"She hasn't been cut yet," Billy said. "There are medical miracles."

"Stop this!" a woman's voice said, one Jagger had come to know well.

He turned as Fiona MacDonald stepped into the room.

Billy stared at her and groaned softly. "I...I love her. I'll fight you both. I'll die for her if I have to, and they'll find me here, because--I'm not old enough to turn to dust. I mean it--I will die for her."

"Billy, you're already dead, technically," Fiona pointed out gently.

Before he could reply, a sound drew their attention, and the body on the gurney suddenly jackknifed into a sitting position. The sheet fell away.

Abigail, in all her glory, stared at them with huge blue eyes.

"Where am I?" she asked, and looked around. Her mouth fell open; she was going to scream.

Fiona started forward as Billy clamped a hand over the girl's mouth. "Please," he whispered, meeting Fiona's eyes beseechingly.

Fiona stared at Jagger. You have to do something, her eyes told him.

"Billy, you have to step away," he said gently.

"Why? She didn't wake up screaming and hungry," Billy demanded. "I am hungry," Abigail said, still so confused. Then she gasped. "I'm naked! I'm naked and I'm--I'm in a morgue!" She opened her mouth to scream again.

Billy put his hand over her mouth again as both Fiona and Jagger moved forward.

"Look," Billy whispered urgently. "She's a nice kid, a good kid--raised by nuns, for God's sake. She'll follow our laws, she'll...she'll be a good citizen. Please, give her a chance."

"Billy, she doesn't even understand what happened," Fiona said.

Billy's hand slipped from Abigail's mouth. "Please, be quiet, okay?" he begged her.

She let out a little whimpering sound and leaned against him. "Billy, I really am hungry. Starving. For a rare steak. Or for..."

She stared at Fiona.

At the pulse in Fiona's throat.

Abigail lowered her head and started to cry. "I'm hungry for blood."

Jagger stepped close to her, showing her that he had his stake at his side, not ready to strike.

"Abigail. My name is Jagger DeFarge. I'm a cop. I need to know what happened to you. You went to a party, and then...?"

She stared at him, confused, humiliated. She suddenly realized that she had a sheet and pulled it over her breasts.

"There was a lot of beer," she whispered.

"Think, Abigail. Please."

Billy moved between Jagger and Abigail, and shook his head angrily. "No! You can't try to use her and then...You can't. For the love of God, Jagger!"

"Someone is going to hear us soon," Fiona pointed out.

"They'll hear us when I fight you!" Billy promised.

"I don't want to hurt anyone, but don't you see? I love Abigail."

"Oh, Billy, really? I've been in love with you for ages, too," Abigail cried softly. "I was just too afraid to say anything."

Jagger stared at Fiona. She was not untouched.

"Look," Billy said quickly. "We'll just say she wasn't really dead. There have been mistakes before, medical miracles."

"Dead?" Abigail's voice shook with horror.

"Shh," Billy pleaded.

"Billy, this is the real world," Fiona pointed out gently. "A team of doctors will start performing tests. At best, she'll become a freak, and there won't be anyone who can tend to her, who can make sure she gets the nourishment she needs." She touched his shoulder gently, looking like a caring angel. "Billy, a lot of people would wind up dead."

Billy whipped out the stake he had brought, intending to kill the love of his life.

He aimed it toward Fiona. "No, please," he pleaded. Jagger grabbed Fiona, drawing her behind his back.

"Billy, don't you dare threaten her," he whispered fervently.

Billy paused for a moment, staring at him, and understanding entered his eyes.

"So that's the way it is," he said softly. "The powerful old vampire is in love with the Keeper."

"Billy, don't be ridiculous. And step away from the girl. I can make the change in a split second, and when I do, I'm powerful," Fiona said. "So don't threaten Jagger, and don't threaten me."

"Please," Billy entreated. "You have to understand. I'm not threatening you. I'm begging you. I'll do anything, anything at all. And how can you?" he demanded.

"You're the Keeper--can't you see that she would be an asset to our community?" When Fiona didn't say anything, his shoulders sagged and he lowered his stake.

"Fine. Kill us both," he said in resignation.

"Billy..." Abigail protested, putting a hand on his arm.

If the situation weren't so dire, Jagger thought, it might have been amusing. There was the lovely Abigail, hiding in back of Billy, clutching the broad young shoulders of the one she loved.

