In the distance she saw a faint light flicker and felt a surge of hope as she realized the light seemed to be moving toward her.  She watched, transfixed, as she realized that woman holding a candle was slowly approaching her.  The woman was tall, much taller than she, dressed in a long flowing black gown, holding a candle in her left hand.  Eliza looked at her death pale face and focused on her beauty and her long fangs.  She felt a cold shiver run up and down her spine.  She wanted to run, run like the wind but she was rooted to the spot.  She felt tears run down her cheeks and she had no idea why.  That didn't make sense.  Why was she crying, why was she here?

The woman in black stopped in front of her, reached and wiped the tears from her cheek.  She smiled sadly and Eliza, with a hint if lilac in her nostrils, could hear a soft wistful voice in her mind.  The voice was gentle, very gentle and sad, so very sad.  It told of love and it told of loss, there was pain and death - her pain and her death, his pain and his loss.  Eliza touched her soft cheek and she smiled, sadly she smiled.  The soft voice continued and Eliza felt a choking sob form in her throat, she felt a pain she'd never felt before, and she hoped, would never feel again; but she understood.  Again, tears were flowing down her cheeks and she felt as if her heart would break.

She felt the soft hand of the woman on her cheek and she heard the voice in her mind.  She heard the wistful statement and the underlying sadness, yet joy and hope.  She heard, "We'll be together again.  Rolain will be with her love."

The final note of the final set was played.  Jerry stood and then slowly lowered his guitar and turned off the amplifier.  He was moving a little slowly but seemed to be in no pain.  He winked at Eliza and made a bottoms up motion to her.  She giggled and tossed the final swallow of her drink.  Standing, she shrugged on her heavy cape.  Her boots were knee high but her leather skirt was still shorter than you'd expect due to the frigid weather.  She flipped her long hair outside of the cape and pulled it around her.  She was the only customer in the bar, so the closing exodus was very informal.

"Eliza, you're going to freeze your nipples off if you don't start wearing more," Greg laughed, putting his arm around her and hugging her.

She giggled and punched his arm gently.  "I'm hot enough to keep that from happening," she rejoined.

"Oh," Greg groaned, clutching his heart with both hands.  "Right through the heart with that one."

"You've got to watch that one, Greg," Jerry said.  "Her tongue's as sharp as that shank she hides in the cape."

"Tell me about it," Greg chuckled.  "That one got me!"

Eliza hooked her arm in Jerry's and they walked out into the cold night air.  He shuddered as the cold air hit them.  "I hate winter," he said.  "Of all the seasons, this cold, dark, bitter wind seems to get into my bones and make me ache.  I should head south.  There has to be gigs in nice warm towns where winter is just a bad memory."

"Oh, but I love it!  I love the snow in my face.  I love the howl of the wind and how the sleet beats on my cape.  The wind may be cold but it caresses me in some very exciting ways in some very private places."  She smiled and leaned heavily against him.  "Why don't you offer me something to warm my poor cold tummy, tonight?"

He grinned and squeezed her hand.  "Any time for you sweet thing."  He looked at the sky and shivered again.  "I sure have been feeling creaky the past few days."  He pointed at the moon.  "Soon be full and you'll be all fangy and frisky, now won't you?"  He chuckled as his alliterative pronouncement.

"Now, Jerry," she said seriously, "when I'm with you, I can get all fangy and frisky without the full moon."  She grinned and stuck out her tongue at him.

He laughed at her funny face.  "You are one bad little bat, but more seriously for a moment, thanks for the help last week.  Another piece of crap to celebrate my crappy life."  He sighed.  "Rolain was all I every cared about or all I every wanted."

Eliza stopped dead in her tracks.  Rolain?  Why did that sound so familiar?  Where had she heard that name?  "Hey, girl, you have to walk if we're going to get there," she heard Jerry saying.

She looked up at him, and the way they were standing, the almost full moon framed his head.  Eliza got the eeriest feeling and she felt a tear trickle down her cheek, and maybe it was her imagination, but she was almost sure she felt a soft hand touch her cheek.  She shook her head.  "Sorry!  I must have twisted my ankle."  She took a slightly limping step and smiled.  "Just clumsy tonight, I guess."

Jerry chuckled.  "You can cross town in a blink and can't walk with me to my apartment.  Aren't you glad it's not too far?"

Eliza looked carefully at him.  He chuckled but he did not smile.  When he smiled, his eyes did to laugh.  When he laughed, his eyes were sad.  She felt her self choking up again.  She kept hearing a soft voice saying, "We'll be together again."  Over an over, so soft it could be only the sound of wind blowing the occasional snow flake into her face.

"Eliza!  Snap out of.  I'm freezing out here."

Visibly shaking herself Eliza grinned and set out at a brisk pace, forcing Jerry to almost run to catch up to her.

