"About time someone did!"

A shadow of a smile glimmered on Ida's mouth. "He threw a wobbly over you. I'm not sure whether being foiled by a woman or bested by an American irked more."

"Nice to know I managed something. Let me get this straight, you think Sebastian had the bomb planted."

"I know. Emily told me."

"How did she know?"

Ida drained the gin. A mangled slice of lemon lay on the two melting ice cubes. "I need another."

"Tell me about Emily and Sebastian and the bomb, and I'll buy you a bottle."

"Emily is Sebastian's mistress. Has been for years. Thinks no one knows. She keeps all his secrets and toadies for him. But now, she's after his hide. Wanted me to go to the police with the information. I told her they'd laugh at me."

"And they won't at me? If you've no proof..."

"Listen!" Her bony hands clutched Dixie's. She almost drew back at the warmth. Was this how mortals felt to touch?

"Sebastian wanted your aunts' papers. First you got in the way, then you started blackmailing Marlowe. That's when they decided to eliminate you."

"What made them think I was blackmailing Christopher?"

Scorn crossed Ida's dark eyes. "He paid you. Emily works for the bank."

The check for the books! And Sebastian thought it was hush money. "Handy place for Sebastian's toady to work."

Ida ignored that. "The bomb killed my Stanley instead of you. Sebastian told Emily he'd killed you up in Yorks.h.i.+re. Insisted you were dead." Her old shoulders sagged. "You don't believe me."

"But I do. I believe every word."

"You'll go to the police?"

Probably not. "Maybe. One thing I don't understand: Why did Emily tell you this?""Emily caught Sebastian in flagrante delicto with his secretary."

Dixie couldn't help grinning at the image of immaculate Valerie tumbled on Sebastian's carpet. Why not? What's a little infidelity after murder? "How did my aunts fit in all this?"

"They were part of the coven and old in wisdom. They taught me. But when Sebastian joined, he wanted to use the black arts.

He also wanted their papers shared among the coven. They disagreed-but they were old..."

"And easy to scare and hound to death?"

Ida's eyes darkened. "Don't waste too much sympathy on them. They'd driven a few to their deaths already. Little Jennie Waite drowned herself when they threatened to tell her husband the real father of her child, and old Doctor Miles overdosed on sleeping pills two nights after they invited him to tea. They were evil."

She wouldn't disagree. "Their mischief is over and I hope Sebastian's is, too."

Ida's face lit with hope. "You'll go to the police!"

"I'll take care of it." Soon. She needed fresh air. Her head ached from the stuffiness of the bar and her gums itched. Maybe the port hadn't been a good idea. Ida tapped her empty gla.s.s. Dixie took the hint.

Dixie came back with another gin and an unopened bottle. "I pay my debts."

Ida gaped. "What will Monica say when I come home with that?"

"Tell her a crazy American gave it to you."

James couldn't believe his eyes. He wasn't that drunk. h.e.l.l, he couldn't be drunk. He'd only had two scotches. And that's all he'd get, unless he conned someone else into buying. But sober, drunk or pie-eyed, he'd know that head of auburn hair anywhere. So much for Sebastian's a.s.surance. Miss Dixie still walked and breathed.

Dear Uncle claimed Dixie's elimination. Did he have news for him. Better still, a chance to best Dear Uncle at his own game.

He might not have cliffs in Surrey, but there were a lot of lonely lanes between the Bell and Orchard House. He drained his gla.s.s and pushed away from the bar, his fingers closing over the knife in his trouser pocket.

She was with someone, Ida Collins. The old bat! What he wouldn't give to know what they'd been yammering about.

Dixie followed Ida out into the evening. If she still breathed, she'd gulp the fresh, night air. After the closeness of the crowded bar, the evening breeze felt like spring water.

She left Ida at her gate and set off, at mortal pace, down the lane towards Bringham. She needed time and quiet to plan her next step. She couldn't just go to Inspector Jones with "an old lady I know thinks" or "Stanley's mother said..." What she really wanted was Sebastian Caughleigh's confession. But she'd always wanted the impossible.

