The next few days were fairly normal. Azaria returned the following night, full of excitement at the great time she'd had with Dan. He appeared to have made a full recovery, thank goodness and he had made a statement to the Police about the man who had assaulted him and snatched Azaria. They had a strong suspicion that they knew who this man was and arranged for Dan to go in later in the week to attend an Identity Parade.

Bill and I also went down the the Police Station one evening to make statements about our involvement in the case of the recent murders of the two girls and the rescue of the other three. Bill and Ulrich also met with Inspector Felton and his boss one evening to discuss how to deal with Clovis, who was currently under strict guard, supervised by vampire security which had been provided by Ulrich on behalf of The Authority. They were very keen to be seen to co-operate fully with the Police in this matter.

The rest of the time Bill, Azaria and I spent relaxing at the Mill House. Although I have to admit that, after dark, I kept a wary eye on the Mill, just in case! I took Bill for a walk one evening to the village and showed him the three neglected, overgrown graves in the corner of the churchyard. He knelt beside them with his head bowed and ran his fingers over the blank stones.

"No-one even remembered their names" he whispered sadly. "Or perhaps, no-one cared enough to ask. Even I have done better than that, my grave at least has my name on it."

I put my hand gently on his shoulder. "You have a grave?" I asked softly.

He turned and smiled sadly up at me. "Yes, I have." He heaved a great sigh. "When I failed to return home from the war it was assumed that I had perished somewhere on the battlefield and that my body lay undiscovered somewhere, like so many others. There was a family plot in the Bon Temps cemetery and Caroline put up a stone to my memory." He had turned away from me and as I watched a drop of bright red blood fell onto the blank grey stone, followed by another. I slipped my hand up the back of his neck into his thick soft hair and gently stroked his bowed head in silence. What can you possibly say to a man weeping over the memory of his wife putting up a memorial stone to her dead husband?

After a moment Bill turned to me and stood up, two crimson trails running down his pale cheeks, his eyes dark pools of sorrow in his milk white face. "I'm sorry...I..." he said hesitantly. I felt in the pocket of my jeans for a tissue and handed it to him. He gave me a weak little smile and wiped his eyes. Then he reached down and brushed the dirt from the knees of his jeans and put his arm around me. We walked together out of the churchyard and back home in companionable silence.

The next evening I had got up an hour before dusk and cooked myself a meal in the huge stone flagged kitchen before Bill rose. I was just standing at the sink washing up the few dishes I had used when I happened to glance out of the window. The kitchen window looked out across the yard to the Mill and the river. The sun was just setting, throwing deep shadows across the yard and just for a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of someone standing in the open doorway to the Mill, but when I looked back there was nothing but shadow and the darkness of the interior of the building.

I stared out of the window, peering into the shadows, trying hard to see into the darkness, which is probably why I failed to hear or sense Bill come up from the cellar and put his hands around my waist. I screamed with shock and jumped back banging my hip painfully on the edge of the sink.

"Ow! Dammit Bill that hurt! How many times have I got to tell you not to sneak up on me like that!" I snapped at him.

"Oh sweetheart, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you!" He picked me up carefully and carried me over to the kitchen table, setting me down gently on the edge and sliding my cotton trousers down over my bruised hip to examine it.

I leaned forward and rested my forehead on his chest. My heart was pounding as if I had just run a race and I had broken out in a cold sweat with fright. "It's okay, it's just a bruise. I'll be fine honey, honestly. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, you just gave me a fright that's all."

Bill put his hand under my chin, tilted my face upwards and looked down at me seriously. "That was more than just a fright!" he said "I can feel your heart racing from here, whatever's the matter?"

"I just..." I paused, feeling foolish. "Well, I just thought that I saw someone in the doorway to the Mill, that's all."

Bill looked down at me with a tiny smile. "You thought you saw a ghost?" he said gently "and then I crept up on you from behind! No wonder you got a fright!" He leaned forward and kissed my forehead gently. "Shall we go and take a look? I'll hold your hand, I promise!"