Jerry's apartment was warmer that Eliza liked, but it's not polite to complain when the host is obviously comfortable.  She shrugged her heavy cape off and draped it over the couch.  She and Jerry were not very formal together.  She was removing her boots when he set a large glass of plum brandy on the stand next to her side of the couch.  She couldn't help but notice the looks he was giving her legs.  She smiled at him and asked, "You just going to stand there and watch me struggle?  You could offer to help."

Jerry lost no time in helping.  He sat on the floor in front of her and grasped her boot with both hands.  With that stabilizing her, she could slowly pull her foot from it.  He set the first boot aside.  She stuck out her other foot and they repeated the process.  He was smiling broadly at the view he'd been getting when they finished.  He leaned forward and carefully set the first the second boot next to the first.  She could feel his breath on her thigh and had a feeling she knew where this night was heading.  "Take off your shirt," she told him.

"Huh?"

"Take off your shirt.  I want to see how you're healing."

Jerry took his shirt off and shook his head. "I've done better.  It doesn't hurt, but it's just not healing."

Eliza looked at his wounds and shook her head.  "Well, they aren't any worse and you say it doesn't hurt."

He stretched his arms.  "If I wasn't so cramped up.  I feel like my body wants to turn into something else."

Eliza felt a chill and she knew.  Jerry had turned down the lights and sat next to her.

"You know, for a little lady you have got the longest legs I have ever seen."  Her skirt had ridden up and he put his hand on leg and caressed her inner thigh.  "I've never felt skin this soft and silky since Rolain," he said wistfully.  "You are very different from her, but you remind me of her in so many ways."  He took a long drink of her brandy and handed the glass to her.  She turned and put her legs in his lap and lie back, emptying the glass.  She close her eyes briefly and enjoy the feeling of his hand on her thigh.  She squirmed a little toward his hand so he'd know she was ready for more.  She looked as his face - or tried to - but it was so very, very dark.  His had did slide up her body and his finer tips caressed her soft belly while his thumb managed to excite her in more intimate ways.

She opened her eyes wide trying to figure out why it was so dark when she saw a dim light in the distance.  She gasped.  She gasped as the almost translucent figure lit by the glow of the candle was seen and she gasped at what Jerry was doing to her body.  Where did he figure that one out?  Damn! That felt good.  Her blouse was open and she was almost lost in the sensations she was feeling.  Gently, every so gently she fastened her fangs into his neck.  As she entered him, he entered her and they gasped together in mutual satisfaction.

The whisper.  The whisper was in her mind.  "You know what you have to do," she could hear.  "You know what must be done," the small sad voice said as his blood covered her breasts and her face.  She swallowed the hot, copper liquid, reveling in dual sensations.  She hesitated and looked up and Rolain smiled at down at her.  She looked down and saw Jerry, locked in a lover's blood-soaked embrace.  As she watched, candle wax dripping over her fingers, she could see Rolain's fangs in his neck and see the ecstacy on their faces.  Rolain released his neck and he raised himself and looked into her face.  Smiling, he caressed her cheek, he ran his finger down one long, sharp fang and put both hands on her blood soaked breasts.  He moaned and threw his head back and drove deep into her body.  She pulled him close and savagely tore his throat.  As spasm after spasm shook his body with ecstacy, his life washed her body red.

Eliza felt hot blood wash her face and a hot flood within her body.  Wave after orgasmic wave shook her body as she screamed with the physical release and the knowledge of the death covering her, of the life ending and leaking down her torso.  The still warm body of her friend, her lover, was dead weight on her body.  She closed her eyes and sobbed.  Nothing could ever ease the pain of what had just transpired.  The cooling body pressed heavy on her but she didn't have the will to move.  "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry," she cried.  "Why me?  Why me?"

Time passed.  Life cooled.

"Because only you could do it," the soft voice in her mind said.  "Because you are a bad little bat and only you would do it," Jerry told her.  Her eyes flew open, and in the dimness, she could make out two forms with their arms around each other.  Her vision dimmed and darkness claimed her.

Everyone at the bar had attended Jerry's funeral.  It was simple.  He'd been cremated, and oddly enough, there had actually been a will.  After a simple reading, the funeral director had handed Eliza the small urn and a bottle of Romanian Plum Brandy and envelope of short instructions.

The bar was closed.  At midnight, as instructed, they gathered at the bar and opened the bottle of Brandy.  Greg poured into good crystal glasses, and saying nothing, they toasted toward the empty chair and silent guitar amplifier.  In unison they put the glasses to their lips and sipped as an eerie rendition of Summer Time began to play.  Eliza closed her eyes and felt hot tears running down her cheeks.

"No, no, bad little bat.  You done good," she clearly heard.  She opened her eyes and Jerry and Rolain waved to her, turned and vanished together as the music faded.

Hulk recovered first.  He stared at Eliza.  "The music ain't dead," he said.  "Jerry and that girl," he grinned, "they're making music."  Greg and Eliza looked at each other.  Greg poured another round of drinks and they silently drank.