When he opened the door, he spotted her immediately. She was stretched out on her chaise lounge, her "swooning couch" as she'd always jokingly referred to it. Her hands were folded across her stomach, and her face wore the most peaceful and satisfied expression he'd ever seen on anyone, ever.

She was beautiful.

She was dead.

At first the information registered itself upon his awareness simply as a constellation of facts: the pallor of her skin, her stillness as she lay there, the silence where the incessant thrum of her heart should be.

She was dead.

The emotional impact of the information hit him then like a solid blow to the stomach, driving him to his knees there in the doorway. He heard a small whimper escape his lips, as he inched slowly forward across the floor, toward her.

Natalie's dead! Natalie's dead! NATALIE'S DEAD!!!! a shrill voice in his head screamed.

Natalie's dead!

Reaching her at last, he gently picked up her hand, twining his trembling fingers with hers. She was still warm to the touch, and that final fact drove the tears from his eyes and down his cheeks. If only he'd been a few minutes earlier... He might have had the opportunity to take his vengeance upon the person who did this. He might have had the opportunity to save her life.

"Oh, Nat..." he whispered, leaning forward to press his face against her forehead, his voice small and lost. "I'm sorry," he said into her hair. "I'm so sorry....."

Sliding his hand around her neck, he started to lift her, to cradle her in his arms one last time, when his fingers drifted across the wounds. He'd known, of course, that a vampire had done this. He should have known it would end like this from the moment he met her. He'd been a fool.

"Damn you, LaCroix!" he whispered. "I'll kill him for this," he promised her.

"La meillure revanche, c'est la revanche," a voice whispered from the darkness behind him.

Snarling, he rose and turned, barely registering the fact that the voice belonged to a woman. Fate had given him the opportunity to avenge her death, he thought with satisfaction as he moved forward with superhuman strength to blindly seize the intruder by the throat.

But something was wrong. Familiar sensations were assaulting him. The unique scent of her beneath the perfume she wore, the feel of her soft skin beneath his cruel grip.

"Janette!" he whispered, pulling his hands away from her as if he'd been burned. It had been months since he had seen her and their last parting had been painful and bitter. But he was grateful for her presence now. Despite all that had recently transpired between them, she'd come to him, knowing what LaCroix had done, to console him. And he had nearly killed her. Nick shifted his weight, intent on gathering her tightly in his arms and never leaving that familiar comfort behind again.

But her eyes were a brilliant, furious red, and with a snarl she flung him away with such force that he was hurtled across the room. He collided with the lounge where Natalie lay, overturning it and dumping them both to the floor, her corpse flung awkwardly beneath his.

His breath rasped from his throat, as he scrambled away from Natalie's body, then reached out to reverently straighten her into a more comfortable position. As if it mattered any more, he thought bitterly to himself.

He looked up at Janette, who had composed herself, and stood by the fireplace calmly smoking a cigarette. "Where's LaCroix?" he asked. This time he would kill LaCroix.

Janette shrugged. "At The Raven, I suppose. Where else would he be?"

"Why did he do this? Why did he kill her?" Of course he already knew the answer. But demanding one from Janette made him feel better.

She leaned her head back and contemplated the cloud of smoke hanging in the air inches from her face. "He didn't."

That made him angry. "You lie!" he accused, rising to his feet. "You're covering up for him again. Protecting him like you always do. Only this time it won't do any good. It won't save him."

Not bothering to comment on that, Janette picked up a match from the box on the mantle and leaned down to light the fire. He watched, fascinated in spite of himself, as the light from the rapidly strengthening flames played across her skin. How many centuries had fire, and the moonlight, been his only lighted view of her?

"LaCroix did not do this, Nicholas," Janette repeated.

"Then who did?" he asked sarcastically.

She stood and looked directly at him, then. "I did," she said firmly.

Nick recoiled as if she had struck him, trying not to believe her. It was easier to blame LaCroix. He tried to convince himself that she was lying.

But he knew her too well, knew that particularly defiant look she got in her eyes when she was telling him some harsh truth she thought he needed to hear. And even if he'd been able to block out the evidence of his own eyes, his awareness of her, flitting just at the edge of his senses where he'd stubbornly kept it to shield them both from their mutual pain, told him that on this matter she was not lying.

