But what Ash said was "Can we stop fightingnow?"
Mary-Lynnette thought and then said seriously, "Idon't know."
They kept walking. The cedars towered around them like pillars in a giant ruined temple. A dark temple.
And underneath, the stillness was so enormous that Mary-Lynnette felt as if she were walkingon the moon.
She bent and picked a ghostly wildflower that wasgrowing out of the moss. Death camas. Ash bent and picked up a broken-off yew branch lying at the footof a twisted tree. They didn't look at each other.
They walked, with a few feet of space between them.
"You know, somebody told me this would happen," Ash said, as if carrying on some entirely different conversation they'd been having.
"That you'd come to a hick town and chase agoat killer?"
"That someday I'd care for someone - and itwould hurt."
Mary-Lynnette kept onwalking. She didn't slow or speed up. It was only her heart that was suddenly beating hard-in a mixture of dismay and exhilara tion.
Oh, God-whatever was going to happen washappening.
"You're not like anybody I've ever met," Ash said.
"Well, that feeling is mutual."
Ash stripped some of the papery purple bark offhis yew stick. "And, you see, it's difficult becausewhat I've always thought about humans-what I wasalways raised to think ..."
"I know what you've always thought," MaryLynnette said sharply. Thinking,vermin.
"But," Ash continued doggedly, "the thing is andI know this is going to sound strange-that I seem to love you sort of desperately." He pulled more bark off his stick.
Mary-Lynnette didn't look at him. She couldn't speak.
"I've done everything I could to get rid of the feeling, but it just won't go. At first I thought if I left Briar Creek, I'd forget it. But now I know that wasinsane. Wherever I go, it's going with me. I can't kill it off. So I have to think of something else."
Mary-Lynnette suddenly felt extremely contrary. "Sorry," she said coldly. "But I'm afraid it's not very flattering to have somebody tell you that they love you against their will, against their reason, and even-"
"Against their character," Ash finished for her, bleakly. "Yeah, I know."
Mary-Lynnette stopped walking. She stared at him."You havenot readPrideand Prejudice, " she said flatly.
"Why not?"
"Because Jane Austen was a human."
He looked at her inscrutably and said, "How do you know?"
Good point.Scary point. How could she really knowwho in human history had been human? Whatabout Galileo? Newton? T ycho Brahe?
"Well, Jane Austen was a woman,"shesaid, retreating to safer ground. "And you're a chauvinist pig-,'
"Yes, well, that I can't argue."
Mary-Lynnette started walking again. He followed."So now can I tell you how, um, ardently I loveand admire you?"
Another quote. "I thought your sisters said youpartiedall the time."
Ash understood. "I do," he said defensively. "Butthe morning after partying you have to stay in bed. And if you're in bed you might as well read something They walked.
"After all, weare soulmates," Ash said. "I can't becompletely stupid or I'd be completely wrong for you."
Mary-Lynnette thought about that. And about thefact that Ash sounded almost-humble. Which he had certainly never sounded before.
She said, "Ash ...I don't know. I mean-weare wrong for each other. We're just basically incompatible.
Even if I were avampire, we'd be basically incompatible."
"Well." Ash whacked at something with his yew branch. He spoke as if he half expected to be ignored.
"Well, about that ... I think I couldpossibly change your mind."
"About what?"
"Being incompatible. I think we could be sort offairly compatible if . . ."
"If?" Mary-Lynnette said as the silence dragged on."Well, if you could bring yourself to kiss me."
"Kissyou?"
"Yeah, I know it's a radical concept. I was pretty sure you wouldn't go for it." He whacked at another tree. "Of course humanshave been doing it for thousands of years."
Watching him sideways, Mary-Lynnette said, "Would you kiss a three-hundred-pound gorilla?" He blinked twice. "Oh, thank you.""I didn't mean you looked like one.""Don't tell me, let me guess. I smell like one?"Mary-Lynnette bit her lip on a grim smile. "I mean you're that much stronger than I am. Would you kissa female gorilla that could crush you with one squeeze`? When you couldn't do anything about it?"He glanced at her sideways. "Well, you're notexactly in that position, are you?"
Mary-Lynnette said, "Aren't I? It looks to me as ifI'd have to become a vampire just to deal with youon an equal level." Ash said, "Here."
Hewasofferingher theyew branch.Mary Lynnette stared at him.
"You want to give me your stick."
"It's not a stick, it's the way to deal withme onan equal level." He put one end of the branch againstthe base of his throat, and Mary-Lynnette saw that it was sharp.She reached out to take the other end and found the stick was surprisingly hard and heavy.
Ash was looking straight at her. It was too dark to see what color his eyes were, but his expression was unexpectedly sober.
"One good push would do it," he said. "First here and then in the heart. You could eliminate the problem of me from your life."
Mary-Lynnette pushed, but gently. He took a step back. And another. She backed him up against a tree, holding the stick to his neck like a sword.