She was covered with the blood of her victims, splashes and splatters and smears, layer upon layer. Dried and caked against her skin, clotting in her hair; some still moist, just beginning to lose its glistening freshness. The remaining rags of her clothes were glued to her skin by dried and drying blood. Clots and strings of blood slid down her legs and dripped off her bare feet. Her wings hung from her back like blood-soaked weapons.

Ammon hadn't seen Lena like this in all of the millennia they had fought together. She had been a tremendous warrior, but in his experience she had never been a butcher, until now. He stared, horrified. Leylak grabbed the grandchildren and dragged them into the house.

Only Hal was unaffected by her appearance. He walked toward her calmly, a smile playing across his face. She looked like a vampire at the end of a three-day binge.

Her eyes were clear and calm, although shadowed with pain and sadness. She looked exhausted, but she lit up as she surveyed Hal with appreciation. She liked the way he looked in the loose cotton shirt and trousers. He was untucked, relaxed, sexy.

He stopped a few feet from her. "I don't suppose you'd let me lick you clean?" he asked, hiding his relief at her return with a jest and his wicked grin.

"Fuck you," she responded with a casual laugh. "I'm hitting the showers."

She went to her rooms and walked straight into the shower, wings, clothes and all. Eventually she was able to furl her wings and peel off her clothes and shove them into a corner of the stall. It took an hour of soaping and scrubbing and turning under the shower spray to get to the point where she finally felt clean.

When she turned off the shower and reached for a towel, she heard Hal's voice call from the next room. "Feeling better, my lady?"

"Much, thanks," she replied. "Did you sneak in here when Ammon wasn't looking?"

"Never fear, I am appropriately chaperoned."

Rya spoke up. "I'm keeping him company. He's quite charming," she said as she entered the bathroom with a robe over her arm. She added quietly, "He was careful to avoid the blood until we could clean it up."

"Thank you, Rya," Lena said softly, "for everything."

Lena put on the soft cotton robe and walked into her bedroom, where Hal smiled warmly at her from the arched and latticed doorway. He reached out for her, took her hand, and held it for a moment as her contact settled him in a way that nothing else could. Only with the return of her touch would Hal admit to himself how much he had missed her. He led her into the sitting room, to the table in the corner, where he had tea laid out and waiting.

"I thought you might be hungry," he said casually as he guided her into a chair and brought her tea from the samovar. "I doubt you stopped to eat. By the way," he added, looking her over with appreciation as she gratefully sat down and accepted the tea, "your badass-in-a-bathrobe routine is sexy as hell."

Rya left them and they ate quietly, thankful for each other's company after their time apart. Hal watched her carefully. He was concerned at the sadness she carried, at the tired way she moved, as if she were burdened by a great weight. Perhaps she had seen too much blood and death, even for her.

They spoke of unimportant things; they were at ease with each other. Finally Lena asked about Andrzej.

"Ammon and I bonded over his excruciating death," Hal answered. "I like your cousin, and his family. They have treated me well, although I'm sure it's for your sake."

"Not necessarily," she said. "Ammon has wanted to meet you for centuries. A lover who could walk away from me, who wasn't willing to die for me." She smiled wryly.

"I was willing to die for you," he answered quietly. "Why do you think I ended up on the battlefield at Orsha? I had nothing left to live for."

"But you didn't die, did you Hal? You chose life as a vampire instead." There was no bitterness in her voice, only a statement of truth.

"I did. As far as I knew, there was nobody in the world who would care either way." He shrugged, his eyes growing cold as he remembered the anger and hatred and despair that had fueled his decision.

He took a drink of tea and stared at the dregs in his cup. "And a part of me knew that it was the only chance I had to see her again. To see you again." He sighed. "Then I discovered what it meant to be a vampire and I hoped that I never would. I didn't want to kill my Nastusia, whatever she may have thought of me."

"She loved you Hal. She loved you as well as she could."

"I know that now." He smiled at her, a huge radiant smile that felt like sunshine on her skin, and she got lost in it for a moment.

