
She did as she was told.
The place instantly burst into flames.
Flames so close that they nearly burned her cheeks.
He turned her about. They ran.
As they climbed the levels back to the iron gate that led out of the tomb and into the night, they could hear her screaming. Screaming, screaming, and shrieking. The sound was terrible. It was a death rattle.
They burst into the night.
Jade came to a dead standstill. Jack was there, Shanna, Renate, Matt, Danny, and the harem girl and Freddy Krueger.
The tomb was beginning to blaze behind them.
But before them ... There was a strange array of people. Pale, stalwart, silent, standing their ground. There were perhaps twenty, thirty, or more of them. They seemed to be different nationalities, ages, s.e.xes. They were dressed differently.
They were undead, Jade thought with rising panic.
But when Lucian came before them, a tall, dark man who looked like a Spaniard stepped forward.
"It"s over then?"
"It"s over," Lucian said resolutely.
Another man stepped forward from the crowd. Tall and light, with strange, searing green eyes, he nodded at Lucian, then to the others.
"The king has not turned to dust, and the threat is destroyed."
Lucian looked from the one man to the Spaniard. "I have not been beaten," he said quietly. "I said that I would destroy my enemies-and yours."
She felt as if they were waiting. All waiting.
"It"s over!" Lucian stated more determinedly.
The Spaniard nodded. "Aye," he said at last. He looked at Lucian again. "Aye, and you"re right. There must be an order, and a justice, even among us."
He stepped back, still staring at them.
A mist began to rise, sweeping, swirling around the tombstones, over them, blanketing the people who stood before them....
"It"s over then, all over, really over," Shanna whispered, her voice pleading. "Isn"t it, Lucian?"
"Yes," he said softly.
Jade"s knees started to buckle. He caught her before she could fall.
She tried to steady herself. They were once again standing over the tomb with MacGregor carved into it.
"Let"s get the h.e.l.l out of here," Lucian said. "The police are on their way. And I don"t want to try to explain any of this."
"Good Lord, no, we can"t begin to explain this!" Jack said.
Lucian supported Jade. She still felt as if she could barely stand.
Weak, so weak ...
She pushed away from the MacGregor stone, and Lucian led her from the place of darkness, evil ...
And death.
Naturally they talked forever.
They found a great pub with a fine private room in the rear that had a huge fireplace.
Renate really thought that she was all right. She apologized over and over again for emptying the holy water while Shanna and Jack slept.
She hadn"t known what she was doing.
Jade thanked Matt and Danny with all her heart for coming over.
"You could have been killed. You nearly were!" she told them.
"All in a day"s work," Matt said. "After all, what a story I"ve gotten out of all this!"
"No one will ever believe you, of course," Danny said. "My version, however, will be subtle, toned down. I know it will sell! I"ll describe it from the point of view of a medical examiner."
"Listen!" Jack said suddenly.
The pub television had late-night news on. The big story of the evening was the cemetery fire set by a gang of kids. They knew it had been set-they weren"t sure yet how or when or even what kind of fuel had been used, but the tomb had been sabotaged with an inflammatory substance prior to the fire"s being set.
They all stared at Lucian.
"I still haven"t found the talisman. I think it"s in the tomb, but..." He shrugged. "I knew she had to be burned, but they had Jade, so I had to play it very carefully. And then, suddenly, you were all in there."
"But she"s gone now, right?" Shanna said.
"Yes, she"s gone."
They were all so wound up, they couldn"t sleep. It was very, very late, nearly daylight when they returned to the hotel.
They hugged and kissed as they said good night.
And then Jade was alone with Lucian.
"Will you be with me in the morning?" she asked.
"Tomorrow morning, yes," he said, and that had to be enough.
She didn"t care.
"I would be with you anywhere, you know," she said very softly.
"I"d sleep in the dirt with you, in a coffin, among the dead. You can seriously bite my neck anytime." He kissed her gently.
"That"s a very serious decision."
"The way I feel about you is very seriously love," she told him.
But he shook his head and told her ruefully, "The way I feel about you is very seriously love. So ..."
"So?"
"We"ll wait. There are things you have to know."
"Maybe there"s a way out. I mean, Maggie was a vampire, until Sean ..."
"I"m not sure, Jade, that I can give up what I am. Not now. Not until I"m certain. Jade, I never actually found the talisman. And I can keep a certain power and order and sanity...."
"I love you."
He smiled. "Do you? Really? Can you really?"
"Yes." She studied his face. "I don"t believe that I"m your Igrainia come back. I really don"t, Lucian. I"m Jade. Do you really love me- Jade?"
He touched her cheek. "I love you-Jade."
She leaned her head against him. He stroked her hair.
"We have come through the fire."
Jade hesitated. She felt slightly ... different.
She didn"t know if it meant anything or not.
Sometime in the night, he would know. He would see the tiny puncture wounds in her throat, left by Darian when he touched her in the crypt.
In the morning Jade phoned home as soon as she woke up. She heard a female voice at the other end.
"Maggie?"
"Yes, Jade? I can hear you perfectly. Is everything all right?"
Maggie asked anxiously.
Jade was still in bed. Lucian lay behind her. He wound his arms around her.
"Fine. I"m worried about you all there. My dad, Liz ..."
"They"re fine. Liz is doing very well." "And the twins are there?"
"Yep. My Barney and Pokemon tapes are about worn out.
Everything is fine here, really fine."
"Thank G.o.d. Thank G.o.d. Maggie, please, tell ... Dad and Liz that we love them, and that we"re fine. And tell Jamie for me . .."
"Yeah?"
"Tell him we"ve gotten rid of the bad cable man."
Lucian"s arms tightened around her. He took the receiver from her.
"Hey, Maggie. Everything is really, really all right. The old cable guy is gone, the bogeyman is dead. We"re all right. We"ll see you soon." He was silent a minute. "And thanks, Maggie. Thanks for everything."
He hung up the phone.
And he looked at Jade. And his finger ran down her throat. His eyes were coals, shielded, so dark. "I"m sorry. So very sorry. I knew that if I showed myself as he wanted, he would have killed me, and then you.
I-".
She put her fingers to his lips. "There was nothing you could have done. But... what does it mean? Am I just... tainted? Will I simply heal?"
"Probably. And maybe ..."
"Yes?"
"I don"t know."
"But... you"ll be with me?"
He smiled slowly, and nodded.
He meant so much to her. Everything. So quickly he had become her world.
And she still didn"t believe that she"d known him before, that she could be his long-dead Igrainia. He was simply everything to her now.