Walking between hawthorn hedges, in and out of the shadows, Dixie thought back to the night she found Christopher in her yard. The night they saw lights in the book room and disturbed the intruder. The night he held her close among the shrubbery and she'd noticed his vampire scent and thought it aftershave. She wanted him. Close. But not yet. Not before she came to terms with her self, her past, eternity, and her need to drink blood.

She'd come back here for peace and contemplation and lunged back into turmoil. Should she just walk away as Justin advised?

No! She wanted Christopher exonerated. She just wasn't sure how to do it. Might as well want world peace, the end of prejudice, and equal rights for all humanity while she was at it. Night scents bombarded her: honeysuckle in the hedges, turned earth, and cow pats in the fields. And sounds-rustling in the hedges, the hum of car engines on the main road to the east, the cry of a night bird.

Footsteps.

Dixie swiveled around to see the dark figure ten yards behind. Poised mid-step, he froze, moonlight glinting off his hand.

"b.i.t.c.h!" he called and ran at her full tilt. The glint in his hand became a knife. As the blade arced towards her, she grabbed both his wrists, wrenching them up to steer the blade away from her face.

There was a sound like tinder snapping and a scream that echoed in the night. He fell back, his head smas.h.i.+ng against the metaled road with a splat like falling bricks. Dixie straddled him, fear and anger rising in her gorge as she saw his face in the moonlight. James! Not Sebastian, but the next best thing-"thing" being the operative word.

He might bellow like a rutting elephant, but he looked more like a broken puppet against the dark road. "You broke my arms!

f.u.c.k you!"

"In your dreams, Jimbo!" Sweat rose in silver beads across his forehead. He sneered. Or it could be a grimace of pain. "Beats what you had planned for me, right?"

His eyes flashed pale in the moonlight, pure venom animating his glare. "You couldn't guess what's planned. They'll get you in the end. Don't you understand?"

"The coven, I presume?"

"Start worrying." Something like venom rose with his words. "You'll not be so c.o.c.ky then. You'll bleat like Marlowe did but they won't even need to stake you out."

Pure acid anger boiled inside. "You were there?"

"Sweet on him weren't you? Thought so. We took care of him. Did you a favor. He wasn't a nice English gentleman after all.

Nasty bloodsucker, he was. We took care of him. Cooked him out in the morning sun."

Acid vaporized behind her eyes. Fury boiled at his boast. Her mouth ached. Her gums itched like crazy. She opened her mouth as if to breathe but yawned wide enough to swallow the world. He screamed, again and again, as if calling for heaven's succor.

Terror lightened his eyes as he twitched away from her but her legs pinned him steady.

Unfamiliar instincts drove her. The terror in his eyes pa.s.sed as in a dream. His blood pressure rose in a roar. His heartbeat pounded until it echoed in the night. He twisted and writhed, straining to evade her. Without thought or reason, she bent over and bit into the vein that stood out in his neck.

She drank. She supped. She gorged. Sweet warmth filled her mouth, triggered her taste buds and coursed down her throat.

She savored the living taste, as her teeth gripped, ignoring his weakening moans. The taste, the scent, and the warmth intoxicated as his lifeblood became hers. She lost all track of time. A minute? Five? An hour? He resisted at first, but her hands held his shoulders firm and his struggles lessened until he collapsed. Sated, she lifted her mouth, drunk on the strength and richness she'd imbibed.

And then she recognized the scent she'd noticed at the Collins's and in the pub. The sweet, cloying smell, not unpleasant but unusual, and still unfamiliar to her, the scent of human blood.

She was kneeling in the middle of the lane, in the moonlight, with James Chadwick supine between her legs. She jumped up, looking both ways, half expecting a tractor or a midnight herd of cows. Nothing coming, at least not yet. Horror clutched her.

What if she'd killed him? But no. She crouched down and noticed a weak pulse. She smiled. He'd live long enough to face justice.If he didn't get run over first.

She gathered up his limp body as easily as she'd heft a bag of groceries and jumped over the hedge, dumping him on the ground. He groaned and she noticed, with some satisfaction, that he'd landed in a cow pat. He should feel quite at home.

She stepped back and stretched her arms.

