Marriage of Souls

"Well, we sure are sorry t'see ya go, sugah." Rogue was sincere, although some tiny, devious part of her was glad Shani was leaving.

"I can't thank you enough for all you've done," she said, pulling Rogue closer to whisper, "He was never really mine, you know. He was dreaming of you."

Then, she turned to the last person she had to bid good-bye (except for Logan, who hated good-byes, and hadn't shown up to see her off.) "Jean. I don't know what to say." Shani was surprised to find that it was true.

Jean gave a watery smile and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'll miss you."

"And all the trouble I get you into?" Shani answered, smiling.

"Especially that."

"I'll miss you, too." Both women closed their eyes and just held on, letting the thoughts and emotions slide along the bonds Shani had created between them. Jean's eyes snapped open. Deep within Shani were shadows; mere traces of--

Shani grinned and pulled back, placing a finger to Jean's lips. "Shhhh. It's our little secret."

"But what do I--"

"Nothing. Do nothing, say nothing, feel nothing. Just forget." With a grin and a cavalier wave, she turned and walked away.

Shani would pay for the sins in her past by facing the future.





Artemis reigned supreme in her celestial orb, presiding over the empty black night. When the time was right, when Apollo had driven the sun far below the horizon, the huntress queen drew back an arrow and tossed a shimmering veil of diamonds across the blackness.

Shani kicked back the covers, shivering in the chill breeze. The air was damp and heavy with the scent of a wild Irish storm. It was one in the morning; she'd have to be up in a few hours to get to work, anyway. She moved through the cozy little house that had become her home, tucked into a neat alleyway just inside the Dublin city limits.

She moved quietly around the kitchen, setting the kettle atop the stove, raking her hair back from her forehead. She jerked when something small and furry brushed her ankle. "Ah, Miss Kitty," she sighed, picking the cat up and cradling it against her. Luna, as the feline was otherwise known, nuzzled her beneath the chin as Shani took a coffee mug from the plain oak cabinet and set it down on the polished top of the kitchen table.

The cat hissed and leapt from Shani's arms, leaving eight long welts for her efforts to hold it. The wind howled in the trees, causing the thin branches to claw at the windows with the rat-tat-tat sound that meant Death was tapping on the door. The light flickered and went out.

Every muscle in Shani's body went rigid, tense, prepared. She stood still, forcing her irrational fears and rising concern away. A cold ripple slid down her back like a rivulet of sweat.

The door slammed open, revealing the shadow on her doorstep. "Honey, I'm home!" he called into the black interior. With a dark laugh, he reached for her, sweeping a hand across the table. The coffee mug fell to one side and rolled from the table. . . .





Jean awoke to the sound of breaking glass.

Her eyes opened wide and she sat up, nearly shoving Scott from the bed in her haste. The jumbled sensations and thoughts sorted themselves out and, in doing so, the ones that were not hers faded. She struggled to hold onto them; they felt so very important.

"Scott?" her whisper was shrill in the silence.

"Uunngh?" He shifted, throwing one arm around her waist.

"Scott, I. . .I don't know. I just felt something. . ."

He reached for the visor on the bedside table, sliding them on before opening one eye. "What is it?" he muttered hoarsely.

"I. . .don't know. I just felt. . .fear and. . .satisfaction. How can those two go together? I don't understand."

Scott sat up, gazing at her somberly. "Did you sense anything serious? Are you sure it wasn't just a nightmare?"

Jean rubbed her eyes and ran her hands through her hair, sighing. "I suppose it was. I just feel so tired and achy."

He nudged her back under the covers and lay down beside her, sliding an arm around her waist. "That's because the goddamn F.O.H. is going for a record on the number of pep rallies they can hold in a month, and each one is more violent than the last. One of these days-" Jean yawned, rolled over and kissed the underside of his jaw. He exhaled and pressed his face into the curve of her shoulder, mumbling, "Go to sleep, Jean."

And she did.





High overhead, in the celestial halls of God's Palace, the angels wept. It fell to earth in a torrential rain that drenched the unsuspecting dirt and dripped along the foundations of humanity like blood.

"She has fallen. The Soulbinder is corrupted." Michael, Leader of the Heavenly Forces, first in rank of the Archangels, put his head in his hands, defeated.

