The Deadliest Bite

“Oh. My. God.” I stopped three steps into the Gold Room, where Queen Marie’s ghost appeared the most, forcing Aaron to backpedal so he wouldn’t slam into me. His curse drew itself out when he got a load of our new surroundings.

“Shee-it!” he said, sliding past me to wander around the room’s edge, slowly, like he had to get his bearings or he just might get lost amid the glitter. Raoul had stationed himself near the center by a chaise longue draped with black lace. It was in startling contrast to the rest of the space, which shone with the color of power. Not purple. Nuh-uh. I’ve-got-a-Golden-Ticket gold.

Gilded thistles covered the wal s and ceiling of the room, the center of which held a Celtic cross framed by four golden lights. I immediately looked to Vayl to see how he’d be affected by the holy sign. He’d noticed it right away too, and was checking the backs of his hands for signs of smoke.

“Don’t worry,” Raoul told him as he nodded toward the cross. “You’re under my protection here.” Vayl stuck his hands in his pockets. “Thank you,” he said. He went to the opposite side of the room, where a door flanked by two arched stained glass windows would let beautiful light in during the day. I tried to gauge his mood by the way his shoulders strained against his suit coat, but it was too hard to tel while his back was turned. So I let my eyes wander to the Tiffany lamp on the heavy rectangular table that sat between the chaise and the bank of windows, which gave the room an unearthly glow. Stately square chairs sat at each end of the table. At a diagonal behind one of them a double throne—I couldn’t think of it in any other terms—waited for its owner’s return. Behind the other a golden cabinet held some of Marie’s most treasured possessions. A book of poetry written in her own hand. A pair of giant pearl earrings surrounded by diamonds. A blue velvet hat trimmed with white fur. A statue of her daughter, Elisabeth, lifting her face to a refreshing breeze, her long hair and ruffled skirts flying behind her.

Vayl turned, the dimple on his right cheek appearing briefly as he asked, “Jasmine? Is this what you would cal over-the-top?”

I said, “Vayl? This freaking room is the reason royals should be wired with an off switch.” Aaron said, “Holy shitsky, this guy’s got a gold dick!” He was pointing at a statue that stood beside the flower-painted doorway we’d entered. The artist seemed to be into helmets and swords but little else in the way of armor.

“Shitsky?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Where are you from, Aaron? Sheboygan?”

“Close,” he said. “My mom was from Madison and I grew up in St. Paul.” I crossed my arms. “Nice boys from Wisconsin do not go around kil ing people. Even after they’ve turned into vampires.”

He blew his breath out his nose. “That is exactly something my mom would’ve said.”

“I know. My Granny May was from the Midwest.”

“Is she in the Thin?” he asked hopeful y.

I laughed out loud. “Hel no! She’s probably in God’s left ear right now, informing him that maybe he should change his gemstone polish, because the pearly gates aren’t looking quite as shiny as they should.”

Aaron’s smile suddenly made the whole room look dul by comparison. “Mom was just like that!”

“How about your dad?” I asked.

Instant sorrow. “Not so much. Dad knew two things. How to brew beer. And how to say yes to Mom. I was fifteen when she died, and then it became my job to tel him what to do.” Now I understood how Aaron’s dad had been caught.

Raoul said, “Your father would have been easy prey, then. A wavering soul is a vulnerable one.” The kid dropped his head. “I’ve thought about that. But he’s a good guy.”

“I know.” Raoul gestured down to the chaise. “According to the plaque, this is the spot where Queen Marie died in 1938. This wil be where she returns when I cal her.”

“So that’s what you’re going to do?” I asked.

I came over to stand by him, staring down at the last cradle of a country’s ruler. It did feel different to me, as if I’d sidled up to the emotional firewal of a woman’s entire life. But I knew that I could reach through if I wanted to. That I could touch the sliver of soul that she’d left behind, that continued to cal her back. And it would burn to be so close to such raw humanity.

I clasped my hands behind my back as Raoul said, “If I invited her back to a place where she habitual y walked anyway, we’d al be less likely to become ghost kebabs. You could talk, hopeful y make the deal, and then take it from there. If she even—”

I held my hand up to head off his doubts before he pol uted the room with his negative energy. I said, “I’ve sensed it in Brude. She spends most of her time in the Thin. This is the only place that cal s her back.”

Raoul stared down at the plaque mounted on a gold-painted post. “Al right, I’l buy that. But only because you two are the types who make it your job to know. Did you also know that when she shows up to haunt the place, she heralds her entrance with the scent of her favorite perfume?”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Violets,” Raoul said.

“Nope, we missed that. But we’re not surprised. Are we, Vayl?” I asked as my sverhamin came over to join us.

Vayl came over to stand by us. “Nothing the queen did would raise my eyebrows,” he told us.

“Good,” replied Raoul. “Because I’m about to bring her here, and I suspect she’d see that as a sign of weakness.”

“What happened to opening a doorway?” Vayl asked, his voice deepening with frustration.

“The queen wil take you through if you talk fast enough,” said Raoul. He eyed Vayl. “You look frightening enough to curdle milk. I suggest you let Jaz take this one.” Before Vayl could reply he went on. “Marie is a queen, so she’l probably travel with a retinue. I have no idea how many she’l bring with her, but they’l be hungry.” His eyes wandered to Aaron as he finished. “I suggest you stay inside the room until the meeting’s over.”

“Why would we leave?” asked Aaron.

“You could be forced out,” Raoul said. “And for my protection to work at maximum strength right now it can’t extend beyond these four wal s.” He gestured at the wal paper as Aaron began looking for something sturdy to hang on to. Then he said, “As soon as she’s accepted your deal, you’l be al right. But until then, be vigilant.”

“I was a Boy Scout,” Aaron offered. “Is that anything like ‘Be prepared’?” I crossed my arms. “That al depends. What are you preparing to do?” He shrugged. I said, “Wel whatever it is, just don’t touch the ghosts. Nothing enrages them more than to be touched by the living. They’l morph from gracious conversationalists into parasitic bloodsuckers right before your eyes. I’ve known them to slice arteries with rage alone. So, you know, if you can’t figure out how to be prepared. At least be polite.” CHAPTER TWELVE

Saturday, June 16, 10:40 p.m.

While we set up for the queen’s visit, the other (better?) half of our crew took the short hike to Pelisor’s older and oh-baby-grander brother, Peles.

Astral’s video combined with the Party Line and vivid descriptions by members of what later came to be cal ed the “Bergman Got Bal s Expedition” revealed that security around a museum ful of priceless artifacts just oozing stories related to Romania’s colorful history is as tight as a miser at Christmas. Which was why they didn’t bother knocking. They parked just off of Str. Pelesului and hit the tree line. Dave and Jack took the lead. Cassandra fol owed with Astral at her heels, Bergman at her shoulder, and Cole at her back, his gun drawn but hanging at his side.

“Is that real y going to be necessary?” hissed Bergman, his eyes darting nervously from Cole’s nine-mil imeter Beretta Storm to the moonlit pines surrounding them and beyond, to Peles Castle, which sat in its val ey to their right, sparkling like an amulet ful of diamonds.

“Absolutely,” Cole whispered. “Because you never know when we might be attacked by a horde of Vlad’s impalers. Just imagine it, Miles. Three hundred screaming warriors on horseback, their faces painted with the blood of their enemies, their lances set to pin us against these trees here like a couple of scarecrows.”

“That’s just… Would you stop with the ridiculousness? That’s not even how it happened back then.”

Cole shrugged. “Like I’d know. I spent my entire History class trying to convince the teacher that my dad actual y found Hitler while he was stil alive and that he was the one who shot him. And that my mom was real y Eva Braun. Almost had him convinced too. Then he saw the three of us together at a wrestling tournament, figured out my folks weren’t even alive during World War Two and the whole game col apsed.” Cole sighed. “It was fun while it lasted, though.”

“Shut up back there,” Dave said. “We’re supposed to be skirting security, and it’s gonna be kind of tough to pul off stealth mode while we’re al laughing.”

Cole grinned as Bergman gave him a dirty look, which seemed especial y to be aimed at his Beretta.

“It’s just a precaution,” Cole reassured him. “I promise if I have to, I’l shoot the guns out of their hands just like in the old Westerns.”

“And then wil you sing to them like Roy Rogers used to do?” whispered Cassandra.

