wanted to marry her. The company was going to London in the spring. Nina wanted her dead...
Sara shuddered at the thought. How did one fight against a vampire?
She fingered the small silver cross at her throat. It was hard to imagine that anything so small as a crucifix, or so common as garlic, had the power to repel a vampire, yet she remembered that Gabriel had been unable to leave the cottage until she had broken the circle of garlic and holy water.
Vampire... She had seen him when the hunger was on him, seen the unholy light that had glowed in his eyes, seen his fangs, and yet it was still inconceivable that such things existed.
Yet her blood had revived him.
His blood had made her whole.
He had said he would never turn her into what he was, and she believed him, and yet, far in the back of her mind, in a corner where she didn't look too closely, lingered a niggling doubt. What if the lust for blood overcame him? What if he changed his mind and decided he'd like to have a vampire companion to keep him company through the ages?
She tried to imagine drinking the blood of others to survive, and felt her stomach recoil in horror. She tried to imagine what it would be like to live always in darkness, never to see the sunlight again, never to walk in the morning rain, or lie on the grass and watch the clouds drift across a lazy summer sky. Never to bear a child.
To live forever and never grow old... she had to admit that had a certain appeal.
With a shake of her head, she went to stand by the bedroom door. Leaning close, she listened, but heard nothing. A sleep like death, he had said, a sleep with no dreams.
Only her promise to stay away kept her from peeking inside.
She jumped, startled, when she heard a knock at the front door.
It was Maurice. "Ready?" he asked.
"Yes, just let me get my wrap."
They were rehearsing Swan Lake, but Sara couldn't concentrate on the steps or the music. Her mind kept visualizing Gabriel sleeping the sleep of the undead in her apartment. In her bed. And when she wasn't thinking of Gabriel, she was worrying about being stalked by Nina or one of her minions.
They were in the middle of the second act when the ballet mistress called a halt with a sharp tap of her baton.
"Sara Jayne, are you dancing with us today or not?"
"I'm sorry, Madame Evonne," Sara stammered, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "I'm... I'm afraid I'm not feeling well."
Madame Evonne drew herself up to her full five feet, two inches. "Do you wish to be excused?"
"Yes, please."
"Very well. Ginette, you may take Sara Jayne's place." Madame Evonne fixed Sara with a cool glance. "Shall we expect you tonight?"
Sara lifted her chin, refusing to be intimated by the dour-faced ballet mistress. "Yes."
"Very well." Madame tapped her baton on the floor and the music began again.
Sara felt Maurice's gaze on her back as she left the floor. Backstage, she settled her hat on her head, put on her cape, drew on her gloves, and left the theater, only then remembering Gabriel's admonition to have Maurice see her home.
Sara glanced up and down the street; then, with a sigh, she hailed a hack to take her to the market.
The clerk looked at her oddly as she filled a basket with strings of garlic.
She stopped at a small church on the way home and filled a bottle with holy water, praying that she would be forgiven for her theft, but at the moment she felt she had more need of the precious fluid than did the priest.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she reached home. Inside, she pulled off her cape and gloves and removed her hat. For a moment, she paused outside her bedroom door, her curiosity again tempting her to peek inside. Only her promise to Gabriel to let him rest undisturbed kept her hand from the latch.
With a shake of her head, she turned away from the bedroom and began affixing garlic around all the windows and the front door. When that was done, she took the bottle of holy water and sparingly dribbled the liquid across the floor in front of the door and along the windowsills.
As she sprinkled holy water over and around the windows, it occurred to her that such precautions would not only keep Nina out, they would also serve