"I think I'm getting the hang of this." Luc grinned at his companion across the winking crystal and silver, the blazing white of the linen tablecloth, the spice-scented flowers. He had just signed another autograph on a page torn from a young woman's date book. "Dance freaks. I love them!"

"You like to be admired?" Conor raised a dark eyebrow.

"To be appreciated, I think."

"I can offer you more than any of them."

"I wouldn't be surprised." Luc looked at Conor in frank admiration. Then he grinned again, his light brown eyes bright with amusement. "Let's see. You have looks, charm, sophistication. Money, too, I guess. But then again, lots of people do. What else can you offer?"

"Immortality."

Luc laughed, a rich, full laugh. "Why would I want that? I'm not Faust."

"He wanted youth," Conor pointed out.

"And look what happened to him!" Luc popped a shrimp into his luscious mouth. "Anyway, I've got youth."

"For the moment."

The smile faded from Luc's beautiful face. "That's not playing fair. Have you any idea how much a dancer worries about time? Age? We spend our whole lives in front of mirrors. Every month, every year we worry that the muscles are less elastic, the bones more brittle, knowing the body will ultimately betray us."

"For you, I could do something about that."

"I wish."

Conor's expression didn't change. His dark eyes burned with an intensity that made Luc draw back slightly, his smile uncertain, now.

"You sure have a unique approach to a first date," remarked Luc, regaining a little of his poise. "After all, you hardly know me."

"I know you better than you realize," Conor said. His long fingers touched the half empty glass of red wine, making the crystal sing. "Why don't you let me show you how much I know?"

Luc pursed his lips consideringly. "You said you saw me dance in New York and San Francisco. Where else?"

"In my mind."

"But your fantasies aren't necessarily mine," Luc remarked, with a sideways flirting glance.

Conor almost laughed. This was going to be easier than he had thought. Perhaps the shadows behind those melting brown eyes were strong enough now to bring out into the light. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, so you want to dance with Baryshnikoff too?"

The words were light, but the tension between them increased. It was almost as if Conor had touched the fret of an instrument with his words and tightened the wire. His experienced eyes watched as the young man moved from flattered interest, to the first stirring of desire, a craving that could never be satisfied.

Conor looked away. Right here, right now he could stop, could let Luc Beaulieu dance out of his life as gracefully and unwittingly as he had come into it. He was surprised by the thought, by his own sudden reluctance to continue with the plan. He had been following Luc for weeks. He had chosen him, for his stunning good looks, for his burning ambition, and most of all for the shadows in his soul. Those shadows would make it all possible. If Conor made the next move.

Luc leaned forward, his eyes on his dark companion. "You want to go dancing later?" His voice was low and slightly husky.

Conor felt something tighten in his chest. It was as if that voice had made the decision for him. He pushed back his chair abruptly. "Let's go."

Startled, Luc stared at him, his blond hair shining in the light from the chandeliers. "What about dessert?"

Conor took out his silver money clip and peeled off a wad of bills. "Come."

"A little early for that, isn't it?" murmured Luc, but he got up and followed Conor through the restaurant and out into the street.

Conor filled his lungs with the damp night air and felt as if he had regained his balance. In the light from the street lamps, Luc's natural high color looked drained and pale. On impulse, Conor turned and walked through an archway and down a red brick path into the still dimness of the formal garden behind the restaurant. It was a popular place during the day, but now it was deserted, the topiary sending twisted shadows across the paving stones, the fountain still, its pool a deeper blackness in the night.

"This place is creepy," Luc said, glancing over his shoulder uneasily as the shadows deepened.

Conor turned and looked at him. His veins throbbed with hunger, beating in his ears, pulsing with desire. But at the same time, something held him back. What was it about the young man beside him? The slim-hipped grace of the dancer? The wide eyes, ready to laugh, yet so easily hurt? The sheer strength of his muscles hidden under the crushed velvet jacket and soft silk shirt? Perhaps it was this contrast, this androgyny that drew him in a way no one else had for a very long time. Or perhaps it was that when he looked at Luc, he saw the shadow of another man, from a time long gone.

