As they scrubbed each other clean, they did not have sex. For all the playing, and laughing, and rubbing, and fingering, and kissing, they might as well have. But Rio wanted to know if Eric had found Lander, and Eric wanted to know if Ailling had contacted Rio, and Eric said he had to go to the bar to send Sandy the report, and Rio said she had to go check Ailling's house, and between all the talking, they never got around to it.

As they dried each other off, Eric commented on their oversight and Rio promised him her undivided attention as soon as they both returned. Eric demanded they shake on the deal, making Rio laugh, because vampires disdained handshakes in the extreme, and suggested they seal it with a kiss. Eric complied and it was with great difficulty that they exited the house and went their separate ways (Eric warned her to be careful, and to illustrate how silly he was being, she warned him of the same thing, making him smile).

Eric pulled up to the front of Diablo's; since the bar was already closed, there were spaces close by. Eric got out, mulling over her powerful—no doubt magical—attraction, certainly aware that he was under her spell. He thought it was the best possible place in the world to be.

At the sound of smashing glass, Eric looked around. He scanned the parking lot. Toward the side of the building, he saw the bearish back of Lander, swinging a rusty length of pipe. With vampire speed, Eric zoomed to Lander's side, stopping in the empty parking space beside the car Lander was attacking. Glass crunched under his shoe, and Lander spun around, pipe raised.

He saw Eric and slouched, dropping the pipe with a dull clang. "What're you doing here, Eric?" Lander asked. His fangs glinted dully in the parking lot lights.

"I might ask you that," Eric replied flatly.

"I, ah… locked my keys in the car."

Eric's eyes flicked over the smashed windshield and windows. "That," he said bluntly, "is Al Ailling's car."

"Oops," said Lander, trying unsuccessfully to look sheepish.

"Does Sandy know you are out here smashing windows?"

"That lazy bitch," Lander spat. "She's not the boss of me, and neither are you!"

Eric cocked one perfect eyebrow at that; "Actually, I am. The King brought me here to broker this deal. If I tell him the bar is doing well most nights, you will be back where you started. As in, nowhere."

Lander quickly changed his tone. "Okay, look, Eric. I read your report. I need that thumb drive. If the King sees this hell hole's starting to pay off, he won't give it to me. I'll be stuck under him working off my time for eternity," he wheedled. "I hate that bastard, and I deserve my own money. I've worked hard for this opportunity."

Eric raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "You? Work hard? What I have heard is that you don't so much work hard as kill anyone who stands in your way. I have heard you've stood on the corpses just to get a leg up."

"Yeah, well, that Ailling bloodbag was in my way."

"You killed him?" Eric snarled, his body tense and his fangs full out.

"I drained him dry," Lander replied carelessly.

Eric bristled at the insubordination of this pup; Sandy could not possibly know about this or she would have had Lander on a short chain. Preferably silver. "May I ask where you left him?"

"You mayn't," Lander drawled, examining his fingernails.

In that split second of inattention, Eric lunged. He grabbed Lander by the shoulders, and kicked his feet out from under him. Lander went down with a roar, but Eric fell on him, smashing him in the face. Bones cracked. Blood spattered.

Lander howled his pain. He shoved Eric hard and rolled them over. Eric had not expected the younger vampire to show such strength, but he regretted taking the time to wonder, as Lander rolled away from him, grabbing the pipe still laying by the car, and swung it. Eric saw the pipe coming, and pulled back a leg to push off the pavement, but the pipe connected with his other outstretched leg. He heard his kneecap crunch milliseconds before the pain swallowed his body and he was flattened by it.

Through eyes squinting in agony, he saw Lander stagger to his feet, swinging the pipe up over his shoulders, aiming for Eric's head. Eric's warrior instincts rolled him over and away, but he slammed up against the car, trapped. He steeled himself for the blow, but before it could come, there was a flash of searing light that made his ears pop. His skin through his clothes felt licked by fire, and his hands flew up to cover his head. Darkness flooded the hole left by the light and colored spots danced in front of his vision.

No longer able to fight the pain, he collapsed on his back, vaguely aware of something fine and soft floating down on him. His thoughts were glazed with hurting and he briefly imagined it was snow.

"Northman?" Now he was hallucinating Rio's sweet voice. Then she touched him and he knew she was real and the blinding light had been her. He sighed and relaxed into his pain. "You're hurt," Rio stated in her usual matter-of-fact tone. "I thought I told you to be careful."