Janette had killed Natalie.

He looked down at his feet where Natalie lay, still with that same peaceful expression on her face. That at least dulled the roar of pain he felt, that she had found some sense of serenity. Heaven knew she hadn't found it often enough in life. Bending down, he lifted her tenderly in his arms and laid her back out on the lounge where he'd found her, pausing to brush a stray lock of hair back from her face.

"Why?" he asked, not looking up at Janette. "Because I...loved her?" He nearly choked on the words, but what did it matter now? What did it matter if he said them aloud? What did it matter if they were the truth, or a lie he'd convinced himself of? What did it matter? Who could it hurt now?

Janette laughed at him again, a harsh, humorless sound. Then she began to pace quickly back and forth in front of the fireplace.

"Why?" he demanded again, not daring to look at her face. He couldn't bear to look at her just now.

Janette didn't answer at first. She paused long enough to flick her ashes into the fire. "You're very good at figuring out what other people want," she said, bitterly. "Why don't you tell me why I did it."

"Jealousy," he hissed without hesitation. "You were jealous of her."

"No, that's not it."

"You were jealous of her," he insisted. "Jealous of my...affection for her." He stopped and swallowed, at a loss. "She was just a mortal woman," he said, echoing something she had once said to him. "If it's revenge you wanted, you should have taken it out on me."

Janette shook her head slowly, and he thought he saw a glint of pity in her eyes. "I am taking my revenge on you, Nicholas," she said patiently. "They're mortals. They mean nothing to me." Then her eyes flashed. "But they mean everything to you."

He nearly jumped back at the venom in her voice. But as quickly as her demeanor changed, Janette composed herself. "Or so I thought," she added.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked cautiously, narrowing his eyes.

"You disappoint me, Nicholas," she said, tossing the remains of her cigarette into the fire. "You're taking all of this much better than I expected. I'd hoped it would end here."

He glanced down at Natalie's still form again and whispered, "It has ended here."

"Oh please," she said, and he could hear the contempt in her voice. "It ends when I say it ends," she added harshly. "You don't get to choose." She stopped then, as if waiting for her words to sink in, but all he could do was stare down at Natalie, feeling lost and helpless.

Until her next words nearly froze his already undead body. "I think I'll pay a visit to the Schankes next," she said. He glanced up just in time to watch her lick her lips.

"You wouldn't dare," he said.

"And why is that?" she laughed.

He paused for a moment, almost not daring to speak the words. But he had to scare her. He had to make her understand. "Because I'll kill you, that's why."

She laughed harder, then, leaning back against the mantle. "You won't kill me," she taunted. "Yes, the Schankes next. Then perhaps Mr. Stonetree." He watched in horror as she began ticking off a gruesome list on her fingers.

"You're mad," he said finally.

She froze at his words, staring at her outstretched hand where she'd marked her future victims. Then slowly, she curled her fingers, and clenched her hand into a very tight fist. Blood ran out from beneath her fingernails as she pressed them into her palm. "Mad?" she asked, nodding. "Yes, I suppose I am mad."

She turned and walked over to him then, standing inches from him. Distracted for a moment, he noticed that she was wearing a different perfume than when he'd last seen her. "Nicholas, what is the one thing you want more than anything else in the world?"

He glanced down once again at Natalie and opened his mouth to speak, but Janette interrupted him, touching his face and bringing his eyes up to meet hers. "The truth, Nicholas. Not what you think I want to hear and not what you want to hear. Tell me the truth."

"The truth," he whispered. "I don't know," he said, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. "I'm not sure anymore. I only know I don't want to be this anymore," he said.

"You want to be free," she said.

He nodded, slowly. He wanted to be free.

She shoved him away from her then. "What makes you think you deserve to be free?" she asked, returning to the fireplace.

She was confusing him. There was too much information for him to assimilate, and so he stumbled a moment for an answer. Why did he deserve to be free?

"Everyone deserves the right to choose his own path," he said.

"Everyone?" she asked. "Including Natalie? Including me?"

"Janette!" He knew what was coming next.