I glared up at him angrily. "Don't tease me Bill, I'm serious about this. I can't believe that you, a vampire, are trying to tell me you don't believe in ghosts!"

He reached over and took hold of me by the hips, taking care not to hurt my bruise, and lifted me down from the table. "It's not that I don't believe in them" he said "but I've walked this earth in the darkness for a hundred and forty years and in all that time I've never seen one!" he stopped suddenly and looked back at the kitchen table. "Damn! I had plans for that table!" he said grinning at me. "I can't believe I had you up on there and didn't do anything about it!" he shook his head ruefully. "I must be losing my grip!"

I sniggered. "Come on...I need you as a bodyguard remember! Some other time perhaps." I reached into a kitchen cupboard and pulled out a large powerful looking torch. Bill opened the kitchen door with a sweeping gesture. "Any time you need your body guarding sweetheart, you have only to ask!" We went out into the yard giggling and walked over to the Mill.

I switched on the torch and stepped cautiously through the open doorway. The interior of the Mill was cool and dark, three stories high, the echoing, empty space above us reaching up to the heavy wooden beams far overhead. As I shone the torch into the darkness I could feel Bill's presence directly behind me, tense and ready to spring ahead of me at any moment. He reached forward and gently put his hand on my shoulder. "What did you think you saw?" he asked quietly.

"I'm not sure" I said hesitantly "I just thought I saw a shadowy figure in the doorway, but there's no-one here now is there?" I shone the torch into every dark corner and saw nothing. I was confident that if anyone was in here with us, Bill would know. "Oh well" I sighed "I guess I must have been mistaken." Even as I spoke, I felt it. A shiver of power which made the hairs on my arms rise. I glanced at Bill, but he did not appear to have noticed anything. "Bill!" I hissed. "Something's coming! I can feel it!"

Bill immediately stepped up beside me and I could hear a low rumbling growl coming from him as he looked warily around the Mill. "What is it?" he asked. "I don't see anything?" At that moment the torch went out. I gave a squeak and shook it but nothing happened. Just as I was thinking that I'd better get out of here as I couldn't see anything, I realised that actually, I could. There was light coming from somewhere. I looked over to the well and froze. There was a glow coming up through the well from the millpond beneath our feet.

We watched, astounded as the illumination grew brighter and a small sphere of golden light about the size of a tennis ball rose up from the well and hovered in the air above it. As we watched, it was joined by two more. They hovered in the air for a moment and then sank back down into the millpond and disappeared.

I let out a breath which I hadn't realised that I was holding until that moment. "Okay Mr "I've walked this earth for a hundred and forty years and never seen a ghost!" what was that then?" I asked. Bill was still staring, entranced, at the well. He turned slowly to me "I have no idea!" he said. "But I'd guess it explains the stories."

"The lady in the village store told me that the ghosts came up from the millpond through the well so I suppose that's right." My heart had just about slowed down to a normal pace when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck lift up. They way they do when you can feel that someone is watching you. A breath of air blew in from the open doorway behind us bringing with it a faint scent. I saw Bill's nostrils flare in the dim light as he caught it. It was a slight smell but unpleasant, something rotten, and damp. We both turned slowly to face the door and saw the figure I had glimpsed earlier standing in the shadows. As we watched, it came out into the strip of moonlight shining in through the doorway.

It was a young girl with dark hair, wet hair, plastered to her head and dripping onto the stone floor. She wore a faded skirt which ended just above the ankles, on her feet were sodden leather shoes, the metal buckles brown with rust. A tattered blouse under a rough homespun apron covered her chest and a ragged shawl was wrapped around her shoulders. Water dripped from her clothing and her flesh was pale and very slightly bloated. Her eyes appeared to be blue but were covered with a filmy layer like a cataract.

I went to move forward but Bill stopped me. "Alex, no!" he said "there's nothing there!"