She jerked herself back to the present as Ammon knocked at the door and came in. "Cousin, you look much better."

She got up to give him a hug. "Thank you for taking care of Hal."

"It was our pleasure. He's quite charming."

"So I've heard," she said as she returned to her seat.

Ammon got to the point of his visit. "When do you want to give your narrative? I will make arrangements."

"Ammon, I don't know if I can give a narrative."

"It is important that you do," Ammon replied, "especially as you weren't under orders. You will need to document carefully both your motivation and the results."

"Shit. Okay, set it up as quickly as you can. I need to go home." She slid a hand across the table and Hal covered it with his own. He agreed. They needed to go home.

Ammon suspected that Lena was holding something back. He looked at her carefully. "Cousin, what have you done?" he asked ominously.

She shrugged and didn't answer. Finally she said, "I'll be okay for a little while, just make it quick."

At Hal's puzzled look, Lena added, "Some residual effects. I'd rather deal with it at home."

After Ammon left, Lena explained the narrative she was to give. "It's how we document our history, how we educate future generations, and how we hold ourselves accountable. We provide a narrative of our activities as Seraphin Nepos, and that narrative is recorded. Sometimes they serve as lessons on hand-to-hand combat, or military strategy, or cultural history. My narrative may be a cautionary tale."

Hal was concerned for her. "Do you believe you did something wrong? Are you expecting to be punished?"

She shook her head. "Who among them can punish me? And no, I did nothing wrong, based on the morals with which I was raised. But Hal, I'm ancient. I've been here since practically the beginning of mankind. My style of justice doesn't sit well with the modern world. I can read the souls of men; I can find the murderers, and the rapists, and the child molesters. I give you my word that every man who died by my hand was irredeemable."

"Then you know what you need to say in your narrative."

A member of the household staff came to clean away their tea and Hal excused himself so that Lena could dress. He stepped out of her rooms and saw a deeply worried Ammon signaling him from several feet away.

"What?" Hal asked as he walked quickly over to Ammon.

"Lena is a healer," Ammon said grimly.

"I know," Hal replied.

"She took their injuries. I can see the pain in her eyes. The women, the children, God knows how many." Ammon shook his head. "More than she should have. She is holding it in, but it sits like a tiger in her gut, waiting to tear through her as soon as she lets down her guard."

"Christ! Why?" Hal began to shake at the thought of what Lena had done. What kind of horror had she prepared for herself?

"It's her nature; it's how she balances the deaths. She can't help herself." Ammon put a hand on Hal's shoulder and squeezed. "Whatever you do, brother, don't leave her alone. Prepare yourself. She will need you more than you know."

Ammon left to finish preparing for Lena's narrative. Hal returned to the shade of the loggia and waited for her, calling once more on the self-control he needed to remain calm. He wouldn't let her see that he was terrified for her.

When Lena finished changing clothes she opened her door to find Hal leaning against the wall just outside. He followed her back inside and took the comb from her hand.

"Sit down," he said, and when she had done so, he combed the tangles from her hair. "Would you like it in a braid for the trip home?" he asked, his hands already dividing the wavy mass of flames and gold into thirds as he spoke.

"Yes, please," she replied, and sat quietly while he corralled her hair into a braid. His hands trembled briefly until he stilled them.

"You beautiful fool," he muttered as he worked.

"Ammon told you, then," she said calmly.

"Yes."

"Just as well. It saves me the trouble."

"How bad…?" he couldn't finish the question.

"I don't know," she said, a note of tension in her voice. "I've never taken this much at once. It'll be bad, Hal, but it will pass. No real damage, no real blood. Just the pain. It will pass."

He put a hair band on the end of her braid, set his hands on her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. "All done, my lady. Shall we see if they are ready for your narrative?"

They went together to Ammon's library, where the cast was assembled as before. One of the scribes looked at Hal.

"This is a private meeting, Seraphin Nepos only."