"What did I choose?" she hissed, her eyes blazing red again. "What did I tell you when you said you could save me?"

"I couldn't. I--"

"What did I choose?" she shouted, lunging at him, seizing him by the throat. "What did I choose? You will answer me."

She wasn't choking him, but he instinctively tried to pull away from her anyway. But her grip was firm. "What did I choose?" she asked again. "Did I say yes?"

He stopped struggling, allowed his hands to fall, and stood still in her grip. "No," he said, shaking his head slowly. "You said no."

"I said no," she repeated, nodding her head. Blood tears welled up in her eyes, but when he moved forward to brush them away she flinched, and slipped away from him. "I said no," she whispered again.

How could he tell her, how could he make her understand? He knew he'd acted selfishly, acted against her wishes, but the realization of that had only filtered in through his agony and despair later, after the deed had been done.

After it was too late.

"I couldn't let you go," he said, his voice breaking. "I couldn't live without you."

"You couldn't," she said bitterly. "It's always about you, isn't it, Nicholas? It's always what you. It's never about us."

"I loved you too much to let you go," he said, trying to defend himself, trying to make her see.

She stared at him then, incredulous. "That's not love, Nicholas. That's possession." Then she drew a deep breath. "That's LaCroix."

Those words burned through him, ripping a hole in the fabric of his soul. "I am nothing like him," he said, his voice suddenly careful and cold. "I am not LaCroix."

"You are," she asserted, nodding. "He wants his world a certain way, and so do you. Only you're worse," she said, walking toward him, eyes narrowed. "He at least acknowledges that his own selfishness is caught up in the caring, that he has his own agenda. You..." For a moment she couldn't continue.

He seriously considered leaving, fleeing her anger, fleeing this life.

But then she continued. "I don't doubt that you care, but you rationalize everything, delude yourself into thinking you're saving us all from our own mistakes, that you know what's best. What's best! That's a laugh," she said bitterly. "You don't even know what you want. You said it yourself, a moment ago." She leaned toward him then, her face centimeters from his. "How can you possibly know what's best for someone else?"

Before he could speak, she turned away. "You don't have an answer. Not a good one anyway. So don't even bother trying."

He licked his lips, then walked across the room to join her at the fireplace. "So, you decided to get even by taking Natalie away from me."

Janette sighed deeply, and looked up at him, her eyes filled with sadness. "You said a moment ago that I was mad. You're right, I am mad. Mad enough to hunt you for the rest of eternity, to make sure you never get the chance to exercise your own right to choose again. If you befriend a mortal, I'll kill them. If you work with mortals, I'll kill them. If you even glance longingly through their windows, wanting so much to be like them, I'll kill them. Wherever you go, whoever you meet, I'll be there, behind you, waiting to strike them down!" Her voice had risen as she'd spoken the words, and when he looked he saw that her eyes were filled with a strange, almost crazed longing.

He sneered at her then. "How can you say this is about choice?" he asked. "You'd be stealing their choices away." She was mad, he was certain. Less certain was what he was going to do about it. He couldn't leave her to her own devices, but he didn't think he had the strength to do what needed to be done.

To destroy her.

"What does it matter?" she asked, breezily. "They're only mortals. They have to die sooner or later. Like your precious Natalie over there." The mention of Natalie caused a spark of pain to flare suddenly in his chest. "I assure you, Nicholas, she is only the first."

And then he knew. Not only did he realize that it had to be done, he knew he was the one to do it, perhap the only one who could. He hadn't been able to save Natalie. But he could save the rest of his friends.

It boiled up in him and he did nothing to stop it, fought centuries of restraint. He imagined that it started deep in his stomach and rumbled up through his lungs, filling him with a fiery rage until Janette was bathed in red. He was afraid of what he was capable if he let loose the tight hold he kept on his emotions, if he allowed them to run unchecked. But he took the fear and added it to the rage until it was consumed. He had been angry only moments before, when he'd attacked Janette, before he knew who she was. But this was different. Before, there hadn't been any time to think. There had only been time to react. Now Janette's words, her manner, her threats had opened a door.