“Only if you buy me a white shirt with fringe and sequins.” Cassandra said, “Done,” just as Astral made a matter-of-fact suggestion: “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

They al stopped and stared down at Bergman’s robokitty, who had paused when she noticed Cassandra do the same. She looked up at them and said, “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

“What does that even mean?” asked Cole as he peered off into the dark, cupping his shooting hand with his free one and pul ing the Beretta up to shoulder height. He went stil , raising his nose as if sniffing the air.

Dave motioned for them to stand perfectly stil . Moments later he and Jack had disappeared into the pines.

“Wow,” whispered Bergman. “He’s good.”

“He’d better be back soon,” Cole final y whispered.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked.

“Something’s here.”

Bergman slapped his hands against his cheeks like he was trying to wake himself up from a bad dream. “How can you tel ?”

Cole rol ed his shoulders as if he suddenly felt the need to stay loose. “It’s hard to describe. It’s like the back of my brain itches. Sometimes, just by the way it’s irritated, I can tel what’s set me off.

Like a vampire. Or a fairy. But this time”—he shook his head—“I’m not quite sure.” Bergman stepped to his side. “But maybe you could be sensing something innocent. Hunters do that. And you’re kind of a hunter. So maybe it’s a raccoon. Or a frog.” He squinted into the woods.

“Ribbit?” he ventured hopeful y.

Cassandra had also closed ranks. But she’d turned so that she could detect movement behind them. “Is your gun going to be effective against whatever you’re sensing?” she asked Cole.

Cole shrugged. “It’s loaded with holy silver. So it’l slow down a vamp or kil a Were. It’s just that this thing doesn’t smell like that.”

Dave and Jack rejoined the group so quietly that even Bergman forgot to jump. “I found the grave site,” Dave said. “But it’s being guarded.”

“By what?” Cole asked.

Dave rubbed his jaw, which made Cassandra start to play nervously with her rings. Already, like a good poker player, or a loving wife, she’d begun to pick up on Dave’s stress tel s. He said, “It’s a Rider.”

Cole swore under his breath, another sign of bad mojo. Only Bergman stil hadn’t ful y caught on to their predicament. He asked, “What’s a Rider?”

Neither Dave nor Cole acted like he wanted to answer, so Cassandra clasped her hands together, her eyes so luminous she might have been channeling her inner oracle as she told him, “It’s a big, hulking brute that latches on to its victim, digs in, and then sucks out al the thought and emotion, until there’s nothing left but a staring, slobbering husk.”

“So it’s a vampire?” asked Bergman.

Cole turned to him. “Think of it as the first vampire. In the same way that scientists consider Neanderthals the first salsa dancers. Not quite, but without that link you’d never have Vayl.”

“So…” Bergman struggled to stay in the classroom part of his brain. “It’s, what, less evolved?” Dave nodded. “It doesn’t turn its victims. It tortures them. Gets into their blood and melds their minds into truth machines. Tel me something, Miles. Have you ever seen a person take a good look at himself in the mirror?”

Bergman shook his head.

Dave said, “I did once. Friend of mine, ended up punching the glass so hard he needed twenty stitches to put his hand back together.” He leaned in closer, trying to explain a creature whose power even he had only heard whispers of. “Most of us spend our whole lives tucking our weakness under the mattress, hiding our fears inside the closet, pretending we’re not miserable shits to our spouses and kids. Not because they deserve it. Because that’s just who we are. Riders turn people into horses, jerking the reins so they have to face their own miserable bitchiness, prejudice, and petty crap. The more you fight, the harder those spurs dig in until you’re literal y bleeding al over the carpet. Feeding the monster on your back. If you don’t give in, pretty soon you’re dead. But if you can face the horror, walk through your own nightmare without flinching too much, you can buck that Rider and cut his fucking throat.”

Dave pul ed a knife from a sheath he’d hidden inside the pocket of his cargo pants. “So which one of you thinks you can pul that off?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Saturday, June 16, 10:45 p.m.

I’d heard al the talk in Cole’s camp and it had made me half crazy. It was my job to go decimate the Rider, not hear that one of my crew was about to risk his or her life in my place. Especial y since the creature couldn’t have picked that particular cemetery to guard randomly. It had been sent by Roldan and Brude in another attempt to destroy us. I hated that we couldn’t deal with the Rider directly, and that the pain of watching one of our dearest friends fight, and possibly die, in our place would make those two bastards crow.

Plus I knew Astral’s mutterings about cowboys weren’t random at al , but another push to find Zel Culver. And soon. I wasn’t sure who’d been pul ing her strings, and while I appreciated the direction, I also hated the fact that I couldn’t fol ow it right this minute. But here I was, stuck in rock-around-the-clock mode, circling the lacedraped chaise where Queen Marie had taken her last breath along with Vayl, Raoul, and Aaron like we’d started a game of musical chairs only, damn, somebody had forgotten the props. So we just kept cakewalking while Raoul tried to conjure the stubborn old monarch to the site of her last human breath.

I could almost see her lying there, surrounded by her children and loyal servants. Mourned aloud even as they silently divided her loot among themselves. That alone would’ve given me reason enough to return. I’d have haunted those bastards to the fifth generation. And I kinda hoped she stil scared the shit out of them on a daily basis.

“So what are we doing?” whispered Aaron. “Is this like a séance?” He held his hands in ours delicately, as if he thought Raoul and I were stil pissed enough to break a couple of fingers.

I said, “I’ve never seen a séance yet that wasn’t three parts stage show and one part bul shit.

Real Raisers use an inborn power cal ed the Lure to pul spirits from the Thin. From what I understand it makes them smel extra good to the dead, especial y when they’re dancing. It’s like a gazel e flirting with the danger zone of a lion pride. The pride’s fascinated, right? Glued to the picture. But if they’ve already eaten, they just watch. Raisers have a similar ability to convince the spirits they’re stuffed. Since none of us were born with that power, we’re going with this simpler, less entertaining technique.”

We final y stopped, which must have meant Raoul had coiled our energies around the spot to a satisfactory degree. Aaron’s arms crossed over his chest as he watched my Spirit Guide pul a silver dagger from the sheath hanging at his side. He’d looked so relieved to be able to strap it back on when we were pul ing our weapons out of the trunk of the Galaxie that I’d felt a fresh spurt of guilt for making him ditch his uniform. Sometimes you just need your familiars around you. Aaron didn’t see that, maybe because the dagger was glinting like a razor as Raoul put it into motion. “What’re you going to do?” he asked.

“Sacrifice,” I said.

Vayl grimaced at me. “Must you taunt the boy?” he asked.

I considered the pudgy youth who stil refused to dump his country’s fear of others despite everything he’d seen so far. “Yup.”

Raoul stepped forward. “Hold your arms over the chaise,” he commanded, just like he’d dropped back into the field and we were his loyal troops. We did as we were told, even Aaron, and Raoul made a smal slash above each of our wrists one after another, including his own. Fol owing his lead, we turned our arms so the blood could fal on the lace coverlet, watching the black cloth dampen as the droplets hit and soaked in.

Raoul said, “Queen Marie Alexandra Victoria of Romania. We beg an audience.” He waited. We al did while Aaron looked up, down, and around like he figured a gang of skeletons was going to jump out of a hidden doorway any second now. He whispered, “That’s it?

Ring-aroundthe-rosy, blood, and begging, and you think the ghost of a dead queen is just going to drop in on you like you’re her favorite cousins? I should’ve known you guys were a bunch of posers

—”

“Aaron.” One word from Vayl accompanied by a look that could freeze erupting volcanoes, and our tagalong shut the hel up. Just in time for the scent of violets to waft through the room.

“Do you…?” I raised my eyebrows at Vayl and Raoul. They nodded to show that they’d detected the odor too, stronger now, centering on the chaise under our noses. A rumble shook the room, or maybe it was the whole castle, because we could hear the distant shrieks of a terrified woman. A shiver ran across my shoulder blades and I turned toward the flower-painted door just in time to see two soldiers wearing uniforms I dated to World War I lead a majestic creature through the entryway as if it had been opened and the room prepared for them. She held her head high, as if the spiked platinum crown resting on her rich brown hair weighed nothing more than its gumbal machine knockoff. Her blue gown looked vivid against the gold wal s I could stil see glowing through it, providing a surreal backdrop to the light golden cape she wore over it. Two long ropes of pearls swayed back and forth across her breasts as she walked toward us, fol owed closely by the rest of her party, two ladies wearing pale pink-and-white lace scarves over their dark ringlets and two more cavalrymen in knee boots over tan trousers and hip-length tunics set off with gleaming buttons and shining swords.