"You can't see her?" I asked, incredulously.

"Yes, I can see her and I can smell her. But that's all. There's no heartbeat, no breathing, absolutely nothing. She's not there! She's not...real!"

I stared at him for a moment and then turned back to the girl. She took a step towards me and Bill stepped forward to block her. Her head turned towards him and I felt her terror of him, deep inside me.

I put out my hand to stop Bill. "Wait!" I said "She's afraid of you."

Bill eyed me with a patient expression. "I get that a lot!" he said.

"No, no you don't understand, she's not afraid of you because you're a vampire. She's afraid of you because you're a man!" I said.

Bill gaped at me. "How could you possibly know that?" he asked.

"I don't know" I answered. "But it's the truth, I just know it."

Something seemed to strike Bill suddenly and he said "Oh! Yes, I see!"

"Just back off a little would you?" I said pushing on his chest slightly. He paused for a moment and then moved back a few paces, reluctantly, still tensed for action.

The girl took another step towards me and reached out as if to touch me. A flare of blind panic raced through me and she suddenly stepped back. I looked down to see the now familiar flame of the fae power flickering over me. I raised my hand and she backed off further. "Okay" I said, feeling a fraction more comfortable. "So long as we understand one another! Now, why are you here? What do you want from me?"

As I watched her I felt relief flood over me and I knew, somehow, that it came from her. Somehow I knew that she had been waiting here, waiting for a hundred and fifty years for someone to ask her this question, to help her. She turned and walked towards the doorway and I felt a strong pull, a compulsion to follow her. She paused in the doorway and looked back over her shoulder at me. I took a deep breath and followed her out of the door. Bill was right behind me. "What do you think you're doing?" he hissed.

"Following her!" I said

"Why?" he asked in an exasperated tone. "And where to?"

"I don't know" I said "We'll find out when we get there."

Bill and I followed the girl out of the Mill and down past the millpond in the bright moonlight. As she began to walk along the river bank below the millpond it became more difficult to see her, as if the further she got from the Mill the weaker she became. She stopped before a great willow tree on the river bank and I noticed that I could see the bark of the tree through her flesh. She looked at me with a hopeful expression in her filmy blue eyes and disappeared.

"Okay" said Bill patiently. "Now what?"

I stood on the bank staring out at the moonlit river. "Three graves" I said thoughtfully.

"What?"

"There were only three graves" I said. "One girl was found floating in the millpond, another was found when Ana's henchman saw Roderick take her body to the Mill. The third was found when they dragged the pond. But she said that four girls went missing, so where's the fourth? She couldn't have been in the millpond or she'd have been found when they searched it. Maybe her body was washed out into the river. Maybe it's here, caught up in the roots of the willow."

Bill gave me another patient look and sighed. "You want me to start digging?" he asked.

I put my hand on his chest. "It's not for me, it's for her."

Bill put his arms around me and gave me a hug. "Yes, I know." He pulled me to him and kissed me gently. "Let's go and get a shovel then."

Hours later, just a few hours before dawn, Bill climbed up out of the hole he had dug between the roots of the great willow tree. I sat on the ground holding a lantern but the moonlight was bright enough to show us what lay tangled in the roots. The bones looked small and lonely in the ghostly white light. The shreds of a woollen shawl were tangled amongst the ribs and the remains of a long cloth skirt lay around the legs. Amongst the bones of the feet were scraps of rotted leather and two rusty metal buckles. Bill squatted down beside me and pulled out his phone.

Within the hour a Police forensic team had gathered on the river bank. Bill had told them at the outset that the body had been there for a very long time but I understood that they had to be sure. As we watched the technicians setting up lights I heard another car arriving and we saw a pair of headlights sweep across the bridge and pull up outside the Mill.

A familiar figure got out and walked over to us.

"Good evening Inspector Felton" said Bill, a little wryly. "I'm sorry to have dragged you from your bed."