"There is no meeting unless he stays," Lena replied.

He stayed.

Hal guided her to a leather sofa big enough for the both of them and settled her on the end. He sat next to her, enclosing her with the arm of the sofa on her side and his own arm behind her back. He wanted her to feel protected. He didn't care that the recording equipment had been set up in a different part of the room. Let them move their damned equipment. Lena owed them no favors.

She held his hand while she told the narrative, beginning with her departure from Ammon's house and ending with her return. She listed each location and what drew her; she explained that she had tuned her senses for the particular agony of women and children, and that she was drawn by the presence of evil and clusters of murderous souls to those places where the innocent suffered most.

She closed her eyes and replayed the events in her mind in order to remember more clearly. She spoke calmly and concisely. "I peeled the roofs from buildings and slaughtered multiples of men in a sweep…I swept child prostitutes and starving babies into my arms…I carried them to safety before returning…I killed all of their keepers…I burned entire blocks of squalid shacks in order to drive out the rats who were hiding…I chased them down and killed them all."

She told of old men raping their child brides—men who would never rape again. She spoke of pimps and gangsters who claimed to own their women, and who were shocked to find themselves powerless against the woman who destroyed them. She explained that she had disemboweled drug dealers who used women as mules and killed them by cutting the cargo from their stomachs. She spoke of jungle overlords, desert thugs and suave businessmen who died at her hand, their mutilated bodies dropped in public areas as a warning to others who might take their places.

She mentioned briefly the demons that had fled or fallen and the curses that had disintegrated under her blades. Some she had caught and rent with her bare hands as she tore their owners to shreds. Her focus this time had been on the humans who accepted and spread their evil.

She explained that she had circled the world and found the worst of men and destroyed them. She hoped that a balance had somehow been struck, and that men would think twice about considering women nothing more than property, or an implement for them to use as they chose. As she said those words she opened her eyes and looked at the Seraphin Nepos in the room with her. Even the women were appalled at the destruction she had described, and the men sat in uncomfortable silence. Except for Ammon. He nodded in agreement. He had learned the value of women long ago.

Hal met her look. "Today was a good day for me to be soulless," he said with a half-smile, "or I would have been first on your list."

"True," she agreed. "Vampires weren't the focus for the day's activities. Maybe next time."

He chuckled as a thought occurred to him. "You are the most amazing woman I've ever met. You realize what you've done, don't you? You just gave a huge "Fuck You" to half the population of the planet and made them take it." He laughed out loud. "My god, you are incredible!"

"I did, didn't I?" She was pleased to realize it. They were alone in their enjoyment of the moment, however, as the rest of the group had a more serious take on her activities.

One of the scribes spoke up. "May I ask a question?" Lena nodded. "What caused your decision to take this course of action?"

She took a moment to respond. She had expected the question, but also knew that her answer was complicated.

"Historically I have fought against the slave trade and in particular against sex slavery. If you have studied the records you will know that when I have felt particularly distressed by the state of the world I would focus my attention in those areas, often with bloody results."

"Yesterday I discovered that my lover and I had been betrayed by a Seraphin Nepos in my employ, a man who believed that he had the right to choose the course of my life simply because he was a man and I am a woman. He cost us a human relationship, the chance to raise our child together, the chance to be happy for the length of a human lifetime. I understand that he has been dealt with."

Hal and Ammon nodded their confirmation. The other Seraphin Nepos in the room exchanged glances; they had been unaware of this part of the story.

"The rage I felt at this creature's arrogant interference in my life reminded me that the same thing, and much worse, happens to women all over the world simply because they are women. Children are often even greater victims. I remembered my allegiance to the victims who have no one to save them, and I focused my rage on their killers."

"By whose orders did you do this thing?"

"I had no orders."

"Then what right did you have to take human life?"

"It is my birthright."

"Can you please explain what you mean?"

Lena looked at the Seraphin Nepos who had asked the questions. "Have you read our history? Because I'm not in the mood to give you a history lesson and the answer to your question is right there."

