Even Vampires Get the Blues (29 page)

“Dude, catch the guy on the rock with the bodacious sword!” a voice called out over the roar of the battle.

“Can't, filming the D and D guy. Look at him go! He's picking them off like they were fleas.”

“Paen, no!” I managed to choke out, blinking madly to clear my vision. Paen had managed to get on the rock behind Pilar, and was in the middle of a downswing that, judging by the size of the sword he carried, likely would divide the monkey god.

Pilar swung around, his arm raised to block Paen's attack.

It was too late for Paen to stop the downswing, but he didn't even ask why I wanted mercy for the man who was currently choking the life out of me—he threw his body weight to the side so the sword struck Pilar at a different, less deadly angle.

“What is it about you and arms?” I asked, gasping in great lungsful of air as the stranglehold Pilar held on my throat was released by dint of Paen lopping off his arm. I rubbed my throat, wondering if I'd ever be able to swallow again.

Paen and Pilar stared at the gruesome member lying at their feet.

“Er . . .” Paen said, then looked at me. “Why didn't you want me to kill him?”

“You took my arm off!” Pilar said, his face filled with amazement.

“Because he's a good guy,” I answered Paen hoarsely, wincing at the sound of my voice. Paen's eyes narrowed on my throat.

“Good guys don't try to throttle innocent women,” he said, swinging the sword back up so the tip pointed at Pilar's jugular.

“You cut it right off. My arm, you cut my arm off.” His nostrils flared as he raised his head to glare at
Paen. “Do you have any idea how long I've had this human form? Six hundred and twenty-seven years. I
liked
it! And now you've had my arm off.”

“You were strangling my Beloved,” Paen said, his eyes flashing quicksilver.

“She was trying to stop me from destroying Yan Luowang,” Pilar replied, raising the statue over his head.

Caspar roared out something I didn't understand, charging straight at us, extras falling off him like confetti.

“Please, please don't destroy it,” I begged. “We need it to fulfill a debt. Couldn't we have it just long enough to do that, and then you can use it to destroy Caspar?”

“No,” Pilar said simply, and slammed the statue to the ground.

Existence hesitated for a moment. Everything, every living being, every inanimate object, every elf and demon and imp, even the earth itself paused for a moment as if to understand the implications of Pilar's action, then continued on as if nothing momentous had just happened.

But something did happen. The ugly, squat statue of a monkey hit the granite and mica and all the other minerals that went into forming the rocks and earth of the lodestone, and shattered into four pieces.

Caspar screamed and threw himself at us. I screamed (hoarsely), and stared with eyes filled with tears at the pieces of the statue. Paen lunged forward to stop Pilar, but the monkey god was too fast for him, leaping off the rock with a jubilant laugh.

Paen's beautiful silver eyes met mine, and I fell to my knees with the anguish I saw in them.

No. There has to be another way. This isn't the end.

It is, sweetheart. The debt can only be repaid by the statue
, he answered, and grief so deep it seemed endless welled up inside him and spilled out onto me.

Caspar, in his twisted, horrific state, screamed in Chinese as he scrabbled at the remains of the statue. I grabbed one of the pieces, intending to brain him with it—not that I knew it would do anything to permanently harm him—when a thought struck.

“Here,” I snarled, snatching up a piece of the statue and throwing it at him before reaching for another piece. “Here. And here, and here. You now have all the pieces of the Jilin God. The debt Paen's father incurred with you is now fulfilled! I demand acknowledgement of receipt of the statue before deep night!”

“You!” The twisted face of Caspar was a truly sickening sight to behold, but it was made almost unviewable by the hatred that filled it as his eyes raised to mine. Paen wrapped an arm around me and pulled me up so I was held tight to his body, his wonderful warmth soaking into me. “You think you have won, but you have not. For I have this!”

From the head of the monkey statue Caspar withdrew a small, rolled-up bit of parchment. “Behold, the
Simia Gestor Coda
! Into it Sun Wukong wrote all the knowledge of the ancients, all of my knowledge that he stole from me!”

Paen sucked in his breath, releasing me to lunge for Caspar, but the god of death leaped aside, holding the manuscript tightly. Behind him, Finn slashed through a couple of demons obviously intent on reaching Caspar, but it was no good.

“Now you will suffer as you have made me suffer,” Caspar gloated, his body stretching into a thin, ribbony suggestion of a human. “You too will spend an eternity in torment, and when at last you decide to end your own agony, I will be waiting for you!”