The Inspector smiled at him. "Found me another body have you Mr Compton?" he asked.

"Well, there's not very much left of her I'm afraid" said Bill.

"Her?" The Inspector's ears seemed to prick up at this. "You know who she was?"

"I think so" said Bill quietly. "I understand that four girls went missing here in about 1856 or thereabouts. Three of the bodies were found in the millpond here, they are buried in a corner of the churchyard in the village, but the fourth was never found. It seems likely that this is her don't you think?"

The Inspector looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes, I remember the story vaguely" he said. He looked curiously at Bill. "But I was born here, I've lived here all my life, you've only just moved in haven't you? How did you know about this?"

Bill looked back up at the house "Well, actually I've owned this house since the 1930's although I haven't spent much time here before now. It's always been let out before. I heard the story from a friend of mine who was here when it happened."

The Inspector's brow furrowed for a moment and he seemed about to challenge this statement, but then he appeared to grasp what Bill was saying. "A vampire? Your friend is a vampire who was here in 1856?" He stared at Bill for a moment. "And does he know what happened, your friend? Do you know?"

Bill sighed and said quietly "Yes Inspector, I know. It's a long and not very pleasant story and it happened a long time ago. I'll tell you the story if you want me to but please believe me when I say that the murderer was punished for what he did!"

Inspector Felton was silent for a moment. "I've seen a little of the paperwork in our archives, what little there is. Someone else disappeared at the same time, the son of some local landowner, nasty piece of work from what I can gather. Did he have anything to do with it?"

Bill stood, equally silent for a moment and then gave the Inspector a little nod. Felton gave a little sigh and nodded to himself. "I suspected as much, and your friend...?" Bill said nothing and the Inspector stood for a moment in thought. "You've always struck me as a man with a strong sense of justice Mr Compton" he said after a moment. Then he straightened up and appeared to shake himself. "Well" he said, beckoning to a couple of constables who were walking towards us from the river bank "it looks like you need a historian Mr Compton, not a Police Officer." He turned to the constables. "Well, what did forensics say?"

"They reckon the body's been there for at least a hundred years Sir, probably more" said the first constable. "Nothing that we need to worry about. The vicar's arrived . He wants to know if we should call an undertaker, and what will happen to the bones?"

"Perhaps you would ask him to make the arrangements for her burial?" asked Bill "I'll be glad to pay any fees."

"Ah, here he is now Sir" said the constable. We turned to see a tall, thin, stooped man in a dusty black suit walking gingerly along the river bank towards us. With a slight start I recognised him as the man I had seen watching me in the churchyard. That explained it then!

"Mr Rushworth" said the Inspector turning to the vicar. "This is Mr Compton. He owns the Mill."

"Ah yes!" said the vicar, peering at Bill over his spectacles. "You're the vampire then?" I noticed Inspector Felton rolling his eyes, out of sight of the vicar.

Bill smiled. "Yes that's right" he said. "I would be happy to pay for this poor girl's bones to be buried with her friends in your churchyard….if you think that would be appropriate?"

"Oh, yes! Yes certainly" said the vicar. "I understand that the Police have no interest in the remains?" he asked.

"That's right Sir" said the Inspector. "Our forensics people say they are well over a hundred years old. There's a limit to what we can do in these circumstances I'm afraid."

Bill gazed out over the river to where the forensic team were packing up. "All we can do for this poor child is to bury her bones, and may God have mercy on her soul" he said softly.

The vicar looked up, startled and stared at Bill for a moment. Bill seemed to feel his eyes on him and turned. "Is something wrong Mr Rushworth?" he asked with a polite smile.

"No, not at all" said the vicar. "I was a little surprised, that's all." Bill raised an eyebrow. "I…um…..didn't really expect you to have any faith in God's mercy Mr Compton….in the circumstances."