Conor had always been attracted to men, although when the hunger was on him, the gender of his victim meant nothing. He craved warm flesh, pulsing with life, brimming with experience that he could, for a few moments, savor as his own. Afterwards, he felt only a lingering sadness, a mild pity that these strangers had to give up so much so he could live.

"You've brought me to a pretty gothic spot," Luc remarked. His voice was husky in the shadows.

"You're afraid to perform away from the spotlight?"

"Conor, I don't perform without a contract."

Not for the first time, Conor sensed the steel will under the light exterior. Like the finely toned muscles, this, too, attracted him, made him hunger for the taste of the man's life. For a moment the craving was so strong he was disoriented and he reached out for Luc in the darkness in a reflex act of need.

"Not so fast," Luc said, stepping back.

It would have been easy for Conor to lunge, grab, hold Luc down against the old brick wall of the garden and take what he wanted. Luc was very strong, but no match for centuries of power sapped from untold numbers of humans. It would be so easy ... But this one was different. He wanted this one to work. All the way.

"It's been interesting," Luc said, watching Conor. "Too interesting, in fact, to end with a fumble in the bushes. Thanks, but no thanks." He turned and walked away.

Conor struggled silently with his rage, a tumbling incoherence of raw hunger and a finer more subtle need. He could see Luc's slim figure clearly. The shadows meant little to him. He knew Luc would stop and turn back, if only he could move, call out. But the emotions were too much to handle. It was always difficult, those rare occasions when someone touched his heart and left him open to weakness. Like now. Powerless to do anything to stop it, he watched Luc walk away, and felt the utter loneliness seep back into his bones.

*****

The experience had shaken Conor and he made a vow to stay away from the theater. Night after night he paced about his old townhouse surrounded by its high iron railings and cursed himself and the sudden attack of weakness that had kept him from taking Luc in the garden. He only left the house to skulk along the waterfront and through the back alleys, places inhabited by strays and misfits, people who would not be missed. He gorged himself shamelessly, fighting against the despair and degradation that flowed into his veins from theirs. This blood fest only made his longing for a companion stronger. He ached for Luc the way he had more than half a century ago for the Italian singer, Gianni.

Finally, late one afternoon, Conor came to a decision. He made his way through a series of malls and underground garages to the old Royal Victoria Theater. The stage door was locked, but the rusted mechanism gave easily under Conor's steady strength. The theater had been renovated recently, bringing back the ornate gilded glories of another age, a leisurely elegant time that still lived inside Conor and made his heart sore with memories. Backstage had been extensively refurbished, but it was still essentially the same building that Conor remembered from years ago. He had not come here for a long time after Gianni's accident, but the place was still inside him, a part of him, as Gianni had been.

He strode along the narrow corridors, up flights of concrete stairs to the rehearsal halls. Conor paused at a door. Even through the thick walls he could hear the soaring music. He looked in the window and felt the lurch of his heart. He slipped inside.

The room was filled with the glorious music of Prokovieff. Conor leaned against the wall and almost held his breath as he watched Luc come flying the length of the long room, his apparently effortless leaps carrying him swiftly through the air, so that he was barely on the ground before he was airborne again. He wore nothing but a pair of scant shorts and his golden body gleamed with sweat. Over and over he leapt, and the muscles of his legs and neck and arms stood out clearly in the glaring light. Although Conor had seen him perform many times, he had never seen him like this, so concentrated, so inward-centered, so at one with the music, which seemed to pick him up and propel him into the air on its own.

Then Luc paused and ran his fingers through his damp hair, his face absorbed in thought. He turned off the music. He swore. Wiping his face with a towel, he glanced up and saw Conor.

"What are you doing here? Offering more intimations of immortality?"

"Did I move too fast the other night?"

"Honey, I just got a little spooked, okay?" Luc grinned and ran his hand over his gleaming bare chest. "Want to try again? I have to finish here, first, though."

Conor licked his dry lips. "I'll wait outside. I've got all the time in the world."