I was impressed. And chil ed.

Because Queen Marie had chosen to stay in the Thin rather than move on. That meant she’d sacrificed her soul’s salvation in exchange for power, manipulation, greed, and the random cannibalization of her fel ow spirits. And she looked wel fed.

I curtsied just the way they’d taught us to in spy school and said, “Queen Marie, my name is Jasmine Parks. It’s a true honor to meet you.”

She raised her hand up to me, palm out, which seemed to be a signal to the guards. They glanced back at their ruler expectantly. She gored me with her pitiless blue eyes and said, “Kil her.” CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Saturday, June 16, 10:50 p.m.

The woods beside Pelisor Castle seemed to fal as silent as the grave-searching half of our crew as they tried to figure out what the odds were of any one of them successful y overcoming a creature so ancient even vampires gave it a wide berth. While Cassandra, Bergman, and Cole debated the wisdom of fighting a battle that was real y Vayl’s, Astral and Jack stared at each other until Astral said, “Bad Moon Rising” in a low, even tone. Jack huffed. Cole told me later he suspected my malamute was in ful agreement.

Dave murmured a couple of lines from Creedence Clearwater Revival’s hit: “Don’t go ’round tonight./Wel it’s bound to take your life.” He looked around the circle at the others. “But we have to.

Vayl’s depending on us.” He shook his head. “No, I’m his brother. Or as close as he’s ever going to get. I’m the one who has to do this.”

Cassandra’s gasp had barely cleared her mouth before Bergman grabbed the knife out of her husband’s hand. Luckily my twin had lightning reflexes or Miles might’ve stabbed them both in the exchange. As it was Dave backed off fast, leaving our tech guru to stand in the middle of the circle holding Dave’s survival knife, looking down at its doubly lethal edges, one serrated, one sharp as a razor.

“Are you sure about this?” Cole asked him. “I think that blade is thicker around the middle than you are.”

Bergman dropped his arm. “You can’t do it. Even when you don’t have horns you’re a hel -raiser,” he said.

Cole’s nod admitted that his brush with demon-kind minimized his chances of winning a battle with a beast like the Rider. Bergman went on. “Dave has to find out where Vayl’s kid ended up, so he’s out. And Cassandra’s pregnant, so—”

A chorus of shocked denials and surprised gasps from his group along with distracted confusion from mine at his announcement. “Wel , crap, don’t any of you have even the tiniest shred of observational skil s? She keeps rubbing her stomach, which she’s never done before. She’s been kind of nauseous. And she married Dave without tel ing Jaz, when we al know she would’ve loved to have her and Evie there, and probably even that horrifying old colonel they grew up with. They had to do a quickie wedding so they could fake the kid into thinking he was legit. Which”—Bergman glared at the expectant parents—“if it has half a brain, you’re so not getting away with.” Cassandra put her hand to her mouth as Dave pul ed her close. “We didn’t want anyone to know until we were sure…” She took a shuddering breath. “I have lost babies early on before. I’m stil not out of danger.”

“What did the doctor say?” asked Bergman.

“That I’m fine.”

He waved his hand at her. “Then relax. As long as you don’t let this Rider jump you, I’m thinking you’l be changing real y disgusting-smel ing diapers in another six months. Which, as I said, leaves me to deal with…” He trailed off, biting his lip. “I can do this,” he whispered.

She held out her hand, realized the last thing he probably wanted right now was for a psychic to touch him, and pul ed it back. “I’l pray for you.”

“No offense,” he replied. “But how is your new relationship to the gnome-god going to help me?” She shrugged. Among her many talents, she’d recently rediscovered her original gift just in time to pul off a last-minute save during our mission to kick some fanatical gnome ass in Australia.

However, Bergman did have a point. As the oracle to Ufran, she probably didn’t have a whole lotta pul in the human arena. Stil , she said, “You’re very thin. Maybe he’l take a liking to you.”

“Great. I’m about to attempt the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and you want to make me an honorary gnome.” He squared his shoulders and turned to Dave. “What do I do?” he asked.

Dave looked him hard in the eyes. “Fight. Look, Miles, Cassandra’s right in a way. You are thinner than my mom’s chicken noodle soup, but I know you. When you sink your teeth in, you don’t let go until you get what you want. Go to that place in your head, face your personal demons, and then make the Rider battle you there. You wil win. At which point”—he nodded to the knife—“that should come in handy.”

Bergman looked down at the blade. “I have to kil it.”

“Hopeful y we’l be able to help. But because of where it rides, you’l be the only one who can reach its heart. Stab it there and it dies,” said Dave.

“Okay.” Bergman stared off into the forest, his face set in firm lines. They could see the man he would look like in twenty years if he survived this night. And they quietly honored him for offering himself that future.

Cole wrapped Jack’s leash around his wrist and Cassandra gathered Astral into her arms.

“What do I do?” asked Bergman.

Dave pointed. “The cemetery is about twenty yards in that direction. You won’t see him, maybe won’t even sense him until he’s on your back.” He hesitated, then said, “As soon as he’s on you, we’l move past and get to work. We wouldn’t do this if Vayl didn’t think his kid’s life was in danger.

And if it wasn’t pretty much the dream come true for him. You know that, right?” Bergman swal owed and nodded. He raised the knife in front of him, almost like it was a lantern that could light his way, and strode off into the trees.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Saturday, June 16, 10:50 p.m.

As Queen Marie’s personal guards strode toward me, not even bothering to pul their swords as they came, I couldn’t help but smile. Final y. Enemies I knew how to fight. And, like most men I encountered, ones that had sorely underestimated the pale, undernourished redhead they knew they could easily overcome.

I pul ed the bolo from my pocket. Once, in Scotland, I had watched Brude’s ghost army decimate a coven of Scidairan witches. But the girls had gutted more than one of his mercenaries using forged steel anointed with a red powder I’d learned later was made mainly from the ground bones of the unjustly executed. It was astonishingly easy to find, even if a tablespoon of the stuff did cost more than a month’s rent.

Since I’d sprinkled my entire supply into the sheath that my seamstress had tailored into my jeans, my bolo came out thoroughly coated and ready for spectral action.

The first guard spoke to me in Romanian. “What did he say?” I asked Vayl, who’d come around the end of the chaise to stand by my side. Raoul took his place at my other shoulder while Aaron hovered behind us, watching the action like a hummingbird who wants to dive in and fight, but is sorely undertrained and outmaneuvered.

“He says you are unfit to sul y his queen’s presence with your foul stench.” Vayl began to reply, the rage in his tone a flaming counterpoint to the ice of his power, rising like a glacier just birthed from the arctic circle.

Raoul said, “Jasmine, wait!” but I ignored him, riding the electric line of Vayl’s reaction right into the face of the soldier who’d insulted me.

I slashed at his eyes before he could think of pul ing a weapon and he jumped back, the shock on his gaping mouth pul ing a delighted laugh from mine. Even more so as I learned that I would, once again, be able to look forward to becoming an aunt. Something else to live for. Cool, that was just what I needed.

I lunged again just as the second guard final y moved his blade into a useful position. My knife sank deep into the first guard’s sternum. He crumpled as the women behind him screamed in furious protest. But then the ladies-in-waiting fel to their knees. I knew what happened next. I’d seen it in Brude’s dungeon, hadn’t I? They’d tear his chest open at the wound, pul out his lungs, and sink their teeth into them before the rest of his body began to melt away as the powder residue my knife had left worked its magic.

“Enough!” bel owed the queen.

Her servants pul ed back. The guard rol ed his eyes up at Marie as she leaned over him. Almost kindly she said, “It is your choice, my boy, as always. You may serve your queen. Or you may be free.”

“You, my liege,” he croaked from a throat already fading into mist.

She laid her hand on him, and presto-change-o, he began to solidify.

My opinion of the queen faltered. She didn’t al ow her subjects to gnaw on each other like a bunch of al ey rats, so maybe she wasn’t as cold-blooded and calculating as I’d thought. But then, she’d just ordered my execution.

As if she could read my mind she turned to me and said, “Rumors run rife about you, Jasmine Parks. They say King Brude has possessed your soul.”