"Circumstances…..?" asked the Inspector, looking obviously confused. Bill, on the other hand, merely looked resigned. "Since, as a vampire of course, he has no soul" explained Mr Rushworth quite calmly, as if he were explaining something perfectly obvious, to a child. Something as normal as the fact that Bill had brown hair or blue eyes.

I must admit that I thought the Inspector, who had always struck me as a very open-minded man, looked quite shocked at this pronouncement, but Bill just gave me a tiny smile. I guessed he was used to this. He turned back to the vicar and said "Perhaps I could ask you to make the necessary arrangements on my behalf?" He gave him a rather chilly smile "it probably wouldn't be appropriate for me to do it myself….in the circumstances." The vicar looked a little abashed at this and hurriedly agreed to make the funeral arrangements himself. Bill gave him a little nod and put his arm around me. "I think that's probably all Inspector, I'll be up at the house if you need me." He gave a somewhat dismissive nod to the vicar and we turned and strolled back up to the house.

The funeral was held two nights later. Mr Rushworth, showing a little more consideration than I might have expected "in the circumstances" had arranged for it to be held in the evening so that Bill could attend. Which was only fair, since he was paying for it. We stood hand in hand, beside the grave which had been carefully dug in the corner of the churchyard, beside the others and looked down on the plain wooden coffin.

"We still don't know her name" I murmured quietly.

"I don't think she minds" answered Bill.

Someone had alerted the local press and a photographer was diligently trying to photograph me and Bill, but was being severely hampered by Azaria. She had been out with Dan the night we found the bones but had insisted on coming with us to the funeral and was determined that we would not be bothered by reporters! We waited at the lychgate for her to catch up and walked back home together.

When we got back Azaria headed downstairs to her room and I made for the fridge for a glass of wine. I felt I needed it! As I opened the fridge door I suddenly felt something. A pulling sensation. I stood up and looked out of the kitchen window at the Mill. I turned to Bill who was standing beside the kitchen table watching me.

"She's back!" I said.

"What?" he said. "But why?"

"Lets go and find out." I was through the door before I'd finished the words but Bill was beside me when I got across the yard. I walked carefully through the door, Bill holding tight to my hand, and looked around. She was standing by the well, just where I had seen her before. But she was different this time. I let go of Bill's hand and walked towards her, marvelling at the change in her appearance. Her long skirt was made of a blue and brown check and her blouse was crisp and white. A clean apron covered the front of the skirt and a warm looking woollen shawl hung from her shoulders. The metal buckles on her shoes were shiny and caught the faint moonlight, gleaming under the hem of her skirt. Her skin was clear and rosy and her blue eyes watched me with a bright interest. She smiled at me and then her eyes moved to look over my shoulder.

I turned to see that Bill had flattened himself against the wall beside the door. As I watched, wide-eyed, I saw the three lights that we had seen several nights ago. They drifted into the Mill through the open doorway, darted over to the girl and began to spin around her. She watched them with a delighted expression and I saw her lips move as though she was speaking to them, although I could hear nothing.

Gradually the movement of the lights slowed and they began to expand until three figures stood around the girl. Three other girls in similar clothing who reached out their hands and formed a circle around her. Their skin glowed with a soft golden light and as we watched the light grew brighter until we could hardly look at it. Just as I was about to look away I saw the girl in the centre of the circle turn her head and smile at me, a gentle, grateful smile, and then suddenly they were gone.

Bill and I stood frozen for a moment and then I stepped forward towards the well. Bill jumped forwards and grabbed my hand. "Careful!" he whispered. "Can you feel anything?"

I stood beside the well and looked around, trying to feel for anything in the darkness. "No, nothing! They're gone." I turned back to Bill with a smile. "I think I understand now! They were the ghosts here, not her! They were separated from her somehow and were waiting for her, waiting for her to be found and buried with them. They were her friends and they wouldn't leave without her!"

Hours later, just before dawn Bill and I lay entwined together in the bed downstairs in the old wine cellar. He had made love to me slowly and gently, but somehow something felt wrong, his usual fire was missing. I reached out through the bond to him and felt a vague sense of distress.