Luc winked at him and switched on the music.

Ten minutes later, Luc joined him in the hall, dressed in a sweat suit with a canvas bag over one shoulder. His hair was damp from the shower. "I couldn't concentrate," he said. "I could almost feel you waiting for me. It was ... odd."

"Where do you live?"

"Not far."

"I called a taxi," Conor said. "It's waiting."

Luc said nothing. But in the back seat of the car, he slid his hand over to Conor's thigh and left it there.

Luc lived in a highrise apartment building on the seventeenth floor. "The space outside makes up for the lack of space inside," he said, throwing his dance bag on the floor. "It's a great view."

Conor went over to the wide expanse of windows and closed the drapes. "It's what's inside I want to look at," he said.

"Corny, but nice," remarked Luc. He was pouring drinks, setting them on a tray, adding ice to the bucket beside them. He nodded and led the way into the bedroom, which was almost filled with a huge low bed covered with black and white sheets and pillows.

Conor enjoyed the physical shock of their naked bodies, the instinctive effort to conform to what was wanted, the warm vulnerability of Luc's openness. But the ritual mating frenzy was merely foreplay to Conor. He never let go, never allowed himself to get lost in the other's wonderful hard flesh. This was only the first step.

"You don't look very relaxed," remarked Luc. He opened his mouth for the maraschino cherry Conor held out to him and sucked it off the stem.

"I ... want more," Conor said carefully.

"You're insatiable!"

"I mean, I want more than sex."

"There is no more." Luc sat up abruptly.

"You don't mean that."

"Conor, I'm not looking for a lover. I'm married to my career. I thought you knew that."

"Didn't it occur to you that you can have both?"

Luc reached for his drink, took the ice cube out and held it in his mouth for a moment. He leaned forward and let it slide into the hollow of Conor's throat. Conor watched the blood pulse in a vein on Luc's temple and felt his own breath getting shallow. The melting ice cube trickled down his chest.

"I can give you so much," Conor whispered.

"Are you God? Or the devil?"

"Neither."

"I'm not so sure," murmured Luc.

"Haven't you ever wanted to experiment? Go just a little further? Test your limits?"

Luc laughed low in his throat. "So that's what we're talking about. Why didn't you say so? What are you really into, Conor? Nothing that leaves lasting scars, I hope?"

"Sometimes. It depends what limits we're talking about."

"No big deal. A dancer is always pushing. Always trying to get more out of those five positions, you know?"

"I can show you the sixth."

Luc threw one leg over Conor's hips. His brown eyes seemed to deepen as he gazed intently into his companion's pale face. "Ever since I walked away from you the other night, I've been trying to figure out how to find you again. I know you've been following me for some time. I've seen you in the audience, at the receptions. I looked up your name in the major donor list but I couldn't find your home address anywhere. You're not in the phone book. Even the post office box on the patron file doesn't exist. You're a complete mystery. All I could do was hope and pray you'd come back."

"I'm here."

"I don't know what it is, Conor. I never felt this way before. I keep thinking about you. In class. On stage. In rehearsal. I see your face everywhere." He paused, his eyes never leaving Conor's face. "What do you want to do to me?"

Conor felt the slight tremor in the young man's body and he slid his arms around him. "Love you," he said. "My way."

Luc tensed, pushing against the encircling arms. Conor could have held him easily, but he let him go, watching him get off the bed and walk across the room away from him, watching how the light played over the hard muscles of his buttocks, the tender shadow between his powerful legs. He felt his own muscles jump with the tension of restraint.

"You don't believe me," Conor said. "I understand that. But it's true. I can take you places you've never been."

Luc turned to face him. "Show me." He raised his chin and smiled, accepting the challenge.

Conor crossed to the window. He watched the shadows in Luc's eyes as he stood in front of him, breathing deeply. Outside, the sun was going down in fire behind the pale drapes. "Put your hands above your head," Conor said, his voice deep in the dimness of the room.