"How can you say that?!" Gabriel, appearing in his most ethereal female form, slammed both hands down on the white marble of the table in front of him. The impact lit the skies with a thunderous flash of lightening. "She is the Soulbinder; therefore, she is pure! Untouchable! No being can corrupt her!"

"Unless she wishes it so." Uriel snapped bitterly, "She wanted this sin, therefore she has destroyed herself. She is human; it is her nature."

"No, it isn't!" Raphael took up her defense. "She doesn't understand what will happen. How could she? She only agreed to serve the souls, not us! You cannot condemn her for this!"

"I can and I will!" Michael snarled. "By committing this blasphemy, she has allied herself with Satan! And you can bet he'll not miss a trick! With this one single act, she has damned herself beyond all comprehension."

"No! The Phalian remains with her! Surely that means there is still some good in her."

"The Phalian is beyond our control and not our concern. Shani is mortal and knows the secrets of death. This knowledge was contingent upon her conformity to the original agreement not to choose sides. She has broken her promise; the covenant is void."

"Meaning?"

"She must die and join her brethren in Hell."





"I know you want me." His hands came out of the darkness to caress her neck, running a finger around her collar and down the front of her silk robe, pulling the sash open to gain access to her body.

"But. . .we can't-we can't-" His hands flexed over her hips, pulling her forward, into the vee of his legs. She pressed her face into the open collar of his shirt and sighed. He'd been pursuing her for weeks, in her dreams and in her thoughts.

"Oh, yes we can. And we will."

"But my housemate is upstairs with her kid and-" She stumbled to a halt as he shifted against her, bringing her entire body in contact with hers. His flesh absorbed her body heat, enveloping them both in soothing warmth. He slid the backs of his fingers across her throat as he untied the lacing across the front of her nightgown, letting the flimsy material slide to the floor. Laughing to himself, he pushed her back on the table, coming over her.

"Shhhh," he pressed a finger to her lips, silencing her noises of protest, "They're asleep. And they're going to stay that way. Just let me touch you, Shani. Just let me. . . ."

He kissed her then, taking possession of her mouth with such thoroughness that she spasmed under him, the sensation drizzling through her veins.

Her hands slid up the broad slabs of his chest, over the place where no heart beat, fluttering over his Slavic face; the razor-sharp angles of his cheekbones, the widow's peak that defined his silken black hair.

"Oh, God." She did want this. She really did. "Tell me your name," she gasped out.

"You know who I am." He silenced her questions with lips and teeth and tongue, all bent on seducing her. He ran his hands up the insides of her legs, stopping when he neared the juncture of her thighs. Instead, he reached over her hips and peeled the cotton panties from her body, dropping them on the floor. She moaned and pressed her naked body against his fully clothed one, already begging for completion. It was too easy. He'd expected better from the Soulbinder.

Shani dug her fingernails into his shoulders, delving beneath the linen shirt he wore. What was he expecting? That she'd fall over with her legs in the air? She smiled, her face illuminated by the wavering moonlight shining through the rain-washed window. He'd have to do better than this. She shifted their weight, rolling over so that she was on top. His eyes narrowed, green flames glittering in the darkness, and he opened his mouth to protest. He was the dominator, not the dominated. Always. She laughed and pressed a finger mockingly to his lips. "Shhhhh. . . ."

The linen fabric of his shirt disintegrated under determined fingers. She ran her tongue down the center of his chest, the pads of her thumbs stroking over the pale, exposed skin at the waistline of his jeans. Her thumb brushed over the button at the fly of his jeans, while her palm slid down to cup him. He was motionless under her now, even though she'd done nothing more than touch him. So far.

He was still, his unbeating heart contracting in his chest, causing what might be called pain. No woman had ever affected him like this. Ever. But he could not allow her to go too far. He must be strong. He must not be conquered. Breaking her grip, he sat up and pulled her against him, sliding his palm up one leg to draw it over his thighs, so that she straddled him.

Shani knew a moment of fear as he reached down to unzip his fly, the other arm an iron band across her back so that she couldn't pull away. Uncertainty was a veil across her face, making the face of the man in front of her a blurred and unnatural thing. And then his lashes lifted; his eyes focused on her and her alone. "Do you want this?" The hard length of him brushed the inside of her thigh.