Something about the way she said his name tipped me off. They’d been close once. Cozy enough that it was easy for her to hate him now. Of the twenty-three other rulers in the Thin, had she been his closest neighbor? I said, “They’re wrong. He’s in here.” I tapped my forehead. “But I’m in charge of the castle.”

“What do you intend to do with your tenant?” she inquired.

“Kil the bastard.”

“Then I apologize for the misunderstanding. I assumed the Upstart was in command of your senses.”

“No, Your Highness. He tried. He failed.”

Her approving nod contained al the grace of royal training. Yet that wasn’t her only skil , otherwise the ghosts under her command would never wil ingly fal to heel like they had. Which meant she must have legendary charisma and the ability to connive with the most twisted of politicians. Dammit, I was beginning to like her. Even more when she gestured to the second guard and said, “Perhaps you would be so kind as to cal off your vampire? Toma is the only one of my retinue who can play a chal enging game of chess.”

“Oh!” I turned to Vayl, who seemed to have forgotten that he carried ghost-powdered steel of his own. He’d grabbed the second guard by the neck, no smal feat for a man whose enemy has only partly entered into his world. He’d managed it by dropping the temperature so radical y that even I was shivering like I’d just spent the past hour sitting in the coroner’s corpse-fridge keeping the stiffs company. The beyond-the-grave chil had brought the guard farther into the physical world, al owing Vayl to crank his head sideways and bury his fangs in the guy’s neck.

There’s no blood, whispered Teen Me from behind the gap-fingered mask she’d made of her hands. What’s going down Vayl’s throat?

I wasn’t sure, but I could see him swal ow, view the glow through his skin as whatever passed through his esophagus dropped into his stomach. That can’t be good. Can it?

I said, “Vayl? It’s al good now. The queen’s cool with us staying alive.” Usual y speaking is enough to break the spel vamps seem to fal under when they feed. But this ghost must’ve been yummylicious, because Vayl didn’t even act like he knew I was in the same room.

The guard began to shriek, the sound so loud and shril I had to cover my ears. Queen Marie stepped forward and peered over the terrified spirit’s shoulder. She searched Vayl’s face, taking in the sweep of his dark lashes as they closed over his ebony eyes, and the pitch-black curls cut so close to his head they could’ve been molded on.

“You are a gypsy,” she said, her voice echoing eerily in the room, like it came from unsynched speakers. She reached out to touch him, hesitated, and then let her arm fal . “A vampire gypsy. I have never seen the like.”

Vayl dropped the guard, who started to melt into the floorboards like furniture polish.

“My queen, I serve only you!” he cried. She sighed, like she was real y tired of dropping things and having to pick them up again, as she leaned over and touched her hand to his forehead. He gained color and form so quickly it was almost like he’d never been gone.

Vayl watched the trick through half-interested eyes as he licked his lips. Then, as if a switch had clicked on in his brain, he remembered who she was and what we needed, and bowed so low his head nearly touched her knee. “I am Vasil Nicu Brâncoveanu,” he said, straightening and nodding again with that extra-formal attitude he gets when he’s about to make an important deal. “I am Rom.” She blinked. Message received—she knew that “gypsy” wasn’t considered a nice name by those who’d been forced to wear it. So when she said, “I have been fascinated by the Rom al my life,” he knew she’d offered him an apology for the slip. She went on. “But I understand they have intense superstitions against the Vampere. How is it, then, that you fel into eternity?” His smile, almost as ghostly as the queen herself, spoke volumes to anyone who knew how to interpret it. But al he said was, “My thirst for revenge outweighed my better judgment.” She sighed. “So true for so many of us. Is that why you summoned me? Are you here to beg my aid in a personal vendetta?”

“No, Your Highness. Though I believe you would be a staunch al y in any cause, we have come to seek your help in leading us to the spirit of Aaron’s father. We know that Brude, and a werewolf named Roldan, have trapped him in the Thin. However we cannot reach the location without you.”

“Which one of you is this Aaron child?” asked Marie as she looked over our tiny crew. I pointed to Junior, who was leaning over with his hands on his knees, probably so he wouldn’t pass out, if the paleness of his face was any clue.

Since nobody seemed wil ing to take the bal , I kept it going. “It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that if you help us save the dad, Brude wil suffer. And, ultimately, it wil be easier for me to vanquish him.”

Her finely sculpted eyebrows jumped at that. “Vanquish?” she repeated.

“I said what I meant,” I replied. And then I stopped, because I wasn’t sure what more I should share. But Raoul seemed to think she should know.

“Jasmine has the Rocenz. She plans to carve his name on the gates of hel .” New respect in those icy eyes. “I like women who travel where they are not welcome,” she said.

She glanced at Vayl. “And so, it seems, you wil be the one who secures my revenge.” Her fingers went to her throat, which was bare now. But I thought that once she’d worn a torque just like the ones Brude’s loyal soldiers had. Only she’d been a lot more than that to him. And he’d gone and blown it.

She said, “Fol ow me.” And then, as if she assumed we’d just trot right after her, she turned and walked back through the door.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Saturday, June 16, 10:55 p.m.

Cole told me later that he’d never felt as proud of Bergman as he did when the tech genius emerged from the shelter of the huge, fragrant pines and first set his eyes on the Rider. It blocked the entrance to the smal , fenced cemetery, a bat-shaped shadow hovering across the entrance like a visible disease. And our Miles walked right toward it. So what if his shoulders shook a little and his hands were clenched into white-knuched fists, the one that held the knife physical y swaying as if moved by a breeze? He held his head high. And we heard him say quietly, “This is for you, Jaz.” Though I had Astral’s recording to prove otherwise, I nearly cried when Cole told me that Bergman seemed to get thinner as the Rider stretched its wings, revealing a wasp-shaped body banded with riblike bones outside its rubbery skin that ran from upper chest to lower thigh. As Bergman approached the bones creaked, pul ing away from the body as if to welcome him into their embrace. Even when razor-sharp needles shot from the end of each bone, Bergman didn’t hesitate.

He just said, “Hop on, you son of a bitch.”

It flew at him with the sound of a mil ion bats escaping their cave for the night. He flinked and took a step, but it was the impact that drove him to his knees.

Cole lunged forward as Jack strained at his leash, both of them growling incoherently as instinct overrode intel ect in their need to save the man who had now total y disappeared beneath the Rider’s wings. Dave’s hand, steel around Cole’s forearm, stopped them both. Pul ed them past the writhing bodies, held them tight when they heard Bergman scream. Cassandra, clutching Astral so close that entire chunks of her memory record were simply the back of our psychic’s arm and the sound of her smal gulping sobs, slipped her hand around Dave’s wrist. And together, linked like three scared kids with their unwil ing pets in tow, they walked into the graveyard.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Saturday, June 16, 11:00 p.m.

The last time I’d visited the Thin hadn’t been a voluntary dropin. Even so, I’d realized the drop zone had been a pure creation of its most powerful spirit. Which meant Brude’s land had been both as beautiful as he remembered his native Scotland to be, and as terrible as he’d remade it to be considering he wanted to rule a lawless and chaotic realm. So, knowing Queen Marie had been a big fan of the arts and quite the interior decorator (not to mention a girl who “got around” as evidenced by the fact that historians named at least two and sometimes three different dads for her six kids), I’d figured on transitioning into the ethereal version of a commune. However, when we fol owed her out the door of Pelisor, what we stepped into was an armed camp.

Unlike Brude’s mishmash of mercenaries from every era, Marie had recruited only Romanian soldiers from World War I and, by God, they hadn’t forgotten their uniforms or their discipline. Lines of wel -armed men marched past neat rows of barracks while fields made for target practice or hand-to-hand combat held groups of fierce, serious foes who seemed sure that battle was only an order away.

Marie led us down the dirt paths, nodding graciously when men stopped to bow and then peer at us sideways. At the northern edge of the camp was a thatch-roofed cottage surrounded by wel -

tended gardens and a roughly hewn fence. The arched red door opened when we got to the arbor gate, and a wrinkled, balding gentleman wearing a butler’s uniform tottered down the path to let us in.

“My queen,” he said, bowing deeply enough that I wondered if he’d fal on his head before he was able to right himself. Then I saw he had a firm grip on the gate and relaxed.

“We have guests, Stanislov,” she said as she breezed past. “Make sure the dogs don’t get loose, wil you? I don’t want them eaten before they’ve fulfil ed their potential.”