Luc looked surprised, but he did as he was told. Conor reached up with one hand and grasped both wrists. Slowly, effortlessly, he raised the dancer off his feet, holding him suspended above the floor. He watched the pull of Luc's muscles, the astonishment in his face. He bent his head and licked the salt sweat from Luc's smooth chest.

"Christ," gasped Luc.

Conor slammed him against the wall, maddened by his closeness. So near ... So very near ... Luc made no move to resist until he felt Conor nip his neck.

"Please! Not where it'll show," he gasped.

Conor paused, then moved his dark head down the muscled chest. He sank his teeth into Luc's right nipple. The dancer cried out, but he fought his own impulse to struggle. Instead, he locked his legs around Conor's waist and arched back against the wall. He was breathing fast.

Conor moaned as the first small trickle of blood touched his tongue. He felt a shadow of Luc's pain and pleasure and fear and sucked harder.

"No!" Suddenly Luc pulled away from him, kicking out with his powerful legs, struggling to break Conor's grasp.

Surprised, Conor released him.

Luc backed away. "It's dangerous," he said.

"If it's the blood you're worried about, forget it. I'm immune. Blood of any sort is life to me."

"Shit!" Luc sank down to the rug on his knees, gazing up at Conor, his face gone pale. "You're crazy."

"Either that, or I'm telling the truth."

"A vampire?"

Conor shrugged. "If you insist."

"You are crazy. Stark, raving mad."

"Maybe. But what if I'm not? What if you take a chance with me? And win?"

"Immortality." Luc continued to stare at him as the silence lengthened between them. Then he reached up to the bedside table, pulled open the drawer and took out a large gold ring. Wordlessly, he held it out to Conor.

Conor nodded. As he watched, Luc began slowly to bend backwards, raising his arms above his head, his back arched, until his dancer's body was curved in a graceful giving arc before Conor. A tear of blood hung like a jewel just underneath the savaged right nipple.

Conor dropped to his knees beside the naked man and bent his head again. A tremor went through Luc but he lay still as Conor bit deeper, until his long canines had pierced the nipple completely and he was sucking Luc's essence into his own. One arm went under the warm body on the floor, cradling him gently in his embrace. Around him the room shimmered in memories, his own, Luc's, swirling through his mind as he tried to keep a hold on reality and not drink too much, too soon. He had a sudden almost overpowering urge to go ahead and force Luc into his world. But he wanted awareness, agreement. He wanted a lover, not an unwilling slave. He pulled away. With a strong, steady hand he fitted the ring in place through the nipple and licked away the blood.

Luc's face was stained with tears. Conor bit into his own finger, opening a small wound. He pushed the finger into the man's willing mouth. Obediently Luc sucked it, as Conor fastened the fingers of his other hand around Luc's erect cock. Luc sucked harder. Conor laid his head on Luc's chest and closed his eyes, feeling the rising passion beneath him mingle with his own consciousness.

At last, Conor rolled away. For the first time he looked at the framed posters on the walls. Several showed Luc dancing with a wispy ballerina. In one, he was alone, leaping upwards as the Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty. The expression on his face resembled the look Conor had just witnessed, an exquisite bursting inner joy that carried with it its own incredible energy.

"What does this mean?" Luc said, his voice an exhausted whisper. "Am I ... like you, now?"

Conor turned back, studying him intently. One hand touched the gold ring. "Is that what you want?"

"I don't know. I never experienced anything like that before. It was ... I don't know how to describe it."

"Think about being able to dance like that forever," Conor said, nodding towards the Bluebird poster. "That's what I can give you. "

"Christ."

"Think about it." Conor got to his feet and began to get dressed.

"Wait!" Luc jumped up, his face flushed with sudden anger. "You can't walk out now!"

"Think very carefully. Do you want me? Do you want this?" Deliberately, he looked around at the framed posters on the wall, the photographs, then back to Luc's face. "I can give you both -- or neither. There's no compromise."

"Don't play games, Conor."

"Oh, you're a good dancer. Very good. But so are hundreds of others. Without me, you have a chance, maybe, for one brief flash of recognition. With me, you have the certainty of timeless fame."