For Natalie's sake he'd always tried to keep that door tightly closed. But in a world no longer lit by her presence he could do so no longer.

He suddenly discovered that he no longer wanted to.

In an explosion of movement he was on her, seizing Janette by the neck. He would tear out her throat with his bare hands, and feast on her blood tonight until there was nothing left of her to cause him any more pain. Once loose, the fire consumed him, and he dug his fingers into the flesh of her throat, feeling the muscles and tendons give way beneath the relentless pressure. Janette had lifted one hand and wrapped it tightly around his wrist, but she would not stop him now. She did not have the strength.

Janette was making an odd choking sound, and her body shuddered in his hands. Good, he thought. He was delivering the agony she had brought upon herself.

But when he looked into her face, captured her eyes with his, he realized that her body was wracked with laughter. A ghastly smile stretched across her lips, made all the more macabre by a small trickle of blood that ran from one corner of her mouth.

With a howl, he lifted her and, with barely any effort, threw her across the room. Satisfied, he watched as she sailed through the air and landed squarely on top of the coffee table that sat in front of Natalie's sofa. It splintered with the impact, and Janette rolled to the floor amidst the shards of wood and trinkets.

She struggled for a moment, shaking her head as if to clear it. The movement flung about drops of blood from the wounds his fingers had made in her throat. As he watched, she slowly rose to her feet, clutching a splintered table leg in her hand.

Turning to face him, she rasped "That's the best you can do?" Then she raised the stake and started moving toward him, fangs bared.

The sight of her staggering at him wielding the piece of wood made him laugh. She was truly pathetic if she thought she could destroy him. He wasn't some puny mortal she could suck the life out of. He was a crusader, a soldier of the Holy Father.

He was an avenging angel.

Janette reached him and the wood brushed against his chest. Grinning, he plucked it from her fingers. Seizing her by the throat once again he held her out at arms length and examined the piece of wood in his hand. He used the tip to trace the outline of Janette's face. "Do you play with your victims before you kill them?" he asked.

"Sometimes," she gasped out. "The taste of fear is addictive."

"The taste of fear is everything," he said.

Janette reached up and grasped the tip of the stake that was resting against her cheek between her thumb and index finger. Slowly she moved it down until it was positioned directly against her heart. "Natalie's fear was especially exquisite," she whispered, licking her lips.

His face twisted up in agony, the muscles pulling painfully beneath his skin. With one smooth movement he pulled her against him and shoved the piece of wood into her until the pointed end was a bloody mass sticking out the back of her black silk dress. "For Natalie," he whispered hoarsely into her hair.

She let out a small gasp, almost as if she was surprised that he'd actually done it. Then he heard her murmur "La meillure revanche, c'est la revanche," almost imperceptibly to herself.

She went limp in his arms.

The burning rage inside him hadn't abated. Once lit he doubted it would ever be quenched again, or at least not for a very long time. He found himself almost relishing the notion, savoring the release.

But something in him made him gently lower Janette to the floor, and he knelt beside her. She was still conscious, barely, though he felt her life fading away fast.

Leaning down, he looked deeply into those familiar blue eyes, and on impulse grasped the stake, intending to pull it out. It was not too late to save her, he reasoned irrationally. He had been reborn this night; Janette had freed him. Together, they would stalk the night as they had for centuries. He smiled down at her at the thought.

Her hands came up immediately and wrapped tightly around his, with surprising strength, considering her rapidly weakening condition. Her hands held his, and the stake, in place.

"No," she mouthed. He barely heard her breathe the word. "This is my choice," she said. "The one you took from me." With a slight turn of her head she glanced over at the chaise where Natalie was stretched out, silent and peaceful. His eyes followed hers. "Sorry for that," Janette continued. "I tried to bring her across..."

Swallowing, Janette shifted and glanced at the fireplace. "You know what to do," she said before closing her eyes. Her skin had turned a ghastly shade of gray, and her body had taken on a sudden fragility, as if she might crumble to dust with the slightest gust of air. He sensed her struggle to remain conscious just a little while longer. "You know what to do. Don't mess this up, Nicholas," she whispered, fading just a little bit more. "If you do and I come back, there will be hell to pay..."