“Very good, madam.”

I suddenly wished I’d brought Jack. He would never let another dog eat me. I glanced over my shoulder. Nope. Nothing even close to canine. Although the soldiers did look a lot hungrier than you’d general y expect in such a wel -run camp. Probably Marie didn’t let them feast on each other.

And then it hit me.

“Your queenishness?” I asked. “What do you cal your soldiers?” As she sailed toward the open door of her cottage, Marie said, “I thought you knew, darling.

Those troops are none other than the Dogs of War. They are leashed tightly here. But I am training them to tear the throat from Brude’s army.” Under her breath she added, “Even if they have to do so without the aid of my squeamish neighbors to the south.” Realizing she was thinking out loud, she finished with a flourishy sort of punch to the air, saying, “When the time comes, they wil rage, my dear, they wil rage.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me, the smile in her eyes so sly and calculating that I shivered.

Vayl put his arm across my shoulders. “We have the key to destroying Brude. Al we need is your cooperation and you could win this war.”

“I will win this war,” she corrected him imperiously. “And when I do this little universe wil step to my tune. I wil force order onto this bedlam.” She sighed. “What a shame it was that Brude never shared my vision.” Her laugh, so bitter, was clearly aimed at herself. “Leave it to me to involve myself with the most ambitious and least loyal of Satan’s elite guardsmen.” She shook her head. “I have such terrible taste in lovers.” Her eyes rested on mine, and for a moment she looked at me as an equal. “What about you?” she asked. “Are you satisfied with him?” She nodded toward Vayl like he was a piece of sculpture that she might, at some point, consider stealing.

“He’s mine,” I told her, keeping most, but not al , of the warning growl from my voice.

“Why?”

I looked at him steadily for a while before I answered, “Because it could never be any other way.”

“I thought that about Brude once,” she said, her voice dropping into melancholy.

“What changed?” I asked her.

“I came face to face with the real domytr one day,” she said. “And I couldn’t fool myself any longer.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you truly faced your vampire?” I glanced at Vayl. “He’s a kil er,” I told her. “But then again, so am I. Which is why we’re such a good fit. Aren’t you lucky you found us?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Saturday, June 16, 11:00 p.m.

I had never visited the site where Vayl had buried his two sons. It was like he wanted to keep that part of his past completely separate. And I respected that. But I saw enough of Astral’s feed, and Cassandra described the emotions of those moments so clearly, that I could always visualize it as if I’d been there myself, locked inside the weather-treated steel fence with the two black marble stones Vayl had bought to replace the broken pieces of the white, unreadable originals. They stil lay at the bases of the new monuments, like offerings to the bodies that lay beneath the rich, needle-blanketed sod, so precious to their surviving family member that he had etched A FATHER’S LOVE IS FOREVER into each of the stones. It was in Romanian, but Cassandra had asked Cole to translate, and felt her throat close at the catch in his voice when he’d done as she asked.

Dave said, “We can’t let Vayl down now.” They nodded, Cassandra and then Cole sneakily wiping away a tear as David continued. “This could get scary.” They looked over their shoulders at Bergman and his Rider, whose positions hadn’t changed. Then they looked back at him. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I mean worse than that.”

Big swal ows. Nods. “Let’s get this done,” said Cole, leaning over to pet Jack, who kept prancing sideways and glancing toward Bergman, as if he knew something should be done and he was fal ing down on the job.

“The sooner the better,” Cassandra agreed. She handed Astral to Dave as she said, “I want that Rider off Miles now.”

He nodded and said, “Al right, cat. Let’s see how good you real y are.” He knelt between the graves of Hanzi and Badu Brâncoveanu. He took off his backpack and from it pul ed two steel rods that had been folded multiple times, the same way tent poles are broken down after a camping trip.

Assembled, they were at least ten feet long, with the last section of each tipped like a spear. He careful y shoved each of them into the ground as far as he could. Tapping his shoulder, he waited until Astral had taken her place, perching beside his ear like he was just another mantelpiece to add to her col ection. And then, wrapping a hand around each pole, he closed his eyes and began to chant.

Cole and Cassandra took their places, each standing at one corner of Hanzi’s grave.

Cole whispered, “I stil don’t understand what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“We’re like landmarks,” Cassandra explained. “Dave is traveling a long way in his head. He needs to be able to find his way back. Even with Astral acting as a filter, he could get lost. You and I, standing right here along his route, can actual y be seen and latched on to when he tries to find his way back.”

Cole glanced back over his shoulder, wincing as Bergman groaned. “How long?” Cassandra nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. We have to be here until he comes al the way back.”

“Both of us, though? I mean, we’re standing three feet apart!”

“In this world. But in that one we might be hundreds of miles away from each other, we don’t know. Which is why we have to stay. But only just until Dave is done. Then”—she pointed at Bergman—“we run for him.”

Dave cracked open his left eye. “People? I’m trying to home in on a traveling soul while a robot tries to take root in my col arbone and you guys are gabbing like a couple of beauty shop regulars.

Could we concentrate here? That would help a lot.”

Cole and Cassandra traded guilty looks. “Sorry,” said Cole. “I talk when I’m nervous. Sometimes I have to pee. Like right now, I could whiz clear over that fence, bounce it off that tree, and sink it into that hol ow stump, that’s how bad I have to go.”

A laugh, so dry and cracked it could’ve been confused for a smoker’s cough, interrupted them.

Except it had come from Bergman, so everyone knew what it meant. Don’t stop. That was funny, and because it made me feel better, I can fight a little longer. So while you’re just standing there like a couple of lumps, how about you goddamn goofballs make. Me. Laugh.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Saturday, June 16, 11:10 p.m.

In the end, Queen Marie had to admit we’d come up with a plan that might just work. So she caled in a couple of her best Dogs and demanded that they switch their uniforms for something a little less bow-wow and a little more Brude-rocks. While they turned the camp upside down looking for a couple of outfits that didn’t scream trained cavalryman, the queen took us behind her house to a fine brick patio surrounded by blooms. In the center sat a birdbath whose water looked like it hadn’t been changed for at least a mil ennium. My nose, stil physical y intact thanks to Raoul’s ability to transport us al in the flesh, wrinkled as I walked past it and stood next to Vayl under an arched trel is covered with yel ow roses.

“I didn’t know water could turn that shade of brown and stil stay liquid,” I said.

“I think you are being generous in referring to it as water,” he replied.

I had to agree when the center of it bubbled up, stretching the edges toward it as if the entire surface were made of rubber. When it popped I had to cover my mouth; the stench was so oily that it felt like it was trying to crawl down my throat and nest in my stomach.

Aaron, who’d chosen that moment to walk past it, moaned, “Oh, God,” and ran to some bushes to his right, where he spent the next few minutes gagging and spitting. Raoul, stil standing at the entrance to the garden, stared first at the birdbath, and then at the queen, who sat comfortably between him and us on an intricately tooled metal bench while her ladies-in-waiting arranged the skirts of her dress as if they were flowers that had just been added to the garden.

She waved the women away when Raoul said, “Wel disguised,” as he gestured to the infested water. “The last one I saw was in the Eminent Museum of Enlightenment.”

“It is a classic piece,” she agreed. “However it has its advantages, even now. For instance, it can transport entire regiments of my men into areas of the Thin that are not currently guarded by Brude’s hordes. We like to cal them avoidance jumps. Or it can shoot a single person directly to the site he wishes to visit.” She rose, reached into the birdbath, and completely grossed me out when she pul ed free a gerbil-sized handful of shit-colored goo that smel ed like a neglected zoo. When she threw it at Raoul he sidestepped, and I thought he was going to let it fal into the bushes behind him.

But he caught it between his fingertips, his lips turning down at the corners when the impact let loose a fresh barrage of odor. He let go of the sphere with one hand, and I was pretty sure he was going to throw it down with disgust when the queen ripped into him.

“Hold on to that!” she snapped, the command in her voice automatical y straightening his spine.

He renewed his grip on the slippery bal as I asked, “What’s the idea?” afraid that whatever Raoul had touched might foul him permanently. When he tried to protest I waved him off. “I should have that. Or Vayl.”