“No!” Paen shouted, throwing himself onto Caspar.

Eerie, high-pitched, evil laughter was all that remained as Caspar succumbed to the inevitable and was pulled back into his domain in hell, taking the manuscript with him. The demons suddenly vanished, leaving the ghosts and extras fighting nothing more substantial than air. They all froze, and for a moment, there wasn't a sound.

“Dude!” a voice said in awestruck amazement.

“Did you get that?” a second voice asked.

“Er . . . get the big guy in the ugly costume and all those little brown guys disappearing?”

“Yeah.”

“I got it, but no one is going to believe it.”

Paen helped me to my feet, being careful to avoid jarring my arm.
Sweetheart?

The howling wind inside me seemed a horrible parody of Caspar's mocking laughter. Pain twisted deep within, pain and despair and hopelessness.

Sam?
Paen's fingers were warm on my chin as he tipped my head back so he could see into my eyes.

Don't cry, love. We'll find another way.

“He's gone?” Finn asked, covered in black demon blood, panting as he stopped to help Clare over a gore-splattered stone.

“Ew,” she said, prodding Pilar's detached arm. “That's just gross. So, we won?”

Two fat tears rolled down my cheeks. Paen pulled me up to his chest, but not even the lovely glow of his soul could warm me now. “I'm cold,” I told him.

“I know, sweetheart. We'll get it back. If I have to go to hell myself, we'll get it back.”

“Get what back?” Clare asked, her brow furrowed. “I thought we won.”

I wrapped my good arm around Paen and held him tight, allowing him to pour into me all his love and warmth and everything that he was, but it wasn't enough. Sharp fingers of despair kept me tight in their icy grip.

“The
Coda
was lost,” Paen said to Clare, but he never took his eyes off mine.

“Oh, the manuscript that's supposed to tell Sam how to get her soul back? But I thought that wasn't a sure thing?”

“It isn't . . .” Paen said, stopping before he could complete the sentence, his arms tightening around me.

I did the job for him. “But it was the only chance we had.”

“Non-deities have such linear thinking,” Pilar said, leaping over a few rocks to land a few feet away, Beppo clinging to his shoulder.

I wondered for a moment why I wasn't surprised to see Pilar wasn't affected in the least by losing an arm—then I realized I didn't feel anything inside that wasn't an all-consuming hopelessness.

“He does not have the
Coda.
There is no
Coda
. There never was. The manuscript he has is nothing more than a few scribblings I made centuries ago. It was intended to draw Yan Luowang out of hiding. And it succeeded.”

Paen lifted his head from mine to look at Pilar, his beautiful eyes stark with loathing. “I will destroy you. I don't know how, but this I swear—I will destroy you for what you've put us through . . . for what you've done to Sam.”

Not even the fact that Paen would undertake such an impossible task warmed me. I shivered, wondering if I would ever be warm again, and leaned into Paen, too exhausted even to think.

“She's diminishing,” I heard Clare's voice say. The words were familiar, but they didn't seem to have meaning to me anymore. My focus was on the tornado of misery that ripped through me. “My aunt said something once about elves who diminish. They just sort of fade away until they are no more.”

Sam, my love, hold on to me. Don't leave me now, not when I need you. I can't live without you.

Paen's words seemed to come from a long way away. I examined them, holding them, wondering why such beautiful words should mean nothing to me anymore.

The pain washed over me.

Hold on to me, love. I'll help you with the pain.

There was no sense fighting it.

You must fight it, Sam. Don't give in to it, don't let it sap your strength.

My ending had been written. How ironic that it would happen now when I had found the one person I was ready to give up everything for.

Dammit, Samantha, I will not let you go! You are a strong, smart, sexy woman and I will not lose you. Now fight, damn you! Fight for me!

“Can't you do something to stop it?” Clare asked, her voice thick with tears.

Pilar sighed, his voice as distant as everyone else's. “I've always found elves to be so melodramatic, but since she did stop you from slaying my mortal form, I will return the favor.”

“You've done enough already,” Paen snarled.

“Not yet, but I'm about to. This will accord us without debt on either side,” Pilar said.

“What—”

I was ripped from Paen's side, yanked without ceremony from my existence to another one, a world filled with drifting souls and beings which had been caught there.

“Behold the Akashic Plain,” a familiar voice said behind me.