"So you're saying that without you I'll never make it?" Luc's voice shook with anger.

"This isn't about making it. It's about being a legend."

"And after one night of wild sex with you I'm supposed to make up my mind about eternity?"

"I have the advantage, here," Conor said. "I know how you really feel. About your career. About me."

"Bastard!" Luc's hand closed around the bronze figure of a dancer that stood on the table beside him. In one smooth move, he raised the figure and threw it at Conor's head with all his considerable force. Conor moved his head a fraction of an inch and the figure whizzed by and crashed against the wall behind him, chipping the plaster.

"Is that your answer?" Conor whispered.

Luc turned away, but not before Conor saw the tears. Conor waited. Luc was stronger than he had thought. For a moment, the bleak possibility occurred to him that he might lose the man, just as he had lost Gianni. Then Luc turned back. Slowly, he sank to the floor. "Do it," he whispered. His arms reached out to Conor. "I want to dance forever!"

Conor knelt beside him and ran his hands down the fine muscled body that throbbed with longing. The gold ring gleamed against the reddened nipple. Conor took a deep breath. "After I take your blood, you must take mine."

"Like we just did?"

"That was merely a gesture. There has to be a prolonged exchange, or the transformation doesn't work. That's very important. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Luc closed his eyes.

Conor began to lick the inside of Luc's thigh until he felt the artery pulse strongly under his tongue. He opened his mouth and pierced the smooth skin. As he sucked the warm blood down his parched throat, bright images exploded in his brain and he heard music -- dance music. The feeling was so strong he could almost feel lifted off the ground by the force of the other's longing. His dark head moved gently up and down as he hit his rhythm. He could feel Luc relax and begin to respond to this new kind of lovemaking. His back arched, his head turned to one side, then the other. He moaned.

But as the minutes passed, Luc's body stilled. Conor was suddenly aware of something else, other feelings, thoughts coming from Luc. He felt his mind cry out as he finally came to himself again and recognized what was happening.

"No!" Conor sat up abruptly and tore at his own wrist with his teeth, opening a vein. "Luc, drink this. Now!"

Luc opened his eyes and smiled weakly. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't do it."

"You can! You will!"

"I'm sorry. I want to be with you. I do. But I can't dance forever. No one does."

"You could!"

"But who would I dance with? No, Conor. It wouldn't work. It isn't meant to work that way, don't you see?"

"You're not thinking right, Luc! Just do as I say!"

"Everything's clear as a bell. How many times can you win the International Dance Competition?"

"As many times --"

"No. Then it doesn't mean anything." He paused and closed his eyes. His mouth opened slightly as his breathing became more shallow.

Conor bent closer and moistened the dancer's lips with his tongue. "What about me?" he whispered.

"You said it was both or neither. I want you, but I guess..." Luc's voice trailed off.

"Then take me! Just me!" Conor cradled the dying man in his arms and tried to force him to drink the blood that pulsed out of his own wrist.

Luc refused. "Then I couldn't dance." His voice was just a thread on the air. His face was pale, now, paper white against the vivid jewel colors of the rug. Conor's blood splashed unheeded onto his chest. His eyelids fluttered.

Frantically, Conor massaged the smooth hard chest, trying to restart the silent heart by the sheer force of his own longing. At last he sat back on his heels and stared at Luc. His black eyes burned with the fever of his own desire, his feelings, his thoughts, tumbled and mixed with Luc's.

"No," he whispered. "Not again."

He leaned forward suddenly and scooped the naked body into his arms. He got to his feet, the body clasped tightly, Luc's golden head resting against his bare chest. He began to pace about the apartment, at first slowly, as if in thought. Then his steps became faster, his breathing short, rasping in his throat. His energy bursting into action, he flung back the balcony door and leapt outside into the orange shadows of the darkening city. He felt that his heart would burst. He threw back his head and howled. "No-o-o! Luc! Gianni!"

High over the city, a keening sound like the wind, swept across the night sky.