The news broke in Europe of Sir Rutledge Sexsmith’s death. Valdis had so hoped that she was just being overly excitable, though she never had been given to such hallucinations or visions before. Now she knew he really was dead and her heart broke. Her plans to return to Africa fell apart. She continued in service for her Prince until she was no longer needed. The spark of fun, and of hope had gone out of her. She was nothing now, just a drudge.

Eventually she was freed from service and she roamed, always thinking that she needed to keep moving. Always wishing for him, as he had been, not angry like now. Never knowing for sure if it was her own mind or his shade so angry with her. She began to believe in earnest that she had caused his downfall.

After all if she had only heard one more piece of information, been more loving or persuasive, been a little stronger in pushing the summons aside, then perhaps she could have saved him. She didn’t. She let him die. Everyone she had loved as far back as she could remember was dead. She had not been able to save them either. Rutledge pointed this out and much more.

She began to make a nightly token of her repentance to him cutting herself, bleeding just enough of her guilty pain out that she could stand to just be, that night, and that seemed to make him happy. It was her token to him too. He liked the gesture his nightly blood token, very much. He liked it even more when he realized it weakened her a little to bleed herself so.

He enjoyed watching her intricate cold silver knife slice sharply into her creamy white thighs. They would heal all too quickly but he knew from her swift intake of breath that she felt the pain of her sins for just a moment.

She took his name as she moved around. Valdis had a problem with her memory and she knew that. So she thought if she adopted his last name it would help her sometimes-unreliable memory. She wanted so very much to remember those wonderful nights together as nothing else before or after had touched her so much or made her feel so nearly alive.

Never would she have expected to keep seeing him each night. His bloody, tortured countenance was there almost always with her. He was mostly angry with her for over two hundred years.

There were times she slept. It shouldn’t have happened. She could never remember or understand why it did. Valdis would nonetheless sleep for a decade or more then awaked starving and mad. Rutledge would watch her then a true demon from hell, sucking and killing till satisfied. Where he went at the times of her extended sleep, he would not tell her.

He was there most of the time. He was furious with her most of the time but when he wasn’t around it scared her and she missed him.

Rutledge also helped her occasionally, pointing out spirits and those attuned to them. He was able to see things she couldn’t. He would let her know of poachers sometimes. They both shared a hate of that kind, for he had been killed by them.

He spoke to her too, almost seeming to stroke her hair, though she could feel no touch from him. She wanted to feel that touch so much. There were times when animals were killed and Rutledge would tell Valdis about helping the animal spirits move on. Yet he still remained with her almost always. Each time she met someone she could like or care for he’d warn her, that she would ruin them, hurt them and let them die. Often his warnings seemed to be borne out.

The society she lived in was very violent. They were supposed to be immortal but that was only the case if your fellows were not plotting to put knives in your back. In their highly political world of Byzantine games every one was a pawn and absolutely everyone was expendable. When one is old and bored the games become more deadly than mere chess. If the werewolves, mages and other non mortals were to find out about you, your existence could become forfeit.. Even mortals could be your final death if they became wise to your proclivities.

He was angry about many things but Valdis’s obsession with sex and love, perhaps, most of all made him furious. In this one area he could not stop her, no matter what he did. He wanted to, for he felt she belonged to him alone. That is what he thought and felt in his ghostly heart. She had been the death of him and he would be the death of her. It was only fitting.

Yet at times he loved her too. He even saved her life a few times. She could be so childlike, so happy and almost human. That was a true magic that he loved about her. He would laugh then and shake his head at her antics.

She learned all the latest jargon, learned to cook, and so much more. She seemed to love little moments of illusion in which she could almost believe she was alive and normal again. Rutledge loved her then too, in those rare, but precious moments.

She began to seek punishment when things went wrong. She always took all blame upon herself. Rutledge loved that. He hated anyone else touching her, but loved that she sought that out and felt the guilt she should. He loved watching it, never focusing on those she got to help her, only on her and the punishments themselves.

Valdis thought she saw things very clearly now. Rutledge was her one great love, her soul mate and she would do just about anything to go back, change things or remake them. There was of course nothing she could do, he was lost to her she was still wondering if his shade were real or just her imagination.

Until one night she made a deal with a creepy vampire. She would give up the secrets to her clans powers to this woman and her kinsman if they would make Rutledge flesh once more. The questions now were would they Giovanni kin be able to do that? Make Rutledge healthy and flesh once more, able to lead a normal life again? Or did they lie about what they could and could not do?

What would Rutledge say when she told him about the deal? He seemed to never be around when the Giovanni were, why was that? There must be a reason.

He had in fact been gone several nights and she was missing him. Where was he and why? Anxiously she waited hoping for his return to her, fearing he was finally gone forever.