And facing Billy--him. With a rock hard determination that he would die for the woman he loved as willingly as Billy had vowed to do. Was she in love with him, as Abigail was in love with Billy? He didn't know. He did know that there was something between them. He did know that he felt as if he had waited several lifetimes to feel for someone the way he did about her.

"There is no easy solution," Fiona said softly, sadly.

Jagger was electrically aware of her standing behind him. Felt the length of her body against his own. Felt her whisper against his skin and trembled inside at the sound of her voice. Love.

Was it real? Something growing, something more precious than life, that went far beyond death?

Fiona groaned softly. "What do we do?" she whispered. "In the name of God, what do we do?"

Jagger sighed, hanging his head for a moment.

"I guess we steal a corpse," he said at last.

Chapter 7

During the following hours, Fiona decided that she was insane.

She kept wondering what her parents would have done.Handled it. They would have handled it. Gotten there earlier, they would have made sure Abigail was dispatched before...

Maybe. Or maybe not.

Billy had probably hovered over the corpse from the moment he had reached the morgue, maybe even proclaimed his love.

Would her parents have been so uncertain? So hesitant to act?

Maybe. They had certainly believed in love. They had known all about evil, along with good, and they had coped--because they'd always had each other....

As she--maybe?--had Jagger now.

She stood guard at the door as Jagger and Billy started explaining the situation to Abigail. The girl was still in shock, still whining that her stomach hurt, as if rats were gnawing at it.

Billy tried to explain that the faster she paid attention, the faster they could appease that hunger. Jagger was a stronger personality, and he dispensed with the preliminaries and demanded that she listen to him, which she finally did. He explained the process changing into mist, and how it was imperative that she listen, so they could get her out of there. Quickly.

Finally she tried it herself. At first, she was so bad at it that Fiona began to regret their decision to let the girl "live."

But finally Abigail got it.

"Billy, you can't come with us. Fiona will have to knock you out," Jagger told him.

"But..."

"Billy, do you want me arresting you in a matter of hours for stealing Abigail's corpse--and maybe for having killed her in the first place?" Jagger demanded.

Billy understood. He clutched Fiona's arm. "You're the Keeper," he whispered to her. "You'll--you'll take care of her, right? Keepers don't lie, not to anyone they're responsible for."

"I promise I'll watch over her," Fiona said.

"I'll get her out of here," Jagger told Fiona. "Follow as soon as you can."

She nodded, knowing he was far more prepared than she was to handle the situation if Abigail panicked or something went wrong.

"Meet at my place," he said softly.

She nodded, wincing inwardly, certain that her sisters would be expecting her to come straight home from the morgue. They might not like it, but they might even be expecting her to come home with Jagger.

But she couldn't bring a freshly turned and completely ignorant vampire home.

Once Jagger and Abigail had turned into mist, Fiona followed Billy out to the desk. She'd put on surgical gloves before she entered the building, not wanting to leave fingerprints, and now she looked around for a weapon. Finally she picked up the computer keyboard from the desk and creamed him with the flat side.

Mist herself, she left the morgue, and she didn't regain her shape until she reached her car. She drove away, praying that no one saw her, and headed for the French Quarter.

Though she had never been inside Jagger's home, she knew where it was, two blocks in from Rampart, halfway between Canal and Esplanade.

It was one of the few houses that had survived the great fires in the early 1800s, standing on a manmade rise, the better to display its charming facade. He lived behind a wall and gate almost as tall as hers, but his courtyard was in front of the house, rather than behind, and his property stretched from street to street.

The gate opened as she arrived; obviously he'd been looking for her car. She drove up to the front of the house as the gate closed and locked behind her.

When she got out of her car, Jagger was already there.

"Come, quickly, I'm afraid to leave her alone for long," he said softly.

She nodded.

Though he'd said he wanted her to move quickly, for a moment he paused and stared down into her eyes. Then his lips touched hers with a kiss that was tender and yearning...and brief.

Then he caught her hand and hurried her into the house. The entry was large and impressive, leading into a tiled foyer, with a curving stairway to one side.

They hurried past the stairway toward the dining room and kitchen, moving through both rooms so quickly that she had no time to note a single detail. At the rear of the kitchen there was a door, and when he opened it she saw a stairway heading down, and she realized that the lot had been built up to allow for a small basement in an area of the country that was prone to serious flooding, because most land was--barely at sea level.