It was her last chance, her last denial. "Yes." He crushed her pelvis in his hands and slammed home. What followed was a mad frenzy of motion as he strove for release and she fought for command of his soul. Shani was a mindless animal, the woman beneath this icon of evil, meeting him as he thrust into her. The Phalian was outraged, adding an ominous edge to their passion. Here, again, was a man who sought to control her earthly body! How dare they presume to handle a supreme entity, she who was beholden to none! With a warning cry, the Phalian sorted through the emotion that was so near to the surface of the man. He was nearing a peak; remaining within him at such a time would place her in the middle of an empathic maelstrom. There was bitterness and rage, buried beneath decades of perseverance and determination. The knowledge was all there; hers for the taking, a thousand aliases and a billion fragmented hopes and dreams, at the center of which lay a sin of untold magnitude. A curse against God. . .

The dam was broken by the Phalian's tampering; the truth poured from her lover in a silver stream of power, absorbed into her fragile skin as their passions peaked and orgasm crashed over them both. They tumbled from the table, landing on the floor pitiful thud. She cried out as he was driven further into her warm, wet depths and he gritted his teeth, fiercely silent.

They lay together for a long, quiet moment, unbroken but for the panting of the woman and the rain beating harshly on the roof.





Shani jerked awake, sucking in a long-denied breath. Oh, my God. The absolute terror of the dream. . .She'd experienced several like it in the past few weeks, but never so perfect or real. Before, the dreams had been vaguely threatening, as though he were coming to get her, but never had they been so singly-focused. As though their identities were irrelevant; only that they were a man and a woman struggling to reach a common end.

It was frightening and fantastic and all too real. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, rubbing her neck. She was so exhausted that for a moment, she didn't realize that the hands massaging her neck weren't her own. Shani sighed and rubbed her eyes again, finally opening them. The blue jeans, and the legs they encased, swam into focus. There was one on either side of her legs, and she reclined on his chest. "So it wasn't a dream."

He laughed, the sound utterly enchanting. "Do you wish it had been?"

"If all I am to you is an easy lay, then yes, I wish it had never happened," she answered honestly.

His hands slid up her neck; she turned her face toward his, staring at his soft lips, watching them as he talked. "You're hardly an easy anything, Shani. If you were, I would've come to you long before this. I wanted to give you time."

"I suppose I should be grateful for that. And I can't say I didn't ask for it." She stared at him, at his jade eyes, at the dark hair that brushed his shoulders. "You don't look at all the way I expected. At least, not how the book describes you. No pointy ears, no bushy eyebrows, no hairy palms-" As she spoke, she touched the features in question.

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Bram Stoker was an absolute ass. By the time he wrote that book, he was pissed off at me because I'd already slept with his sister and fed from his fiancee. By the way he was acting, you'd think I'd turned her into one of my Gypsies."

"Did you?"

"No! The bitch was ugly! Well, anyway, Stoker goes and decides to write a book on everything I've told him. That was the last time I told a mortal about my life. By the time he was done with it, I was dead and Mina had gone back to Jonathan Harker. Ha!"

Shani grinned and kissed his throat, her eyes drifting shut. "So that wasn't how it really happened?"

"Hell, no! Wilhelmina Murray was a pretty little thing when I met her. Bored, engaged to some limp-dick lawyer, and poorer than church mice, Mina was screaming for some attention. She got on everything but the Titanic. I took blood from her; I didn't really think she'd give a damn. But she broke my influence. She wanted me to make her immortal. I refused, but it was almost too late. She caught me at a weak moment, and I almost drained her. Harker, though, he surprised me. He actually had the balls to get a group together and chase me across half of Europe. I got away, moved to America, changed my name and laid low for a few decades."

"What about Lucy Westenra?"

"Lucy? Oh, yeah, she was a total biscuit. I fed off her a few times, that was it."

"So you didn't kill her?"

"Fuck no, that was all Stoker's writing. That son of a bitch Van Helsing killed her. Got all fanatical about her fluctuating blood levels and tried a transfusion. The blood types were incompatible, and she died. If he'd just left her alone, she would have recovered fine. After Lucy died, Mina ditched Harker and married Arthur, Lucy's former fiancé."

"Oh," Shani mumbled, disappointed, "I thought it was supposed to be a really great love story."

"It was, Shani. I loved my first wife, the Princess of Wallachia, and Mina was a copy of her. I loved them both in their own right."

"Oh." And she smiled. "Then perhaps you aren't all bad after all." She fell asleep listening to the laughter rumbling in his chest.