“You already talked to him—why do you need to talk to him again?” I held the phone away from my ear for a second. “No, he's not going to change his mind. He's not that kind of man, and besides, he can't. I'm his Beloved. He can't impregnate me and leave me for someone else. Well, OK, he
could
, but he wouldn't because he's nice. And he loves me. A lot. He was going to destroy a god for me! Only a man head over heels in love would decide to do something so ridiculous.”

My mother, never one to keep feelings to herself, unburdened herself of several items, up to and including the likelihood that the elf side of my family would look down on Paen because of his dark origins. “Like I care what they think?” I flinched at the barrage that followed that statement. “Sorry. Yes. Yes, I hear you. Yes, yes, yes. Huh? Of course we're going to get married! I don't know about Clare—she and Finn seem to be pretty tight. More than her usual boyfriends. I think they may be getting serious. We'll just have to see how that goes.”

Outside, traffic hummed along merrily in another gloriously sunny—AKA rare—May day.

“No, you can't talk to him again, you've talked to him three times already today. Someone finally tracked down his parents, so he's telling them everything that's been happening. Yes, you'll meet them. Yes, they're nice. Mom—” I sighed and prayed for patience. “No, I won't let his mother help me pick out a wedding dress, OK? I have to go. No, now is not a good time to look into ear reconstruction surgery—I'm happy with my ears! Paen likes them, too. No . . . no . . . it's not a matter of money, I just don't want them re-elfed! Look, I really, really have to . . . Mom . . . Mom, Paen is stark naked with an erection that could bring down buildings, and he's calling for me. Gotta run! Love to you and Dad.
Again
. Bye!”

I clicked off the phone to the sound of my mother sputtering indignantly, rubbing my ear in an attempt to get feeling back into it as I leaned against the wall and stretched. I knew my mother was going to be excited by the news that I was now immortal (something she had been fretting over ever since I had my ears bobbed), and madly in love with a man who was just as crazy about me, but she was running amok with international phone calls. I had a suspicion she'd be dragging Dad over to Scotland in the very near future.

Still at it?

My toes curled at the warm, rich voice in my head.
Yes. It feels good. I like doing it. I may do it every single day from here until the end of our time.

Paen sighed from where he leaned against the door. “How is your arm?”

I smiled at nothing and arched my back, relishing the absolute joy that sunlight on my skin brought, making me giddy from the power it fed me. I was clad in a rather risqué eyelash lace chemise . . . and nothing else. “Perfect. You were right—the sunlight did a lot to hurry along the healing process.”

“I thought it might. Was that your mother again?”

“Of course. We'll probably hear from her another good dozen times today before she works most of the excitement out of her system. I liked your parents.”

“Good. They liked you, as well. My mother says you're not to pick out a wedding dress until they get back to Scotland. She's excited about having a daughter-in-law and doesn't want to let any of the wedding planning slip past her.”

I laughed. “That'll be a battle royal—my mom against yours. Oh well, we'll let them work it out. I don't really care so long as the end result is the same.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wild, unbridled wedding night sex?”

“No.” I shook my head, to his surprise. “A passionate, romantic, wonderful beginning to our eternal wedded bliss.”

He smiled.

“Followed immediately by wild, unbridled wedding night sex.”

“Sam? Are you decent?” Clare's voice drifted in through the closed door. Paen edged past the pool of sunlight on the floor, grabbed my robe from where it lay over the wooden rhino, tossing it to me before he opened the door.

I sat up on the window seat where I'd been soaking up the all-healing rays from the sun, and watched
with curiosity as Clare forged a path into the room. “We brought you some flowers—merciful goddess, what happened here?”

Paen handed her the machete. “It appears her plants are happy again.”

“Good god, it's like a jungle,” Finn said, only part of him visible as he fought his way past a particularly exuberant African oil palm. “I expect to see a lion or rhinoceros at any moment.”

Paen moved aside to hold back a rubber tree leaf.

Finn laughed at the sight of my rhino. Clare disdained the use of the machete and beat her way over to my dresser, placing a large bouquet of hothouse flowers there, turning them until she was happy with the presentation. “Are you all better?”

I stretched in the sunlight, happiness welling out of me as I looked at Paen where he leaned against the wall, his arms crossed casually over his chest. Those lovely eyes of his were like sunlight on silver, shining back at me. “Yes, I'm all better now.”

“Good. Is your mother happy about the wedding?”

“Very, although she is a bit annoyed we haven't actually set a date. I tried explaining to her that I only
just
forced Paen to his knees to propose, but you know how she is once she gets an idea—she doesn't much listen to anyone else.”