“No.” Her reply felt more like the passing of a law than conversation. “Raoul is the senior Eldhayr here. He has the sense that the Sniffer”—she nodded to the bal —“needs in order for it to find Brude’s realm. You didn’t think it stayed in one place, did you? If it had, I would have razed his castle and fed his minions to my Dogs ages ago. Speaking of which.” She nodded to Aaron. “Were you planning on leaving this one as payment for your guards and the Sniffer?”

“Luscious!” “Juicy!” screamed her ladies.

I hadn’t seen Aaron so pale since he thought he’d committed vampicide. He looked around wildly, not, I noted proudly, for help. But for something heavy to defend himself with. Unfortunately the only weapon he could find was the fountain, and he didn’t dare get any closer to it. Which meant he actual y looked grateful when Vayl stepped up to face the queen.

He said, “In al the years I have lived, I have learned that nothing is truly required to exist. As a result, I am the best kil er in the world and the Whence. Shal we try for the Thin as wel ?” The queen’s smile never wavered at the threat on her life. Maybe she understood what a hard time Vayl would have actual y snuffing it out here, on her turf. But her eyes, shifting slightly to the left and then to the right, admitted that he meant what he said, and she would probably find herself in a world of hurt before the deed was done, no matter what the outcome.

Raoul stepped forward. “No, Vayl. Aaron may be your son, but this place is more my territory than yours.” He looked steadfastly at the queen. “Your skil at bartering nearly equals your political finesse, Majesty. But you need, and wil receive, nothing more from us than Brude’s destruction, if we succeed. You should remember, as wel , that if you threaten any of mine, you threaten me.” He paused. “And al the Eldhayr.”

The queen smiled happily. “Just as I’d hoped. Barring the boy, every one of you is as fierce as a Romanian infantryman. Now I am sure of your plan. Now I can send my Dogs with you in confidence.

They wil guard you while the Sniffer jumps you into Brude’s land. After that I feel sure the strategy you have outlined wil gain you entrance into his castle.” She pierced every one of us with a meaningful look. “Remember also that while you have your own agenda, you also fight for Queen Marie. My people fol ow me, and my laws, because their souls need structure in order to rest and mend and, perhaps someday, even move on. Be noble in this noble cause.” Wow. Al this time she’d been testing us. Suckage. And yet maybe a true leader needs to do those things if she’s going to ask her people to risk their lives on a venture as dangerous as the one we’d proposed. Which made me admire Marie al the more. As if I needed another reason to decimate Brude. But if I could destroy him, at least Marie’s little realm would become a place where lost souls could shelter, safe from torture and violence, until they found themselves again. What a cool concept.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Saturday, June 16, 11:05 p.m.

Dave felt like he’d spent hours kneeling between the graves of Vayl’s sons, bearing Astral’s weight like it wasn’t trying to cave his shoulder joint while he held tight to his spiritual divining rods and kept an eye on his “landmarks,” Cole and Cassandra, so that he’d be able to find his way back. He’d entered into serious chant mode now, barely pausing to breathe between lines that sounded so much alike that sometimes only the last vowel of the last word changed. “O ma evetale râ. O ma evetale ré.”

At least that was how it sounded to Cole and Cassandra. When they had three seconds to listen.

Which wasn’t often because they too were busy. Doing improv. For Bergman.

The one-liners had dried up fairly quickly, though they had al owed Bergman to peel back the wings that enfolded him. Which meant they could see his hand stil gripping Dave’s knife and his lips turned up in appreciation when he heard Cole say, “Cassandra, you know why I got into this business, right?”

“To meet women?”

“Nope. For the dental plan.” He opened wide and stuck his finger way back into his mouth so he kinda sounded like a sinus-infected cowboy with a speech impediment when he said, “See this gold fiwwing, heyah? I got fwom a mobster I offed back in New Yowack.”

“You did not!”

Cole pul ed out his finger and wiped it on his jeans. “Okay. Maybe he was the mobster’s dentist who I paid for some information and he was so grateful to get free of the guy he threw in the fil ing for free. But look at the dentures he gave me for when the fil ings fal out!” Cole opened up his other hand and his wind-up vampire fangs began their teeth-chattering, shoe-stomping dance.

Cassandra giggled as Bergman gasped, his chest heaving up and down with the effort of his fight with the Rider. But also, if his grin was any clue, with big gulps of muted laughter.

Their first sign that the atmosphere had changed was Jack, whose fur stood on end as he began to bark, pointing his nose at Dave, Astral, the grave markers, and occasional y Bergman’s Rider.

Cole tugged on his leash, reminding him that he had no business with the Rider, just as Dave’s chanting stopped. The spirit-rods, which had been thrumming in his hands like a couple of guitar strings, began to whine. He jumped to his feet and held them tight while Astral balanced on his shoulder, her ears twitching in circles as they always did when she was processing mounds of information.

Cassandra and Cole weren’t sure where to look. The muscles in Dave’s forearms, biceps, and back bunched with the effort it took to keep the rods from whipping so wildly that they sliced off an arm or leg, or even decapitated him. At the same time Bergman had dropped his chin nearly to his chest, his face twisted in an awful grin as he launched into a series of ful -body spasms.

Dave looked up, as if for help from the invisible Beings who sometimes decided it might be okay to intercede in the paltry affairs of men. But his Spirit Guide had already thrown in with his twin.

And nobody else seemed interested in picking up the slack. His jaw clenched, the veins in his neck cording with ultimate effort as the energy from the graves passed into his body and began to make him shiver.

Cassandra reached out to Cole, a worried wife in need of support. And, understanding she might See something that would make him miserable in the future, he stil took her hand, held it tight, so that she didn’t have to watch her husband’s struggle al alone. But it wasn’t just him. When Dave’s effort felt like too much to bear, they only had to turn their heads and there was Bergman, clenching the knife he’d been given and slowly turning it toward himself. Cassandra hugged her free arm around her unborn child as the knife crept closer to his heart. “No, Miles,” she whispered. “It’s not for you.”

Cole swayed, gripping Jack’s leash as the malamute growled their mutual frustration. But they couldn’t desert Dave, leave him lost in the spiritworld forever. “Hang on, dude,” he said. “Just a little longer, and I’l be there. I promise you, I’l be right there.”

“Hanziiiii!” Dave yel ed, his voice echoing through the forest like that of an ancient shaman summoning a spirit to purify one of his sick patients, as Astral crouched down as if preparing to leap on a mouse.

“Monique, where��� I can’t see you!” Bergman panted, the knife inching closer and closer to his chest.

“Miles!” Cole yel ed. “For Chrissake, Jaz is gonna be so pissed if you screw this up!” The stick to Dave’s left stopped moving. He held on to it a moment longer to be sure, and then he moved that hand to the remaining stick. Which began to wobble so hard it looked like Dave was causing the movement. Until you checked out his holding-on-fordear-life expression.

Cole asked, loudly and somewhat desperately, “Yo, Cassandra? What happens when that spirit-rod of Dave’s starts whipping him around in circles like an Olympic gymnast?”

“It should be al right,” Cassandra replied in a falsely cheerful voice. “I think he’s wearing his maximum-support tights tonight.”

Bergman laughed ful y, from the bel y. The knife retreated as he climbed to his feet.

Dave wasn’t amused, especial y when the rod final y won, jerking him off his feet and throwing him against the fence like a pissed-off stal ion. Astral jumped ship just before he hit, landing graceful y beside him as if she’d practiced the trick a thousand times. She stared at him as he lay stil , trying to decide whether or not he’d ever be able to put his experience in the W column. Then he did an al over body check, probing his head, ribs, and leg bones delicately to make sure nothing was broken.

“Honey?” Cassandra asked as she came to lean over him. “Are you al right?” He moaned. Sat up and dusted off his jacket.

“Is he back?” asked Cole. She turned to him and nodded. Which was al the signal he needed.

He spun around, cocking his Beretta as he moved to face Bergman and the Rider ful y. He yel ed,

“Anyone who’s seen Star Wars more than twenty times, including the digital y remastered edition, and who owns an original Stormtrooper costume raise your hand!” His fingers shot toward the sky, fol owed closely by Bergman’s as Cole said over his shoulder, “We just went to Jedi-Con together.

My God, you should’ve seen al the Leias! Best thing about the Stormtrooper costume? Tinted eyeholes. You can let your eyes go upsy-downsy and the girls never get a clue.” As Cassandra’s jaw dropped and Bergman laughed louder than ever before, Cole leaped toward the Rider, yel ing, “Time to dump the neandervamp, Miles! Think happy thoughts!” CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Saturday, June 16, 11:15 p.m.

