"Together," Hannah said, coughing as Maya's hands tightened, cutting off her breath. She gasped and finished, "We go out together, Thierry."
Thierry nodded and looked at Maya. He was holding his hand out now, like someone trying to coax a frightened child. "Just let her go," he said softly.
Maya laughed.
It was an unnatural sound, and it made Hannah's skin crawl. Nothing sane made a noise like that.
"But that way, I won't win," Maya said, almost pleasantly.
"You can't win anyway," Thierry said quietly. "Even if you kill her, she'll still be alive-"
"Not if I make her a vampire first," Maya interrupted.
But Thierry was shaking his head. "It doesn't matter." His voice was still quiet, but it was filled with the authority of absolute conviction, a kind of bedrock certainty that held even Hannah mesmerized.
"Even if you kill her, she'll still be alive-here." He tapped his chest. "In me. I keep her here. She's part of me. So until you kill me, you can't really kill her. And you can't win. It's that simple."
There was a silence. Hannah's own heart was twisted with the force of her love for him. Her eyes " were full.
She could hear Maya breathing, and the sound was ragged. She thought that the pressure of Maya's hands was infinitesimally less.
"I could kill you both," Maya said at last in a grating voice.
Thierry lifted his shoulders and dropped them in a gesture too sad to be a shrug. "But how can you win when the people you hate aren't there to see it?"
It sounded insane-but it was true. Hannah could feel it hit Maya like a well-thrown javelin. If Maya couldn't have Thierry as her prize, if she couldn't even make him suffer, what was the point? Where was the victory?
"Let's stop the cycle right here," Thierry said softly. "Let her go."
He was so gentle, and so reasonable, and so tired-sounding. Hannah didn't see how anyone could resist him. But she was still surprised at what happened next.
Slowly, very slowly, the hands around her neck loosened their grip. Maya stepped away.
Hannah sucked in a deep breath. She wanted to run to Thierry, but she was afraid to do anything to unbalance the delicate stalemate in the cavern. Besides, her knees were wobbly.
Maya was moving around her, taking a step or two in front of her, facing Thierry directly.
"I loved you," she said. There was a sound in her voice Hannah had never heard before, a quaver. "Why didn't you ever understand that?"
Thierry shook his head. "Because it's not true. You never loved me. You wanted me. Mostly because you couldn't have me."
There was a silence then as they stood looking at each other. Not because they understood each other too well for words, Hannah thought. Because they would never understand each other. They had nothing to say.
The silence stretched on and on-and then Maya collapsed.
She didn't fall down. But she might as well have. Hannah saw the life go out of her-the hope. The energy that had kept Maya vibrant and sparkling after thousands of years. It had all come from her need to win . . . and now she knew she'd lost.
She was defeated.
"Come on, Hannah," Thierry said quietly. "Let's go." Then he turned to shout back into the tunnel behind him. "Clear the way. We're all coming out."
That was when it happened.
Maya had been standing slumped, her head down, her eyes on the ground.
Or on her backpack.
And now, as Thierry turned away, she flashed one glance at him and then moved as fast as a striking snake. She grabbed the black stake and held it horizontally, her arm drawn back.
Hannah recognized the posture instantly. As Hana of the Three Rivers she'd seen hunters throw spears all the time.
"Game over," Maya whispered.
Hannah had a fraction of a second to act-and no time to consider. All she thought was, No.
With her whole weight behind the thrust, she lunged at Maya. Stake first.
The sharp wooden point went in just under Maya's shoulder blade. She staggered, off balance, her throw " ruined. The black stake went skittering across the rough stone floor.
Hannah was off balance, too. She was falling. Maya was falling. But it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. I've killed her.
There was no triumph in the thought. Only a sort of hushed certainty.
When the slow-motion feeling ended, she found herself the way anybody finds themself after a fall. On the ground and surprised. Except that Maya was underneath her, with a stake protruding from her back.
Hannah's first frantic thought was to get a doctor. She'd never seen someone this badly hurt before- not in this life. There was blood seeping out of Maya's back around the makeshift stake. It had gone in very deep, the wood piercing vampire flesh like razor-sharp steel through a human.
Thierry was beside her. Kneeling, pulling Hannah slightly away from Maya's prone form, as if she might still be dangerous.
Hannah reached for him at the same time, and their hands met, intertwined. She held on tight, feeling a rush of warmth and comfort from his presence.
Then Thierry gently turned Maya onto her side.
Hair was falling across Maya's face like a black waterfall. Her skin was chalky white and her eyes were wide open. But she was laughing.
Laughing.
She looked at Hannah and laughed. In a thick choking voice, she gasped. "You had guts-after all."
Hannah whispered, "Can we do anything for her?"
Thierry shook his head.
Then it was terrible. Maya's laugh turned into a gurgle. A trickle of blood ran out of the side of her mouth. Her body jerked. Her eyes stared. And then, finally, she was still.
Hannah felt her own breath sigh out.