“Well, she is an elf. You know how they are.”

I sent Paen a mischievous grin. “Mom did say that she'd be perfectly happy organizing a double wedding, if you and Finn . . .” I let the suggestion fade to a stop, expecting one or the other of them to voice a negative exclamation. To my surprise, they just eyed each other for a moment.

“You never know,” Finn said finally, with a grin that warmed my heart.

“I'm going to expect a lot more than a proposal in a car riding home from the scene of a demon attack,” Clare informed him, then snatched one of the flowers from the vase and popped a petal in her mouth as she turned back to me. “Speaking of that, perhaps you can explain to me what exactly happened. Paen was too busy taking care of you after Pilar dumped you on the ground, and then Finn was bleeding and he had to eat, and those movie people wanted to talk to me about a possible role in an upcoming science fiction movie, and . . . well, with all that, I just never did find out what happened.”

“Pilar took Sam to the Akashic Plain,” Paen answered, a small smile making the corners of his mouth turn up.

Have I told you today how much I love you?

Yes. Seven times, as a matter of fact.

Ah.

It's not nearly enough.

I grinned.

“But how did he do that?” Clare asked, absently plucking a carnation from the bouquet and peeling off a few petals, which she promptly ate. “I thought it was impossible to get to the Akashic Plain?”

“Linear thinking,” I said cryptically, and sent Paen a mental image of me stroking every square inch of him.

He straightened up.
All
of him.

“What?”

“Pilar is a god. There are places where deities can break the rules. The Akashic Plain is one of them.”
Paen sent me back images of myself covered in whipped cream, and him with a bowl of strawberries.

I shivered, but not from cold.

“Oh. So he took Sam to the Akashic Plain to get her soul back, and then plopped her back in our reality?”

“Yes.” I dwelled lovingly over what it felt like taking Paen into my mouth, of the scent and taste of him, of the joy I received in giving him pleasure.

“And he wasn't angry about Paen cutting off his arm?”

“Not angry enough to wreak any vengeance, no,” Paen answered. He thought about nibbling on my ears. My entire body tightened in response.

“What about the statue? If it was a demon lord's statue, why didn't Brother Jacob see that? And why was the monkey statue hidden inside the bird one?”

“The bird statue shielded the Jilin God, making it impossible for anyone to detect its dark origins.” I remembered what it felt like when Paen thrust hard into my body, causing every single one of my muscles to tighten around him.

“The demon lord who held it hid the statue within another one for security. He changed the outer statue's shape every so often, in case Caspar was on to it.” Paen dwelled lovingly on the thought of my nipples.

I sucked in a breath, my body tingling like mad from his mental images.

“All right, that I understand, but what about your father? How did he get the statue?”

“Er . . . Clare, my sweet, I think we should be going now,” Finn said, looking from me to Paen.

“But your father . . .” She popped another bit of carnation into her mouth.

I recalled what it felt like to ride him, our bodies moving together in a rhythm that swept us into ecstasy.

Paen lurched forward, stopping abruptly at the edge of the sunlight.

“I think they need some time to themselves right now,” Finn said, shooting Paen a grin before swinging Clare up in his arms and fighting his way to the door. She giggled as he kissed her nose. “Actually, as it turns out, Caspar forged part of that receipt. He did help Dad find Mum, but the payment due was Dad's assistance in locating the statue, nothing more . . .”

“You do realize the irony of this, don't you?” Paen asked as the door closed behind them. He skirted the sunlight, stalking me as a predator would. I shed the robe, then, after a moment's thought, the chemise as well.

“The irony of you proposing to a sun elf? Yes, my darling Paen, I do indeed realize that I'm going to have to learn to love the moonlight.”

“And I'm going to have to make sure the castle brings in even more profit than it does now,” he said in a low voice filled with arousal as he pulled off his shirt and pants, standing naked just at the edge of the pool of sunlight.

“Really?” I admired him for a moment, merging myself with him, wanting to burst into song with the happiness I felt when our souls twined around each other and became one. “Why is that?”

“Sunblock,” he growled, ignoring the sunlight as he stepped into it to scoop me up, carrying me to the bed. “I'm going to need lots and lots of sunblock.”

Three months later the CEO of a UK-based company which produced sunblock, amongst other pharmaceuticals, happily reported to board members a quarter of record sales. He just couldn't figure out why most of the sales were concentrated around a remote Scottish town. . . .