Two of Queen Marie’s Dogs joined us in her garden soon after she’d given Raoul what I now mental y referred to as the Shit Sniffer. The soldiers had, between them, managed to find one Tshirt, one button-down shirt, a pair of riding breeches, a pair of precursors to sweatpants with leather bands instead of drawstrings, two flat red caps, and two pairs of pointy-toed shoes that made them look like they’d just come from the bowling lanes.

I looked them up and down, turned to Vayl, who sat next to me on a backless bench, and whispered, “These are our guards? I wouldn’t be scared of them if they came running at me with bazookas.”

His left eyebrow twitched, along with the entire right side of his mouth. “You and I both know the queen is only sending them so they can report back to her. She may even be able to see through their eyes.”

“Wow. Talk about the perfect spies.”

He tilted his head. “Should we go that far? As you pointed out, they did seem to misunderstand the concept of going in undercover.”

However, when we mentioned the Dogs’ bizarre costumes to the queen she waved off our concerns with a limp hand. Taking a sip of lemonade from a crystal glass as she enjoyed the scents of her flowers ( Damn, they get the details pretty good here in the Thin! ) she said, “As long as they are out of my uniform, they wil not be questioned.” The way she said the word “questioned” made me think of spiked clubs and flesh-packed molars.

Sitting on my other side, Aaron audibly gulped. Vayl touched him with his eyes. “This ordeal is not going to get any easier,” he said evenly. His raised eyebrows asked, Can you cope?

I compared his quiet buck-up-and-be-a-man approach to my dad’s. Albert would’ve taken one look at Aaron’s shaking hands, his twitching shoulders, and said, “Oh for shit’s sake, ya pansy!

Screw your bal s on tight and let’s tuck this brick-shitter under the pil owcase!” I never quite understood what that last part meant. And, having been born without the formerly mentioned appendages, I never thought that demand applied very wel to me. But somehow it worked every time. My dad might be a gnarly son of a bitch. But he’s a stel ar motivator.

Aaron said, “I’m fine. I’l be fine.”

“Oh, we believe you,” I told him as my inner girls laughed somewhat hysterical y. “Two things, though.”

“Okay.”

I held up my fingers so he could fol ow my points, because my high school speech teacher had passionately believed in visual aids, and I never forgot that. “Number one,” I said, pointing to the first finger. “Walk on the edge of the group so that if you puke you can direct the spew away from the rest of us. Number two”—I pointed to my flip-off finger and enjoyed the fact that he realized I might be sending him a double message—“If you pass out?” I waited until he nodded his understanding.

“We’re leaving you. Here. In the Thin.”

Queen Marie’s ladies squealed and clapped their hands. And the Dogs’ laughter sounded so much like barking I was beginning to have a hard time thinking of them as ever having been human.

Together they did a good job of freaking Aaron out just exactly to the extent that I wanted. Satisfied that the lawyer-to-be wouldn’t be slowing us down, I looked at Raoul, who stood in his original spot, holding the Sniffer like he wished it would disappear already. “Are we set?” He shrugged. “Believe it or not, I’m always ready for battle.” I smacked myself on the chest proudly. “That’s why you like me, isn’t it?” When he started to smile, sheepishly, like I’d caught him stealing cookies from the save-these-for-grandma’s-visit plate, I snapped my fingers. “I knew it! We actual y have something in common!” The rap of Vayl’s cane on the bricks distracted us. “I assume we can trust your Eldhayr to control your berserker tendencies until we have at least freed Aaron’s father from his current situation?”

“Which is… what?” asked Aaron. “How do we even know where to go, much less how to find him?”

He hadn’t been al owed to overhear the negotiations because we kinda thought he’d spaz and run, which is not a good idea for a human in ful body and soul surrounded by spirits whose wild hunger is tamed only by their loyalty to a tightly stretched queen. So al Vayl said was, “It is not easy to imprison something as ethereal as a spirit. Queen Marie has given us an artifact that wil detect the one place in the Thin where that is possible. Her Dogs wil accompany us there. After we arrive, we wil free your father and return to the world.”

Aaron looked at Vayl doubtful y. “How?”

Vayl smiled. As his fangs gleamed, for the first time I saw respect for the power of a vampire dawn in his son’s wide eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Saturday, June 16, 11:15 p.m.

Cassandra witnessed the entire Rider battle. So Astral combined her impressions along with the men’s memories of the fight into a remarkably complete video that we reviewed closely later on through her Enkyklios.

Cole charged toward the giant parasite, yel ing like a Celtic warrior, his hair flying out behind him, his gun gripped so firmly in his hand it seemed like an extension of his arm. Bergman’s glasses had flown off sometime during his ordeal, so he couldn’t quite get the details. But, in general, he knew it might be time to panic.

“Cole!” he yel ed. “What are you doing?”

“Dave made it back, so I’m free to save you!”

He peered at Cole’s hand. “With a remote control?”

“Bergman! For once, could you stop thinking and just duck?”

Miles bent over, the Rider nearly toppling him onto his head as his balance shifted. For a second they resembled a couple of kids playing Superman. And then the Rider looked up. Cole said later that only his inertia kept him moving forward in the face of those eyes. Deep pink pupils surrounded by lighter pink irises bored into Cole’s face like a couple of ice picks. He had a few seconds to realize the grinning mask was ful of flat, broad teeth, none of which could’ve pierced Bergman’s delicate veins. And then he understood. The Rider’s needle-tipped ribs were also its teeth, every one of which had pierced Bergman’s sides so cleanly that barely a drop of blood had stained his old brown sweater.

Now those teeth throbbed as they attempted to draw out his very essence. Bergman’s chest heaved as he fought against the attack. Spit bubbled on his lips. His eyes rol ed, fol owing Cole into the mix.

Our sniper, normal y lethal at five hundred feet, closed in on the Rider, yel ing, “Long live the Bemonts!” like some crazed Scottish Highlander as he emptied his clip into the Rider’s face. It jumped and howled with each shot, making Bergman dance like a Broadway star. But after the last shot had been fired, not even a single rib had detached.

Which was when Cassandra said to Dave, “This may not end wel .” Jack’s low growl echoed her sentiment. She’d grabbed his lead when Cole dropped it, and was now rubbing his head, though which of them was more comforted by the touch she couldn’t have said.

Dave nodded and pul ed yet another knife from a sheath he’d strapped across his back. Kissing her on the cheek, he said, “Don’t watch if this is going to change your mind about me.” She snorted. “I’ve seen gladiators shove their hands inside their enemies’ rib cages. I think I can handle a little knife fight.”

He looked down at her admiringly. “You’re such a rocket in the sack I keep forgetting you could’ve been the model for a Spanish doubloon.”

“Who says I wasn’t?”

“Tease.”

“Oh? So you’ve seen the new miniskirt I bought?”

Dave huffed. “That’s it. I’m kil ing this sumbitch in record time.” He whirled away, cal ing, “Move over, Cole! I’ve got plans for the next hour and they don’t include getting my ass kicked!” Cassandra, having already met Albert, knew that his methods of motivation might meet with occasional success. But with his son, her approach worked every time. And best of al ? It gave him an excel ent reason to make sure he survived. Which was why she took credit for Dave’s extra burst of speed, the one that al owed him to catch up with Cole, so that the sniper’s gun-butt bludgeoning coincided with her husband’s slice-and-dice as if they’d practiced on a Rider-shaped dummy in Vayl’s backyard.

The Rider screamed in pain as Cole’s improvised club and Dave’s blade battered the soft skin between its tusks. But so, unfortunately, did Bergman.

“No, Mom!” he shouted. “I’m not going to your goddamn protest!” Cole spoke urgently into his ear. “Miles! Come on, buddy, you know these suck-you-til -you-sag types. The sadder, the more violent, you feel, the sweeter you taste. So flood your head with good stuff. Your first peek at a Playboy. The invention that’s going to win you the Nobel Prize. The time Jaz and I had to ride those ridiculous mopeds al around Corpus Christi. Like that.” At first Bergman didn’t answer. Cole, struggling to yank one of the teeth out of Miles’s side, had final y decided Bergman hadn’t heard when Bergman giggled, “Monique! It’s the middle of the day!” The fang came free with a sucking whoosh that Cole expected to be fol owed by a rush of blood.