Bzzzzzzzzz. . .The sound cut across Shani's sleep and destroyed her dreams. A fist lifted, slamming down on the top of the radio. With a final, desperate crackle, the buzzing stopped. Shani sighed and rolled over, groaning at life in general. What had she done to deserve a life as the Queen of the Dead? Shani rolled over and found herself staring at a perfect, crimson rose. Charmed, she sat up, raked her hair out of her eyes, and picked up the flower. She yelped and stared at her finger. A drop of blood welled at the tip of her index finger. "Oh, God. I've really done it now."

"Yes, ma'am."

Shani turned her head, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the man lounging in the corner. It was not her lover. "Who the hell are you?" She flicked a glance at herself, relieved to find she was wearing clothes again.

He smiled reassuringly and came forward to offer his hand. When she didn't take it, he smoothly reversed it and ran his fingers through his hair. "My name is John. I was sent to take care of you. That means I'm your new best friend."

"Well, hot dog."

"Shani! Move it! You don't want to be late, do ye, lass?!" Fiona, her housemate, yelled from downstairs, where her five-year-old son was already making a racket.

Shani rolled her eyes and lunged out of bed, grabbing a pair of jeans from the floor. "Like I was saying, I don't need anybody to take care of me. I've got God's favor, y'know. He's not going to let his one and only Soulbinder get caught in a drive-by." She pulled on a sweatshirt and stumbled into the bathroom, where she began brushing her teeth with a vengeance.

"But He might not be so benevolent to your son."

"What?" Shani choked on her toothbrush, threw it into the sink, and spit out her toothpaste. She was eye-to-eye with her vampiric bodyguard before she spoke again, dangerously calm. "My what?"

"Shani! C'mon! You're gonna be late, woman!" Fiona was ignored.

Shock was setting in. Cold, icy shivers slid over her hips and played along her spine."What d'ya mean 'my son'?" She crumpled to the floor as her knees buckled. John caught her, easing her back on the bed, where Shani flopped like a beached fish.

After shock comes denial. The knowledge of what she had done and who she had done it with crushed all her previous confidences that she was above temptation. Sin was temptation incarnate, and it was damn hard to see it coming when you were writhing beneath a man with the body of a Greek god. "No! No! I'm not pregnant! I can't be pregnant. Oh, my God, I'm not!"

"You can be, and you are, Shani. Sorry, but you kinda fucked up already."

Shani reached up and fastened both hands around his throat. "Listen to me, you little son of a bitch! I am not having Dracula's baby! I'll get an abortion if I have to, but I won't do it!"

"You have no choice!" He gagged, smacked her hands away and pushed her back on the bed in a blinding flash of anger, placing one hand on her stomach. Pain splintered through her, violent with the white-hot brilliance of Creation. "Do you feel that? Do you?"

She gasped for breath, nodding.

"That's your soul, Shani. A soulchilde cannot be aborted. Ever."

Something cold and wet slid over her face; she was surprised to find herself crying. After denial, there is only acceptance of what cannot be denied. Her sin would be made of flesh and blood. "I can't do it. What if the child turns out to be like his father?" Visions of future bloodbaths flashed in her mind, a thousand screaming bodies impaled on stakes. . .

"The child will be as you raise him to be. Arrangements have been made for you; a home in New York, clothing, money. All you have to do is come."

"Shani!" The door burst open. Fiona looked from Shani sprawled on the bed, to John, leaning over her. "Oh! I-uh-damn! Shani, are you coming to work today or not?"

John shrugged as if to say that it was all up to her. Shani swallowed and took a deep breath. "No, I'm not."

Blood slid down the stem of the rose clenched in Shani's fist, falling to the ground like a teardrop.





"Well, well, Miss O'Rhian. Don't you look foxy tonight." The doorman whistled appreciatively as he held open the door.

Shani grinned. "Yes, Jimmy, I believe I do. Chanel does wonders for a girl."

He took in the full effect of her floor-length forest green gown, the upswept hairstyle that drew attention to her prism-like eyes. "Mm-m-m, Lady. You have a good night, now, here?"

"You too, sugar."

Shani's smile disappeared as she stepped into the elevator, sinking down onto the plush velvet bench. Her face was reflected in the brass fixtures and plates gilding the interior. Her eyes, glittering in the dim light, reflected shards of rainbow light. Her skin, pale and smooth, shimmered with the opalescent fire of indigo, electric blue, and faded rose. Shani shook her head, pulling her thoughts away from the translucent beauty of the Soulbinder and put her head in her hands.