Ammon interjected. "He's young, and a pedant. He knows a great deal but understands very little. Humor him."

Lena sighed. "Fine Ammon, but only because you asked me to. Anyone else I'd tell to go piss up a rope."

"Let's start at the beginning then. When I was young my family asked me to choose the course of my life. My family at the time was my grandfather the archangel Raphael, my grandmother, who was human; my father the archangel Michael, and my mother the Nephilim Agraja. They had all worked to ascertain and develop the gifts that I possess so that I could make the best decision."

"When I chose to protect humanity I was given the responsibility of judging and meting out justice. In the course of doing so I have killed more people than everyone in this room combined, including the man sitting next to me. I have been able to kill without falling into evil because I have the ability to determine who is corrupted beyond redemption. I can read souls the way you read a child's primer. It is the greatest gift, and greatest burden, that I possess."

"Seraphin Nepos of power can sense the soul in a person, and some can sense the extent to which that soul harbors good and evil. I can look at a person, or another Seraphin Nepos for that matter, and tell you every dark secret that you hope to God never sees the light of day. It takes focus and concentration, but I can do it. Would you like me to demonstrate?"

Lena's eyes had begun to harden and glow as she explained herself. Now she turned them, diamond-bright, on the youth who had questioned her. Pale and trembling, he slowly shook his head and mouthed the word 'no.' She studied him for a long moment as the hint of a smile played at one corner of her mouth. She was reading his soul. Finally she broke contact with the arch of an eyebrow, and surveyed the room again.

"Are there any more questions?" she asked nonchalantly.

"I have one," a young woman said. "Are you aware that you have started a revolution? It's all over the media. Women are marching in the streets, wearing angel wings, demanding their rights." She turned her laptop around so Lena and Hal could see news footage of street protests in cities around the world.

"It isn't just that. Talk about the great bloody angel is everywhere. They're using you as a symbol for the revolution." Again she turned her laptop around to show a graphic representation of angel wings with a sword sitting vertically between them. It was discreetly representational of female genitalia.

"You've become symbolic," Hal said to Lena.

"Hmm. Usually I'm just metaphoric."

"Whereas I am merely fictional. You've trumped me once again, my lady."

The female scribe was frustrated with their offhand manner. "Don't you understand? You've changed the course of history!"

"You haven't been around very long, have you?" Lena asked. "People are always changing the course of history. History is fluid, it is meant to be changed. And people are strange creatures. This may be a big thing, or in a year it may be nothing."

A male scribe spoke up. "You've told of hunting down and killing murderers but you sit next to a creature who is more deadly than any person you killed. How can you do that?"

"Because I'm not allowed to kill him," Lena answered. "I tried to kill him, but I was forbidden. Surely you know the story. Oh, and by the way, he has a name. It's Hal Yorke."

"But you act as though you enjoy his company."

"Well, he is quite charming," Lena said with a smile.

Ammon chuckled, "The members of my family have certainly found him so. He has been an excellent guest, and the grandchildren say he is a master at hide-and-seek."

"Hide-and-seek? You?" Lena stared at Hal, clearly surprised.

"I was particularly good at seeking," Hal replied, referring to his vampire abilities. "And don't worry, no creatures were harmed in the making of our fun."

Lena turned to the scribe who had questioned her. "He is with me because I couldn't allow a vampire of his caliber to remain loose in the world, and I couldn't kill him or arrange for someone else kill him. In fact, I can't even step aside and just let someone else kill him. If I know about it, I have to prevent it."

"Essentially, she's my bodyguard," Hal said with a smirk.

"I am, but with the understanding that you don't drink blood and you don't kill," she replied.

"Without permission. I don't kill without permission."

"My apologies. You don't kill without permission." She accepted his amendment to her statement.

"So you live with him? Is he your consort? What are you doing with this vampire?" The scribe was appalled by the implications of their obvious affection for each other.

Lena grinned at Hal as she answered, "Anything I want."

