“Think they’re still holding our room downtown?”
“Probably not. But we could get one up here,” she said, reaching up and stroking the new bruise on his neck. Liam shivered and she smiled back at him.
“Dammit!” Abruptly, annoyingly, the killer lunged at them, interrupting what was going to be a wonderful clinch. Liam put up an arm to fling him off…and the killer lunged again.
“Ow! Little son of a bitch bit me.” Liam was staring at his now-bloody arm. “Broke the skin, too. Can vampires transmit rabies?”
“How dare you touch him! Nobody bites him but me!”
“You tell him, honey,” he added, shaking the blood off his wrist.
Screaming, the killer lunged at them again. Liam, who had been digging in his pocket for a clean handkerchief, again warded him off.
Sophie didn’t understand until later what happened next; it was too quick, and it hurt her to watch. Liam had swiped back at the killer, and the killer’s screams heightened in pitch until she thought her ear drums might rupture. The killer had actually staggered back—why, Sophie didn’t know—and Liam followed up, this time swiping down.
The killer looked down at himself, which was understandable, because he was glowing. Sophie looked at him, and the light hurt her…it had been like trying to see into the middle of the sun.
Liam, either by accident or design, had drawn a line on the killer: from nipple to nipple. And then, from neck to belt buckle.
A cross.
The killer watched in horror—Sophie felt a little horrified, too, in truth—as the lines Liam had drawn on him first glowed, then sank into him, like a foot into mud. And, five seconds later, the screaming was cut short as the killer’s vocal cords turned into ash…as the killer’s entire body turned to ash.
“This never happens,” Sophie said, staring. “It’s just a movie legend. I’ve never seen anybody turn into dust before. It just doesn’t happen these days.”
Liam held out…a necklace? A fine gold chain, with a cross—a cross! Sophie hurriedly looked away from it. “I took it from Betsy. Promised to fix it for her. And I will, too,” he added. “Just as soon as we finish some other business.” He kicked through the three-foot mound of ashes, scattering it. Then he took her into his arms. “So, I guess I’m your sheep.”
“No,” she told him. “You’re…yourself. Liam. You’re Liam.”
“I’m a lucky fellow, is what I am.” He kissed her.
She kissed him back, then looked at the foot-wide black smudge on the grass, all that was left of Shawna’s tormenter. “I’d say so, yes.”
Epilogue
“LET me get this straight. You drew a cross on the bad guy with my cross? And he turned into dust and went to Hell, or wherever bad vampires go when they turn into dust?”
“Yup.”
“Well, shoot. And we missed it!” Betsy dumped more sugar in her coffee. They had come, by mutual agreement, to the Country Kitchen on Highway Six. “Though, we did save Theresa,” she admitted, brightening. “That was pretty cool. Sinclair zapped her with his mojo. Made her forget she’d ever met Fuckface. And a good thing, too, because she was starting to get into her dad’s gun collection in a really unhealthy way.”
“Excellent,” Sophie said. “Just excellent.”
“And you fixed my necklace! What, you found an all-night jewelry store?”
“I had some tools in the truck,” Liam said, looking modest.
“Thank you again for bringing this distasteful business to our attention, Dr. Trudeau,” Sinclair said. “If not for your conscientiousness, he might have done a great deal more damage.”
She shook her head. “I wish I’d caught on sooner.”
“You did everything you could. More than most people would have done, I bet,” Liam told her, squeezing her hand. She squeezed back, carefully, and smiled at him. “Oh, man. I ever tell you, you’ve got the prettiest smile?”
“No. It seems to be one of many things you’ve been keeping to yourself,” she teased.
“Not anymore.”
“I have things to tell you, too,” she admitted. “Many things.”