Snuggling up into his arms I laid my head on his chest and asked "what's wrong sweetheart?"

Bill looked down at me for a moment. "I can't hide anything from you can I?" he asked ruefully.

"No, you can't" I said. "So what is it?"

Bill heaved a sigh and rolled onto his back. "It's just all this talk of souls" he said. "You heard the Reverend, he gave us the Church's line – "vampires have no soul." You remember how Clovis said that he didn't fear the True Death?" Bill turned to look at me. "Well, I do. I fear it." He stared at me with a bleak expression in his beautiful eyes. "I was brought up as a good Christian. I took my family to church every Sunday, not just because it was the custom, but because I had faith. But when..." his voice faltered and failed. "Well, I guess I must have lost it along the way somewhere. I always believed that when I died, something of me would survive, go on somehow. That I would see my wife and family again..." He turned to me, his blue eyes glazed with pink from unshed tears. "But what if they're right Alex? What if I have lost my soul...what then? Will I end up like those girls, lost, waiting in the darkness for a redemption that will never come? Or will everything I was, be just...gone? What will become of me?"

I reached over and gently stroked his pale cheek. "Oh sweetheart" I said "I don't believe that for a moment. How can they say that every vampire is the same...they're not, you know that better than anyone. Black or white, good or evil, things are never that simple are they? I believe that you have a soul."

"Why?" he asked quietly.

I lay back and thought for a moment, trying to find the words to explain what I felt in my heart. "I'm no theologian" I said hesitantly, "but I think that maybe peoples' souls are all different. Perhaps some are stronger than others. I remember hearing something when I was a child which made quite an impression on me. I can't quite remember what it was, a story or a poem, but it said that every evil thing you do diminishes your soul. That would mean that some people, if they were evil in life, may lose their souls when they are turned, but I don't believe that happens to everyone. I think that you were a good man in life Bill, with a strong, healthy soul and that when you were turned, your soul was damaged, severely. But you didn't lose it. And that after a while, it began to try to repair itself." I gazed across into the deep blue pools of his eyes. "You've told me how, when you were first turned and you lived with Lorena, you surrendered to the darkness, what was it you said? "I became the monster." But that, after a while you began to change. You began to struggle to regain your humanity. I think that was your soul trying to restore itself. And that everything you've done since then has had an effect on it."

He was lying on his side in still silence watching me. "I know there's darkness in you still, I've seen it. But there's good in you as well, I've seen that too. You've tried to live a good life, even before the Revelation when I can't begin to imagine how difficult it must have been for you, you still tried. And I believe that since then every good thing you've done has enhanced your soul, enabled it to grow, to recover from the trauma of your turning."

I fell silent and watched him think about this.

"Do you really believe that?" he asked softly.

"Yes, I really do" I said firmly "I simply cannot believe that a soulless monster would have deliberately put himself before a man with a gun and taken half a dozen bullets for me. You might have known that they probably wouldn't kill you, but you couldn't possibly have been sure. What happened to Marcus could just as easily have happened to you. You risked your life to protect me, no monster would do that."

Bill gave the ghost of a smile. "Don't think I haven't wondered why I did that myself!" he said grimly. "I simply didn't think about it. I just knew I couldn't bear to lose you...that I loved you. Perhaps it was purely selfish." He gave a sigh. "You don't think you're just being optimistic? Trying to see me in a good light?"

"No" I answered. "I'd like to see the world through a nice rosy glow believe me! I'd love to believe that there are no monsters out there, but there are! I've met some of them. Lazlo, Clovis, even Morgan, and humans too, like Roderick Courcey, they were true monsters. I can easily believe that the Church is right about them, but not you, nor others like you."

Bill reached over and gathered me into his arms. He kissed me tenderly and as we lay quietly together I reached out again through the bond and felt nothing but a silent contentment and peace.