He gave her a seductive look in return. "That is my fervent hope, my lady," he said, and he kissed her hand. She rolled her eyes.

"And right now, what I want is to take him home." Hal took the hint and stood up, drawing Lena after him. She gave her cousin a twisted half-smile. "Ammon, a pleasure as always. Perhaps we can stay longer next time."

Ammon nodded his goodbye as Hal and Lena wrapped their arms loosely around each other and their bubble of eternity formed around them. With a burst of energy they were gone.

# # #

They returned to the dining room at Honolulu Heights, just about where they had been standing when they left. Their new musical instruments were still on the table. The television was on, the story of the women's revolution pouring from the screen. Tom sat in the middle of the sofa, arms spread across the sofa back, a fierce grip on the cushions. Alex straddled him, trying to kiss his face as he ducked and weaved and squawked "that don't feel right!" and "you need to get off me now!"

"C'mon Tom, hold still. I can't help it if it tingles, I'm still workin' on it," she said as she tried to catch his face in her hands.

"This is new," Hal said with a smile.

Tom grabbed Alex around the waist and shoved her off of him as he jumped up, red-faced and stuttering. "You're back! We was just- she was- practicing. Tangibility. On my face."

"That's exactly what it looked like," Hal said as Alex righted herself with a huff and stood next to Tom.

Hal expected Lena to join him in teasing their friends, but instead he felt her stagger against him and grab his arm.

"Hal!" She called his name as a warning before the word devolved into a scream as she doubled over with pain. Hal followed her down as she fell, broke her fall, and knelt beside her as she curled into a writhing ball on the floor. The shadows of bruises, burns, cuts, and gashes rippled over her like a slow-motion scene in a slasher film.

"Hal, what's happening?" Tom cried as he and Alex rushed to them. "What's wrong with her?"

"She took their injuries, the people she saved," Hal said as he struggled to hold her.

"What can we do?" Alex was begging for a way to help. "Hal! What can we do?"

Lena fought back from the pain, found Hal's eyes, and reached out to him.

"Take me…to my…room," she gasped out. He lifted her into his arms.

"Keep them…out," Lena whispered, clutching Hal's shirt to pull herself close to his ear. "Too much…too much." She inhaled with a hiss through clenched teeth as another wave of injury and pain worked its way through her. Hal heard the whisper of breaking bones and saw shadows that he recognized as the marks of clubs on her body as he carried her grimly to her room.

Tom and Alex followed, unsure of what to do but determined to help if they could.

"Hal? What can we do?" Tom asked this time. Alex was beyond words.

"Nothing," Hal said. "There's nothing any of us can do. Just stay out. She wants you to stay out."

Hal laid Lena on her bed and held her as she rolled onto her side and bit into her pillow to stifle her screams. She gripped her bedspread in both hands, balled it under her and wrapped herself around it.

He turned to see Tom and Alex in the doorway. "Get out! Please! She doesn't want you to see this!" Tom pushed Alex out of the doorway and shut the door behind them, leaving Hal alone with her.

Lena flipped onto her back and tore the bedspread nearly in half as her arms and legs stiffened and spasms racked her body. She twisted and writhed; Hal saw the shadows of bruises and burns and bite marks cross her exposed skin and he remembered that she had rescued victims of torture and sexual abuse.

"Dear God," he whispered, as he watched her suffer. He recognized most of her injuries because he had seen them on his own victims.

Curses and tears poured from her. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs, making herself as small as possible as the lash of the whip flared over her. Explosions of agony contorted her; black despair, shame, humiliation, and fear consumed her as they had consumed the people she had touched. Time and place were overrun by the endless torment.

Hal held her, soothed her, and kept her from injuring herself in her struggle against the phantom injuries that maintained all of their brutal agony. He wrestled with her and against her. He gave her bedding to tear when she reached for her own hair. He cleaned the pieces of pillow from her mouth and found her another section to bite down on when she started to scream. Her eyes thanked him when they could focus, and when they couldn't he watched her anyway, and judged her torment by what he saw in them.

