“You say you love me, but you’re a sociopath just like I am. You’re incapable of love.”

“That’s what they say. But I don’t believe it. This thing I’m feeling, I’m pretty sure that’s love. It makes me crazy, makes me stupid, makes me ornery as all hell, but now that I have it I never want to let it go.”

“Even though you know I can never return those feelings?”

He smiled. “Never say never, sword-lady. The power of love has allowed me to transcend my psychopathic nature. Maybe you can transcend whatever limitations people put on you as well.”

She couldn’t help it, she had to smile. “For a cold-blooded killer, you’re remarkably romantic.”

His arms wrapped round her. “You get the full Billy-Ray Sanguine experience, my darlin’.” He kissed her and she kissed him back. “So... had any thoughts on what we were talking about before?”

She looked at him blankly for a moment. His proposal. She’d forgotten all about it. Before she could answer, though, he tensed. She turned slowly.

“I was wondering where you’d got to,” she said.

Dusk looked at them both, but said nothing.

“Listen,” Tanith said, “if you’re going to gripe about how I left you to fend for yourself—”

“Not at all,” said Dusk. “We must each take responsibility for ourselves. Besides, there is nothing you could have done to contain me.”

“Well,” Tanith said, “I’m glad you see it like that. By the way, I’ve got some fresh wounds on my back courtesy of you.”

“Such is the price we pay for the things we do. Others have paid an even higher price, I have heard. You cut Wilhelm Scream’s hand off?”

“Just his finger.”

“I see. Annis is dead, of course. Sabine, too, I’d wager, after you betrayed her to that man Chabon. And Springheeled Jack? What happened to him?”

“I did,” said Tanith.

Dusk nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, Tanith saw Sanguine’s hand inch towards his pocket, where he kept the straight razor.

“You have betrayed almost half the members of your little team,” the vampire said. “And what, may I ask, of the rewards you promised them?”

Tanith shrugged. “I promised Annis a cure for her curse. I didn’t have one. I promised Jack information on what he was and where he came from. No one knows where he came from. There have been reports of creatures like him centuries ago, but that’s it. I promised Sabine a way to wipe her slate clean, to start a new life where she didn’t have to look over her shoulder every five minutes. I had no intention of doing any such thing.”

“And you promised me the name of the vampire who turned me,” said Dusk. “A name you do not possess, I take it?”