"Forgive me, Captain," he said, "but you still have work to do."

Bareris took a breath. "Yes." He proffered the head. "You're the best healer we have. Help her."

The Brazier hesitated. "Captain…"

"That's an order!"

The priest accepted the head. "I'll try."

Limping, using a spear for a cane, Bareris oversaw the securing of the fortress. The chambers echoed with the chanted prayers of the priests. The flashes of fire they conjured gilded the walls. Their power would so purify the place that no one could ever practice necromancy there again.

Meanwhile, the southern wizards plundered the necromancers' libraries and stores of mystical equipment. The warriors of the Griffon Legion hunted down and killed the enemies cowering in dark corners. Finally it was done, and Bareris rushed to find out what had become of Tammith.

The Burning Brazier had taken her to a small room so he could work undisturbed. There she lay atop a table, her form-white skin, black clothing and armor, raven hair, and dark dried gore-ghostly and vague in the glow of a single oil lamp. But even the feeble light revealed the ragged discontinuity that circled her neck like a choker and the mottling of ugly wounds on her face.

Bareris could tell by looking at her that nothing had changed. Still, he turned to the cleric and asked, "How is she?"

The fire priest hesitated, then said, "She's dead, sir. She was dead when you last saw her and she's still dead now."

"She can't be. She survived decapitation before."

"If so, then I surmise that when the giant thing bit off her head and began the process of combining it with its own substance, the injury was qualitatively different. At any rate, she hasn't moved, and the two… pieces of her don't show any signs of growing together."

"Did you try to encourage the healing with your magic?"

"Yes, Captain, just as you ordered. Even though healing prayers, which channel the cosmic principles of health and vitality, are unlikely to help a being whose existence embodied malignancy and a perversion of the natural order."

You're glad she's dead, Bareris thought, and trembled with the urge to knock the Burning Brazier down. Instead, he said, "Thank you for trying. Go help the other priests with their tasks."

"I'm sorry I couldn't bring her back. But I can perform the rites to cremate the body with the proper reverence and commend her spirit to Kossuth."

"Perhaps later."

"I can also tend you. Your leg needs attention, and unless I'm very much mistaken, you're still feeling sick and weak from Xingax's mystical attack. Let me-"

"Are you deaf? I told you to get out!"

The Brazier studied Bareris's face, then nodded, turned on his heel, and left Bareris alone with Tammith's body and the gloom.

Bareris sang his own charms of healing, even though they were no more effective than the spells the priests employed for the same purpose. He sang until he exhausted his magic, and she didn't stir.

Then he sang the tale of the starfish that aspired to be a star, and other songs she'd loved when they were young. Perhaps he hoped they'd entice her spirit back from the void where even magic had failed, but she still didn't move.

That's it, then, he thought. I tried, but all I could do was say good-bye. The music was my farewell.

Perhaps her destruction was for the best, for truly, she'd perished ten years ago. The cold, implacable killer that remained was a mockery of the Tammith he'd loved. She'd known it herself. She'd wanted to die, even if she never quite said it.

Perhaps it was even better for him. He'd pined for her every day, but when she miraculously returned to him, it had only initiated a different kind of torment. Then he had to contemplate what his failure had made of her, and hold back from touching her and pouring out his heart.

Yes. Perhaps. But how could he stand to lose her again?

Maybe he didn't have to, because there was one measure he had not tried. For a vampire, blood was life, and many tales told that they particularly craved the blood of those they loved, or had loved prior to their rebirths.

He unbuckled his sword belt, pulled off his armor, and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. He drew his knife and poised the blade at his wrist.

I'm mad to do this, he thought. I have no reason to think it will work, and the Brazier was right. I'm still weak from Xingax's death magic, and I've already lost a good deal of blood. Shedding more is apt to kill me.

Yet still he sliced into the vein.

The blood welled forth. It looked black in the dim light. He poised his wrist over Tammith's mouth and let it drip in.

Nothing happened. For a moment he felt she was actively resisting him, and even though he knew the idea was crazy, it evoked a spasm of anger nonetheless.

He smeared gore across his own lips, then decided that wasn't good enough. He scratched them with the point of the knife so fresh blood would keep trickling forth. Then he bent down and kissed Tammith, moving with exquisite care to make sure he didn't jostle her head away from her body.

Tammith woke to fiery pain in her neck, gentle nuzzling pressure on her lips, and the coppery tang of blood in her mouth. She couldn't see, or remember where she was or what had happened.

She only knew her thirst was overwhelming, and whatever was feeding her blood was doing it too slowly to suit her. She tried to grab it, but her arms refused to obey her. In fact, she realized, she couldn't feel them, or anything else below the agony in her neck.

Because, she abruptly recalled, Xingax's creation had bitten her head off. She wondered if her body was nearby, and experienced a pang of fear that it wasn't, or that even if it was, this time, she wouldn't fuse back together. Then, as if to soothe her anxiety, she felt flesh and bone growing and flowing to reassemble her neck. Her body announced itself with a stab of agony in the mangled hand Xingax had clawed apart.

Absolute blackness flowered into blurry patches of light and shadow as the infusion of blood returned the use of her eyes. As her vision sharpened, she saw Bareris restoring her. Resurrecting her with bloody kisses.

She returned the next one, and he drew back to regard her with joyous incredulity. His smile stabbed shame and sorrow into her. Don't be happy, she thought. I ruined you. I'm going to be the death of you. Then another surge of thirst washed such notions away.

She pulled him down to her and sucked and licked at his lips. They still weren't yielding enough blood, and she felt as if he were teasing her. As soon as she was sure she'd regained sufficient strength, and that vigorous motion wouldn't break her into two pieces again, she sought a better source.

When she cast about, she saw that he'd slashed his wrist, and it had bled copiously enough to spatter gore all over him, her, and the table on which she lay. But she realized his arm wouldn't satisfy her either. She wanted a more intimate connection. Because this time, the thirst wasn't just a craving for blood, but rather a melding of passions.

She shifted her mouth to the side of his neck, slipped her fangs into the pulsing vein, and tore at his garments. When he realized what she was doing, he ripped at hers as well.

Fiercely, they ground their bodies together. Excitement carried her higher and higher, and after a time, she felt the frantic hammering of his heart, struggling to keep him alive despite the extreme demands he was placing on it.

Good. Let it burst. Let him die. His death was a part of the exultation she sought.

Yet at the same time, the prospect of destroying him was intolerable.

Once, her vampiric instincts would have ruled her in any such situation. They were no less potent now, but she'd had a decade to learn self-control. Though it was as difficult as anything she'd ever done, she withdrew her fangs from his neck, licked the double wound to close it, and contented herself with a lesser consummation.