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did.”
    I rose to leave. Sam had wanted me to see Bill, to understand his situation, and I’d done that. When Bill got up to see me to the door, I noticed he didn’t have the lightning speed he’d once had. “You’re going to live, right?” I asked him, suddenly frightened.
    “I think so,” he said, as if it didn’t make any difference one way or another. “But just in case, give me a kiss.”
    I put one arm around his neck, the arm that wasn’t burdened with the flashlight, and I let him put his lips against mine. The feeling of him, the smell of him, triggered a lot of memories. For what seemed like a very long time, we stood pressed together, but instead of growing excited, I grew calmer. I was oddly conscious of my breathing—slow and steady, almost like the respiration of someone sleeping.
    I could see that Bill looked better when I stepped away. My eyebrows flew up.
    “Your fairy blood helps me,” he said.
    “I’m just an eighth fairy. And you didn’t take any.”
    “Proximity,” he said briefly. “The touch of skin on skin.” His lips quirked up in a smile. “If we made love, I would be much closer to being healed.”
    Bullshit, I thought. But I can’t say that cool voice didn’t make something leap south of my navel, in a momentary twinge of lust. “Bill, that’s not gonna happen,” I said. “But you should think about tracking down that other vampire child of Lorena’s.”
    “Yes,” he said. “Maybe.” His dark eyes were curiously luminous; that might have been an effect of the poisoning, or it might have been the candlelight. I knew he wouldn’t make an effort to reach out to Lorena’s other get. Whatever spark my visit had raised in him was already dying out.
    Feeling sad, concerned, and also just a tiny smidge pleased—you can’t tell me it’s not flattering to be loved so much, because it is—I went home through the graveyard. I patted Bill’s tombstone by habit. As I walked carefully over the uneven ground, I thought about Bill, naturally enough. He’d been a Confederate soldier. He’d survived the war only to succumb to a vampire after his return home to his wife and children, a tragic end to a hard life.
    I was glad all over again that I’d killed Lorena.
    Here’s something I didn’t like about myself: I realized I didn’t feel bad when I killed a vampire. Something inside me kept insisting they were dead already, and that the first death had been the one that was most important. When I’d killed a human I’d loathed, my reaction had been much more intense.
    Then I thought, You’d think I’d be glad that I was avoiding some pain instead of thinking I should feel worse about taking out Lorena . I hated trying to figure out what was best morally, because so often that didn’t jibe with my gut reaction.
    The bottom line of all this self-examination was that I’d killed Lorena, who could have cured Bill. Bill had gotten wounded when he came to my rescue. Clearly, I had a responsibility. I’d try to figure out what to do.
    By the time I realized I’d been alone in the dark and should have been mortally afraid (at least according to D’Eriq), I was walking into my well-lit backyard. Maybe worrying about my spiritual life was a welcome distraction from reliving physical torture. Or maybe I felt better because I’d done someone a good turn; I’d hugged Bill, and that had made him feel better. When I went to bed that night, I was able to lie on my side in my favorite position instead of tossing and turning, and I slept with no dreams—at least, none that I could remember in the morning.
    For the next week, I enjoyed untroubled sleep, and as a result I began to feel much more like my former self. It was gradual, but perceptible. I hadn’t thought of a way to help Bill, but I bought him a new CD (Beethoven) and put it where he’d find it when he got out of his daytime hiding place. Another day I sent him an e-card. Just so he knew I was thinking about him.
    Each