An hour passed, and a second one. Hal cried for her, he begged for someone, anyone, for God, to help her. Finally he called Raphael's name, and the archangel appeared.

"Do something!" Hal demanded hoarsely, his voice desperate and raw.

"There is nothing for me to do," Raphael said. "She chose this. She isn't a victim asking to be rescued. She took the burden and must carry it."

"Can't you take some of it away? Please, it is killing her," Hal said. He was already on his knees by her bed, so it was easy for him to beg the angel to help her. He would have gotten on his belly and groveled, but he didn't want to be that far away from her.

"It isn't killing her Hal. She will live through this," Raphael said, trying to comfort him. He sat on the edge of the bed and rested a hand on Lena's forehead for a moment. His face grew stern as he sensed how much more suffering there was for her. "Pain, once created, must be felt," Raphael said. "I can't take it from her because she chose to feel it, and I can't feel it for her because I don't feel pain the way humans do."

Hal narrowed his eyes at Raphael. There was an answer somewhere in what the angel said, if he could just figure it out. "You can't feel the pain, but someone else could?" Hal could tell by the look on Raphael's face that he had hit upon the truth. "I can take some of it. How do I take some of it, make her give me some of it?"

"She is beyond our reach, Hal. She can't make that choice anymore, and if she could she wouldn't allow it," Raphael said. "I could make the choice for her but she would be very angry with me later, with both of us I would expect."

"I don't care!"

"She won't like it," Raphael said.

"I don't give a good goddamn what she likes or what she wants! This is what she needs! Tell me how to take some of it for her!" Hal yelled at the archangel while he held Lena to keep her from falling off her bed. She was writhing again, panting from pain through gritted teeth.

Raphael laid a hand on Lena's forehead and his other hand on Hal's. Her frantic movements calmed slightly as a wave of pain rolled through Hal and he saw the shadows on his skin, just as he saw them on hers.

"More," he said. Another wave of pain—the sensation of fists and clubs and chains pounding on his body—and Hal gasped and twisted away from Raphael's hand. The pain subsided, the marks faded as his regenerative powers worked to restore him.

Hal grabbed the metal bed frame with both hands to keep himself from pulling away from the pain. He prepared to bite into the edge of the mattress to keep from screaming.

"More."

He watched Lena's arching body settle as agony smashed into him. Hal caught the full force of piercing, searing torment in organs he didn't possess and shook with terror that wasn't his. He hadn't realized that she carried the emotional as well as the physical damage from the people she had healed. He lost himself in a woman's anguish, in the anguish of a dozen women, in the wordless terror of children too young for language, whose bodies had been torn and broken.

He shuddered and twisted and screamed against his clenched teeth. He fought against the violations he felt and concentrated instead on the stream of obscenities and prayers that crowded his consciousness. He would do anything, pay any price, kill anyone, to stop the horrors that battered his body and his mind. Finally, thankfully, the pain subsided, the terror waned. He breathed and spit out a chunk of mattress. He flexed his fingers to make sure nothing was broken, shifted position, and braced himself again.

"More."

# # #

Tom and Alex sat together in the corridor and listened to the wretchedness coming from Lena's room until they couldn't stand it any longer. They went to Tom's room and lay together on his bed as they had become accustomed to doing at night.

Alex wrapped a pillow around her head, curled into a ball of misery and sobbed for her friend. Tom stayed close to her and comforted her with words and touch as her tangibility allowed. She flickered like a dying candle and sometimes his hand would rest briefly on her arm before dropping through her onto his bed.

Finally Alex said, "I have to see, Tom, I'll be right back."

She rent-a-ghosted into Lena's room and saw a third person there, a man, a handsome hippy whose presence generated its own energy. Lena's grandfather? He had a hand resting on her forehead and one on Hal's, and Hal was suffering some kind of misery. Lena was twisting in pain as well. Alex took a step toward the hippy-angel man, unsure of what to do. Should I try to stop him from hurting Hal?

