The End

Sigourney was frowning at her computer screen when somebody beat on the apartment door. "Yeah?" she called, backspacing several words.

"Let me in!"

She stopped typing. Her eyes darted to the clock. 1:47 am.

She drew her trusty Louisville Slugger out from beneath the desk and tiptoed to the door. There was no peephole because she’d once watched a cop show where a man was shot through his, so she just lifted the bat over her shoulder and flung the door back.

It took her several long seconds to recognize the guy standing on her doorstep. He was tall, lanky, blond, and terrific looking. His body was loose-jointed, like a cat’s, and there was a certain sensuality to the way he stood, poised as if ready to bolt. He was wearing leather pants and a silk shirt with the buttons missing so that it fell open to reveal his rock-hard pecs.

"Hell," she muttered in surprise, and tried to shut the door.

"Oh, no you don’t," he said, throwing his arm out. Muscles rippled beneath his skin like snakes coiling and he had no trouble throwing the door open and letting himself inside.

Sigourney backed up into the living room, the baseball bat still in her hands. The bat was more a security blanket than a weapon now—she knew it wouldn’t stop him for a moment. "What are you doing here, Rafe?"

He shut the door and glanced around, his already unhappy face darkening. "Is this my apartment?" he demanded.

"Yeah, so? I used it in Heartshot, too, it’s a great apartment."

He shook his head. "Don’t you have a better imagination than that?"

"What do you want?"

"And that’s from Comfort."

Sigourney grimaced as she backed right into a desk corner. "How touching, Rafe, I didn’t realize you were a fan."

"Less a fan than a concerned consumer. I’m here because you backed me into a wall."

"A truck-driver will come along in a minute and jump-start your car. You do have cables, they’re in the trunk where the spare is supposed to be."

Rafe was shaking his head dismissivly. "No, no, I’m way past there."

"What chapter are you on?"

"Thirteen, fourteen? Sometime around there."

"Has Kevin lost his ear yet?"

"Kevin’s gonna loose his ear!?"

Sigourney swallowed. "Ah, no, that was a joke. Seriously, what just happened?"

She lowered the bat slowly, thinking. "You realize this is highly unusual, don’t you?" she said.

He held out his empty hands. "What else am I supposed to do? You really screwed up the plotting."

"The plotting is fine," she said, gritting her teeth. Upsetting vampires was never a good idea, even when they were fictional.

"Let me guess, suddenly, just as the bomb goes off, I wake up and it’s all been a dream?"

She brushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. "Give me some credit. You don’t save André, Sebastiana does. The story isn’t about you."

His eyes grew wider and wider, and the color drained completely from his already pale face. "You mean..." he gasped.

Sigourney nodded. "You’re a supporting character."

He lunged to strangle her and she rolled to the ground, managing to tear a desk drawer open as she went. From the contents splashed over the carpeting, she grabbed a small black pistol and waved it in Rafe’s direction.

"Don’t move. I’ve got wood-tipped bullets."

Rafe rolled his eyes. "That’s a cap gun."

"Yeah, well..."

She tossed it on the floor and got to her knees. "What do you want from me, Rafe? I’ve hauled you through more than a dozen stories now, don’t you think it’s time I focused on somebody else?"

"You do that all the time. I wasn’t in Saint, or Mirth Control, or Wizened."

"No, you got mentioned in two out of three of those."

"Mentioned, that’s pretty weak. And you didn’t put me in Hours of Darkness at all."

"There wasn’t room, I had like a million characters already."

"So obviously you needed a strong male hero to bring focus!"

Sigourney sat down on the edge of the desk and folded her arms. "You should just count yourself lucky that I never wrote that story where you end up in bed with Lars."

He tried to exclaim in horror and could only hiccup.

"Never mind," Sigourney said with a sigh. "I promise to write you some really good stuff later, with you as the main character."

"None of the sharing-the-stage junk you put in Prison Kiss?"

"Well....You’ll still be a main character, just not the main character."

"Do I get any first person?"

"Plenty. I’m even bringing Abrial back."

He frowned. "Are you sure that’s a good idea?"

"With you and Ab, nothing’s ever sure. That’s what keeps people reading."

"Speaking of which, how are the sales?"

"Decent. We’re getting in a little too deep with the folklore and the history now, I’ve got so many people thrown in there that the readers are getting confused. Like Mystra and Delaney and Adelaide"

"I like Adelaide."

"I didn’t say I was going to kill her or anything. It’s just time to wrap this up."

Rafe froze. "You’re going to wrap things up?"

"It had to end some time."

"What’s going to happen?"

"I can’t tell you. You know I’ve taken this whole thing too far. I’m barely writing anything else."

"But is it going to end up okay? You can’t bring Abriel, back, Sig, it’ll screw everything up with Julia."