If he could have, Eric would have laughed. He felt her long fingers on his wrecked knee, and sucked air to shriek, but before he could get it out, a molten glow like thick sunlight spread through his entire body. It was like the afterglow from earth-shattering sex, but without all the lust, although he did have that rock-hard erection that exposure to Rio's true self left as its mark on him. Her fingers moved up to stroke him through his jeans, and the throbbing eased. "That was… deflating," he remarked sourly, but the act of speaking sucked grit in his mouth.

He sat up, spitting. "I must have licked the parking lot," he gagged.

Rio shook her head, swinging her long hair. She lifted a pinch of ash from the asphalt. "Nope," she released it to the soft desert breeze, "Vampire."

Eric goggled at her, even though he wasn't the goggling kind, then grinned. "Lander is… gone?" Rio nodded. "You… snuffed him?" Again, just a nod. Lander was dead, and Eric had not killed him. No penalty from the King. No tribute to Lander's maker. Eric whooped like a boy seeing his first naked girl, but that just sucked in more grit. He blew air through his lips, trying to remove the snowy ash that had been Lander. His eyes were burning, both from the intensity of Rio in her true form and the cinders that must be in them. He spoke a little hoarsely, "How did you get here?"

Rio shrugged and motioned toward a scrubby bush, "I came through the plants."

Eric coughed, both from surprise and the ashes in his throat. Somehow he knew she did not mean that she had walked among the plants, but rather that she somehow used them as transportation, sort of like a fairy subway system. Rio extended her hand to help him up and he took it. She gave a little pull and he was on his feet, testing his leg. No pain. It was healed. He looked at her in astonishment. "You're covered in ash," she observed, sweeping her cactus green eyes over him. He raised his hands to brush off, but before he could start, she blew air between her lips. It was the most gentle of puffs, but the ashes rose off him. They watched the ashes swirled away in the dry night air.

Rio turned her face to him, but her eyes landed on the smashed car. She scowled at it.

"Fairest," Eric spoke quietly, "I need to tell you… "

"Northman, you're always needing," Rio said, starting to tease him, but still looking at the car.

Eric took her face in his hands and looked at her. He nodded toward Ailling's car. Rio stared at him and went totally still. Realization of what had happened dawned on her face. Tears welled up in her eyes. Eric folded her in his embrace, holding her close. "No," she snuffled in his shirt. How did she always know everything?

She lifted her tear-streaked face to his; the parking lot lights glistened in the wet tracks. "Who?" she said, and Eric nodded toward the pipe on the ground. "Lander killed him."

Rio's face filled with horror. "Al was… killed by a vampire?"

Eric explained, "Lander read my report to Sandy; he knew that you and Al made enough of a successful team that it jeopardized his taking control of Diablo's."

"So he was going to kill you, too?"

Eric nodded. "If you hadn't come, he might have."

"Is that what I saw? Al dying through vampire eyes?"

"I truly don't know."

"Where is Al?" Rio asked woodenly.

In deference to her tears, Eric held back his glee. "Lander is in no shape to tell us," he said, trying to be solemn. "I did ask him, and took a pipe to the knee for it."

"I'm glad he's dead," she said with icy calm. "I'm glad I killed him." Then she collapsed against Eric, sobbing, "Al, not Al, oh Al noooooo…" Eric had never seen her like this, so young and broken. Her vibrant beauty, her inner strength made her seem ancient, wise, centered. He had never seen the girl of the mere few decades she was right now, stricken with grief.

Rio threw back her head and howled to the sky. The sound stunned his ears and he jumped back from her. She filled with rage. It boiled up in her like lava from the earth's core, super-heated and fizzing red. Her blinding light was leaking out around the edges of her body, dazzling him blind. The air was crackling like an electrical storm was approaching, only a storm would seem puny to what he felt coming. Rio's hair was floating up like gravity had been turned off. Eric dropped flat to the pavement, throwing his arms around his head. Things started burning.

Surrounding scrub burst into flames with swirling sparks. Clumps of grass incinerated into smoke. Pebbles melted and puddled. With a heaving screech, Diablo's tin roof buckled up to the sky and crashed back down inside the building, with the sound of dinosaurs being slaughtered. Flying glass and debris spun in small cyclones around the walls, and as the world went silent again, Eric was covered in a blanket of hot dust.

Eric carefully opened his eyes and raised his head. Rio was standing beside him, her tears spattering in the dust. He stood and reached to fold her in his arms, but she shook her head. "Take me home," she said, just barely audible above the pings and ticks of metal cooling.