Raphael saw the young ghost and smiled at her. "Hal is taking some of her pain," he said quietly. "His choice. I am facilitating. And yes, I am Lena's grandfather. My name is Raphael."

Alex popped back to Tom's room with her report, and he leaped up and rushed to Lena's room to see for himself what was happening. He froze for a moment at the sight of his friends suffering together, both of them wracked with pain, tear-stained and trembling.

"You're givin' Hal some of Lena's pain," Tom said to the angel-man.

"Yes. He asked me to, so he could help her through it," Raphael replied.

"Can you give me some too? I'm strong, I heal quick, the wolf sees to that." Tom moved a step closer to Raphael as he spoke. Courage had never been a problem for Tom McNair. He had plenty, and loyalty as well.

Raphael studied him for a moment, then shook his head. "No, Tom, I'm sorry but I can't." As Tom began to argue, the archangel continued. "This is more than physical pain. Lena carries the emotional burden, and knowledge of the horror and evil that caused the suffering. You are innocent of those things, and I can't be the one who scars your soul with them. It would damage you too much. You should leave. I'll call you when it's over."

Alex pulled Tom from the room and shut the door behind them. They stared at each other, images of their friends in agony and the desolation growing around them seared into their brains.

"They'll need us later, Tom, to clean up the mess and take care of them," Alex said. "They'll need to rest, and eat, and I don't know what, but we'll take care of it."

Tom nodded. "They're tearin' the bed apart. We'll need to bring in another one. And give them a wash, their faces at least, and yeah. I don't know what, but we'll take care of it Alex."

"Chicken soup," Alex said.

"What?"

"We can make chicken soup. C'mon Tom, we have to do something. We can get ready, for when they are ready for us."

They went to the kitchen and made tea, and chicken soup, and waited. Finally Raphael appeared in a quick surge of energy.

"It's over," he said. He disappeared again.

They went to Lena's room and found the angel waiting amid the piles of shredded fabrics and foam that had been Lena's bedding. She was quiet, unconscious on what remained of the bed. Her clothes were torn, her shoes missing. Hal was passed out on the floor next to the twisted metal bed frame.

"They should stay together, if possible," Raphael said.

"Hal's room is next door," Tom replied as he and Alex moved to pick up their friends. Alex reached for Hal so she could rent-a-ghost him, but Raphael stopped her. He stooped, picked up the limp vampire carefully, and cradled him in his arms. Hal was as close to dead as they had ever seen him—no breath, no heartbeat—a cold, still corpse.

Raphael looked in quiet admiration at the creature he held. "He was…extraordinary."

Tom carried Lena into Hal's room, with Raphael following. Alex threw back the bedspread and popped out and back with a second pillow so they would each have one. Tom laid Lena on the bed first; he figured that Hal would want her tucked safely between him and the wall. Raphael laid Hal next to her.

"I'll leave you to it," he said. He looked at the two figures resting against each other on Hal's narrow bed. "Extraordinary," he murmured again, and was gone.

Tom took off Hal's shoes and socks and Alex washed their faces and hands. Finally Hal breathed, a breath that carried the words "my lady." Tom gently put Lena's hand in Hal's so he would know she was with him. Hal felt the contact and roused himself enough to wearily carry Lena's hand to his chest and set it over his dead heart, where it lay, palm up. He covered it with his hand; his fingers rested on her weakened pulse. Tom and Alex watched and waited. Hal breathed again. His heart beat once...Again...Again...Hal found his heartbeat in the rhythm of Lena's pulse.

"I reckon they'll be all right," Tom said. "They just need to sleep."

"So do you, Tom," Alex said. "You go on. I can check on them."

Tom hesitated, then smiled awkwardly. "I don't guess that soup is done? It smells good, Alex, and I'm dead hungry."

"Come on then, Thomas, let's get you something to eat," Alex smiled and they went downstairs, finally able to relax now that the nightmare was over and their friends were resting.