Vlad had not visited her since the night her son had been conceived, over six months ago. All the wealth and privilege that should have been her birthright had been handed to her on a silver platter. But she couldn't help the fact that it felt like payment for services rendered.

Vlad must have known that she would conceive; he would've planned it that way. But he hadn't been back. Not once--not when the child had been born, when she had almost been killed from the complications of forcing a piece of her soul, made flesh and blood in a miracle of Generation, out of her body. The child, part flesh and part spirit, had taken half the usual gestation time. Her son had been born almost full-grown, sole heir to perhaps the greatest mass powers on Earth. He was a childe of the night and a childe born in Death.

If only she'd known what to tell him about his father. She'd gone coward and told him nothing; he asked about Vlad constantly, hoping to wear her down. What exactly could she tell him about his father? That he was a vampiric warlord? That he adored bloodshed and was the truest sadist the world had ever known? That she'd had a one-night stand with the Lord of Darkness and now her soul, her life, was in jeopardy?

Oh, yes, she knew about that, too. With each soul she escorted to the Gateway, the whispers and hissing accusations grew louder. Michael was on a bloodhunt, and he wanted her.

She took a deep, calming breath and regained her composure. The doors slid open with a fragile ding. The outer doors remained closed until she turned the key to get into the penthouse.

"Evening, Johnny!" she called, walking through the elegantly appointed foyer, through the polished and lacquered sitting room, all the way to the master bedroom.

"Evenin', gorgeous!" he yelled from the region of the back bedroom. Strains of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" drifted through the silk damask-covered walls.

Shani pulled the pearl-headed pins from her hair and tossed them on the vanity, kicking her shoes under the bed. Dragging the dress carelessly over her head, she threw it over a chair and began pulling a silver-backed brush through her coppery, dark hair.

She was halfway through flossing when she realized what was missing. The noise level had been cut to a minimum. There was no Nine Inch Nails music echoing through the halls, no "Hey, Ma! Can I have a hundred dollars?" lingering after her.

She poked her head out of the bathroom and bellowed, "Hey, John! Where's my kid?!"

"I thought he was gonna be back later."

"Get in here!" She had her hands on her hips, tapping one foot, by the time he ambled through the door. "Did he say anything to you before you left?"

He blew his blond hair out of his eyes and shrugged. "No. He looked kind of spooked. He said he'd had a nightmare or something and went to take a walk. He said he wanted to be left alone."

Her instincts shrieked at her, her senses reached a flashpoint and shut down for one terrorizing moment. "And you let him go?! What the hell is wrong with you?!" She filled her hands with his collar and yanked his face close to hers. "Oh, Christ preserve us. Bad dreams in this family are never just 'nightmares'. There goddamned omens! Damn it!"

Dawning comprehension broke over John's face in an anguished wave, making his blue-green eyes flash. "Where is he?"

"I thought it was your job to keep track of him!"

"Don't you have a mental link with him?"

"No! I have a mental link with my son's soul, which, if you recall, is a piece of mine! His radiance gets eclipsed by mine, makin' it damn hard to find him anywhere!" She pushed John away, shoving him into a wall. "Damn it! I've got a bad feeling about this whole night, John. Somethin' bad's about to go down. And now my kid turns up missing." Her temples ached, she pressed her palms against them and sank to the floor. The voices of her accusors whistled shrilly in her ears.

". . .child is the son of the Devil--he will die with his mother and join her lover in Hell--there is no other way!"

"Damn you! She is all we've got! She is our last hope!"

"But the child is nothing-"

"If her son is murdered, do you think she'll become meek and amiable?! Are you crazy?!"

"But, please, M-"

"She dies!. . . ."

"Let's go," The Phalian stood up, stretching her legs until she was standing upright. Jeans and a t-shirt were pulled over her body, sliding eagerly over pink skin. The Archangel Michael placed himself above God. He chose to destroy her, to cast away the billion souls which would serve her every wish. All she had to do was ask.

Now they put her mortal son in danger. Her only son; her only love.

"Shani?" The human part of the Phalian rose to the surface, turning her head toward the vampire addressing her.

"Yeah?"

"What do we do now?"

"We're going to go looking for my kid. I've got friends in this town, dontcha know. Where're the keys to the Jag?"