The rush hit her. Energy, life, like a shot of adrenaline to the bloodstream. She could climb mountains, leap over rooftops or swing from the St. Michael's steeple. She settled for running home, vaulting gates, broad-jumping roads and speeding over fields, until she reached Orchard House and slipped through her own front door. And looked in the gilt-framed mirror and saw nothing but the faded striped wallpaper and the open sitting room door behind her.

She was vampire! She'd crossed the final line. Taken the last step she'd feared and dreaded and wanted.

She sat at the bottom of the stairs, knees drawn up to her chest, pondering Ida's information and wondering how on earth she'd prove it. And remembered the pleasure of feeding. Would she dare again? Yes! Yes! Yes! That thought both horrified and thrilled her.

She had the key to the whole nasty business at her fingertips. All she had to do was figure out how to deal with it.

Confront Sebastian? Intimidate James until he sang like a canary? Insist Ida and Emily go to the police?

She was alone, unsure and confused. "Christopher, I need your help," she said, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on her knees.

"Right, love, what do you need?"

He stood three feet away, smiling and eyes twinkling like the stars outside She could have hit him Lucky she hadn't dropped with shock to his feet The look on his face suggested he'd enjoy that. "Where did you come from?"

He pulled a neatly folded linen handkerchief from his pants pocket "Wipe your mouth."

"What?" Half understanding, she took the handkerchief and felt her stomach drop as she saw blood smeared on snowy linen.

"It's considered etiquette to wipe your mouth after feeding," he said, refolding the handkerchief and sitting beside her on the stairs. "Plus, leaving your mouth b.l.o.o.d.y tends to bother breathers. If they see blood-stained lips and fangs, they tend to think about wooden stakes and garlic." Vampire wit! Right. "You need to retract your canines, too."

"What?" Her tongue investigated. Her eyeteeth felt twice as long as usual. "How do I do that?"

"Just think them back."

It worked, on the second try. "I'm still not used to what my mind can do."

"Thirty years a mortal really limits your intellect."

That he wouldn't get away with. "You had twenty-nine."

He ignored that but reached out and tucked her hand over his. Their fingers twined. How she'd missed him, just this one day. "I thought you were coming back if you decided to join us. We were to feed together. I could have helped out. We have certain conventions."

"It happened."His shoulder and arm stiffened. An eye hard and dark with worry met hers. "What happened?"

She told him, side by side on the threadbare carpet, starting with the red light flas.h.i.+ng on her answering machine. He listened in silence and left Dixie wondering if she'd committed a score of vampire solecisms.

"Did you kill him?" he asked when she finished.

She shook her head. "He had a pulse when I left him."

"At least you thought to check." That irked. "Did you obliterate the memory?"

"What memory?"

He spoke slowly as if to a child, or a foreigner. "The memory of seeing you and being your evening tasty." He didn't wait for her answer. "You didn't."

"How could I if I didn't know I was supposed to?"

His hand tightened over hers. "That's why we should have fed together." He looked so worried. What else had she done wrong? This vampire life was all too new. "We'd better find him and anyone else who saw you."

"That means Ida, Monica, and the children. And everyone in the Bell."

"Just anyone who recognized you. We shouldn't need to worry about most of them." He squeezed her hand. "We'd better get going."

"But didn't I tell you? We have to do something about Sebastian."

"First things first You don't want word spreading around the village that Dixie LePage is back and drinking blood. Around here, too many people believe in us. Come on." He stood up and offered his hand. She reached out and closed her palm over his.

"You pick your places, don't you?" James hadn't moved. "The whole d.a.m.n field and you drop him in a country pancake."

"Like belongs with like."

"We don't need pettiness, Dixie. We have power. Just take the memory out and let's go." Great! How exactly was she supposed to "get it out?"

"You just have to concentrate."

Dixie frowned at Kit. Would she ever get used to his reading her thoughts? "If it's so easy, why don't you do it?"

"Because, my love, he doesn't remember me tonight. Touch his forehead, concentrate on his thoughts until you find the one you need. Then filch it."

He made it sound like picking daisies. "Nothing is ever as easy as it sounds."

"It will be if you stop thinking like a mortal."

Would she ever? "Here goes," she whispered, half to herself, and knelt beside James, being careful to kneel on gra.s.s. Her fingers touched his brow. Was it a trick of the moonlight that left him white as sour milk?