She tried to hide the guilty expression on her face, but Rafe caught it and made a fist. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. Seriously, nothing. Julia’s fine. But not killing off more of..." She sputtered. "You...characters...is all the more reason why I should stop writing Fog books. Don’t freak, Rafe, we’re getting a huge Internet following, people are writing fan fiction about you all the time. You’ll get to come out and play again. Besides, staying in Fog Gray is too easy. I’m comfortable here, it’s time to strike out into new territory."

Rafe sat down slowly on the couch, his natural grace making the motion look like he was coming on to the sofa cushions. His green eyes – hadn’t she called them "flaming emeralds" once? – locked on Sigourney’s face.

"You have a moral obligation to us," he said darkly. "You know that, right?"

"Rafe, I don’t even know how it is that you’re here. You’re a character, you’re my character, and I know I never wrote you into my real life."

"Well, maybe it’s a sign."

"A sign?"

"Maybe this is how the story ends. We meet and I force you to write me a happy ending. I’ve always had the feeling that there’s something more powerful than me controlling us all."

"Yeah, that’s how THE KIRKIS REVIEW says I keep the series compelling. It’s just a matter of mentioning that you feel watched every couple of chapters." She riffled through the plot outlines for the next three books, which were supposed to bring her to the end of the series. Rafe ended up okay, but Julia was going to be gutted at the masquerade ball by the Countessa and Lars was going to kidnap Sebastiana’s twins. Neither one of them was found before the end of Only Humans Die because she had wanted to leave the door open for a sequel series, but...

Seeing Rafe right there in front of her, flesh and blood, sitting on the couch where she had pictured him so many times, as if acting out the opening scene from Midnight Mass...that changed things. She got to do all these horrible things to him precisely because he wasn’t real.

"Look, I can’t suddenly change the whole focus of the series. The lowest body count in a Fog book yet is seven, and I got letters complaining that it was too tame. That leaves twenty-one people for me to kill before the series ends, at the least. I’ll try to make most of them nameless bad guys, but I can’t promise anything."

She should never have called his eyes "penetrating." She felt burned by them now.

"You’re going to do something to Julia, aren’t you?" he asked in a voice like a low roll of thunder.

Sigourney answered without thinking. His gaze had that effect on her. "Yeah."

His pain filled the room like a suffocating gas. She couldn’t begin to put the feeling into words and knew that she had never done him justice.

"Take me instead."

She shook her head and in a blur of motion Rafe moved to stand in front of her. His blond hair fell out from behind his ears and she was enveloped in the cloud of amber-scented cologne she had always dreamed of. "No," she said.

He enclosed her wrists with his long, cool fingers. "Yes. It will be perfect, Sig, dying to save Julia will be the redemption of my character, the penance readers have been waiting fourteen books for me to pay. It’s the perfect bittersweet ending."

Sigourney swallowed as if a new taste had filled her mouth. Julia had been supposed to die, but good Lord, he was right, wasn’t he? If Rafe died instead – and not at Abriel’s hand – then she could be with Lars and Mystra wouldn’t have to kill herself and the title took on a whole new dimension of irony and meaning.

Everything came together like a bouquet of well-arranged flowers.

Rafe added hopefully, "Maybe I could even get Julia pregnant before I die."

Well, that wasn’t going to happen. She kept her head down so that she didn’t have to look into his eyes and admit that he never even managed to kiss Julia before the countess used his intestines to string popcorn on.

"Okay," she agreed. "You die instead of Julia."

He threw his head back and howled. It was another thing Sigourney had never properly described—even her bones vibrated. "Thank you," he said. His hands tightened around her wrists, sending an electrical shock through her body, and then he was dashing toward the door almost before she had time to stop him.

"Wait, where are you going?" she asked.

"Back to chapter fourteen. Make sure I’ve got some smart lines to throw at Lars, would you?" He turned in the doorway and caught sight of her face.

His smile fell away. His voice dropped as he spoke. "What is it?"

Sigourney shrugged. "Nothing, go on."

"No, what’s wrong? Does Sebastiana not get there in time?"

"She gets there. Don’t worry about it."

He closed the front door again. "Sig, what are you not telling me?"

She shook her head and smiled ruefully. "Everything’s going to be all right in the story."

"Then what?" He walked toward her until they were only a foot apart. No one in the real world ever stood so close. "Just tell me."

She tried to laugh at herself and instead chuckled sheepishly. "I was just thinking that...it’s not every day that a character walks into my apartment and...I did create you as my dream guy..."

She caught sight of the slow smile curling his lips. "Oh, I see," he said. "You want to do some character research."

"Sort of."

He caught her hands in his and played loosely with her fingers. "And Julia would never find out?"

"I’ll make sure she doesn’t."

"Coming from you, I believe that." Their bodies brushed. "Did you say the bedroom in this apartment is the same as the one in mine?"

"Right down to the silk sheets."

"Hmm." Suddenly he scooped her up into his arms, deciding for both of them. She met his gorgeous eyes – how she could ever have considered making them blue she didn’t know – as he carried her down the hall, and they both smiled.

"Are you sure you don’t want to write yourself into my story?" he asked, setting her down on the bed.

"I’m sure. But I’m glad you got written into mine."