But the incision-like wound was already closing, the saliva stretching from the Rider’s tooth to Miles’s skin quickly drying into a bio-bandage. “That’s handy,” said Cole. “Also kinda sick. Bergman is not gonna be happy.”

Dave pul ed a fang out from the other side and sliced it off at the Rider’s body, causing it to scream and convulse even as Bergman blushed and murmured, “Sweetheart, I’m not sure that’s legal in this country!”

“Who is Monique and what the hel does she see in this brain-ona-stick?” demanded Dave as he and Cole continued defanging their tech guru, covering him, the Rider, and themselves with a startlingly rancid combination of saliva, blood, and bile.

“She’s Bergman’s girlfriend,” said Cassandra, who’d come closer to lend moral support. “He met her when we were in Marrakech.”

“She’s a little older than him,” Cole said. He added, “Watch out, Cassandra. I think this Rider’s about to hurl.”

It was shaking and heaving like Bergman’s blood hadn’t agreed with it after al . Cassandra stepped aside just as it puked up the contents of its stomach over Bergman’s left shoulder. They hit the pine needles with a wet, splatting sound that made her nose wrinkle. “This job is so nasty. They should, at the very least, send you off with your own personal bottle of Germex.”

“I agree.” Bergman sighed. Dave and Cole had nearly torn the Rider from his back. But the final connection, a pair of knittingneedle-sized ribs that seemed to shoot straight into Bergman’s back and out his chest, would not yield.

“We’ve done al we can,” Dave told him grimly. “Like I told you before, it’s stil up to you.” Bergman nodded, his head winding around in a circle like he was too tired to make a precise up-and-down motion anymore. He sighed again. Dave and Cole shared a look of round-eyed worry with Cassandra. She stepped forward to urge Bergman on to greatness, but before she could say her piece, Astral had hopped over to the open spot at his feet. Jumping up so her paws rested on his shins she said, “Learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings.”

“Tom Petty was right when he wrote ‘Learning to Fly,’” whispered Miles, his eyes so tightly shut his lashes had nearly disappeared. “And that was why Astral kept scrol ing through al those disaster videos. To show us how to reach for the sky, even though it feels like we keep crashing.” Everyone was nodding, even Jack, though he was probably only doing it to be polite. Cole said,

“Exactly! Never give up, baby! Not even when your glider dives straight into the Pacific!” Bergman’s eyes snapped open. He threw his knife into the air, caught it so that the blade now faced the Rider, performed a neat one-two sidestep, and stuck that sucker so hard that they both fel to the ground.

The last pair of ribs withdrew from Bergman’s chest. He cried out, rol ing off the Rider as it freed him. But he was back in an instant, shoving his knife into the parasite’s heart, once, twice, a third time until he was sure it would never twitch again.

For long, quiet moments everyone just stared at the corpse. Then Bergman stood up, swayed, and sat back down. “I feel like a Chinese noodle. Seriously. If you want me to move, you’re going to have to use chopsticks. And a stretcher.”

“You’re so thin we could pick you up with chopsticks,” Cassandra told him. “Why won’t you ever eat anything? You might be able to get through ordeals like this much easier!” He dropped his head like it was just too heavy for his neck to support at that moment, and wagged it back and forth. “Food’s annoying.”

“Not as much as dead scientists!” she snapped.

Dave found Bergman’s glasses and set them back on his nose. Miles peered at Cassandra over the tops of the lenses. “You are such a nag.” He looked up at Dave. “You know what you’re getting into with this one, right?”

Dave patted him on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe what kind of reward your life is worth to her, buddy. Believe me, I’m golden.”

Bergman looked at his hands, lying limp between his knees. “So, did you get what you wanted?” Cole came to stand beside them, wiping the blood off the butt of his Beretta as he moved.

“Yeah, dude. Tel us poor Miles didn’t sacrifice his vamp cherry in vain.” As Miles huffed in embarrassment Dave said, “I made the connection. Hanzi’s in Spain.” Cassandra was the first to pick up on the hesitation in his tone. “What did you see?” she asked.

“He was riding a motorcycle. Wearing a helmet, so that was good. Except that I saw him racing toward a parked semi. And there was no way, going as fast as he was driving, that he could’ve stopped in time.”

Can a group of friends col ectively shiver? Probably not mine, but they did share a moment of frozen silence. Then Cassandra said, “Did you feel like it was happening as you saw it? Or was it a future scene—you know, just potential that you pul ed from the stratus?” Dave shrugged. “Hey, I’m new at this. Plus I was kind of in the middle of a tornado.”

“You’re a Special Ops commander,” Cassandra drawled. “Give it your best bet.” He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. “You don’t let me get away with anything, do you?”

She kissed him and purred, “Only when you deserve to.”

Cole said, “No smoochies when the rest of us only have animals to cuddle with.” Jack and Astral looked up. And if my dog looked slightly concerned, it’s only because he understands every word people say. “Don’t worry,” Cole told him. “You’re not my type. But you—” He wiggled his eyebrows at Astral, who sat down and began to lick her paws, as if she felt a bath might be in order, considering.

Dave got to his feet and helped Cassandra stand while Bergman grabbed Cole’s leg and climbed up far enough on his own that our sniper final y took pity and gave him a hand. “Why do you love messing with my inventions?” he asked.

“Jealous, I guess,” Cole replied. “Jaz is practical y swimming in cool gadgets. I save your life and what do I get?” He motioned to his gore-covered khakis and hunting shirt.

“I’l buy you new ones,” said Bergman.

“Or…” Cole began.

Bergman’s eyebrows lifted in sudden comprehension. Maybe he could be forgiven for not understanding right away. After al , he’d just fought a Rider and won. His wounds, while closing quickly under the strange healing qualities of the parasite’s weblike saliva, stil hurt like a mother.

And, no matter what Dave and Cole had done to help, he never would’ve survived the first leg of that journey without depending on his own strength. Which, he’d final y learned, was hefty—but not unlimited. Even so, he said, “I could invent you something marvelous. Both of you,” he added, catching Dave’s eye.

Dave waved him off. “Don’t bother with me, Miles. I’m comfortable using the tools I’ve been trained with.” Having cleaned off both his knives, he resheathed them and led the cemetery crew back toward the tour bus thinking that, considering he was about to become a dad and he’d like to be around a lot more than Albert had been, maybe soon he wouldn’t even need those anymore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Saturday, June 16, 11:20 p.m.

One of the easiest ways to infiltrate an enemy base is to let a patrol catch you and then demand that they take you to their leader. Of course, then you’re depending on the patrol ers to have some sense of honor and military discipline. This couldn’t be the case with any member of Brude’s army.

Which was why, once the Shit Sniffer had led us to an enemy patrol, we’d decided to put a slight twist on that plan.

The unit we targeted was made up of Brude’s finest and most diverse fighters. They came to him from every age of Earth’s history—their uniforms ranging from barely scraped animal skins to medalplastered dress blues. As expected, their weapons ran the gamut too. Except, since firearms didn’t function in the Thin, they’d al hung on to their favorite blades. Some had remembered them long and glittering, engraved with the runes of their personal gods. Others carried daggers so dul only the violent double-fisted shove of heavily muscled biceps would prove them fatal.

Counting Aaron, our numbers matched almost evenly. And considering we had Vayl, Raoul, and two Dogs fighting on our side (not to mention me, with a sword from Raoul’s armory that felt like it had been forged to my hand) I figured our odds wouldn’t bring huge winnings on a two-dol ar bet.

And then he stepped out from behind the tree line that had separated us.

We’d been hiding behind a long line of scrub interrupted by piles of fal en trees and mounds of ivy-strangled branches that’d al flame like a hairspray-soaked wig the second somebody thought to bring a match to the game. Stil , good cover, until I got my first real look at the blemuth lumbering toward us. And then I reminded myself to write thank-you notes to every one of my trainers, who’d once again done such a good job that despite the shock of seeing a creature I had been sure never existed outside Sandy’s Bar (where the stories always outsize the hangovers), I managed not to give away our position with the gasp of awe that had shot up from my quaking stomach. I didn’t even break the twig sitting right next to my foot, despite the fact that my knees had begun to shake so badly that my pants would probably have ridden right down my thighs if I hadn’t been wearing a decent belt.

I rol ed my eyes toward Vayl, who’d thoughtful y clapped his hand across Aaron’s mouth and wrapped another steel-muscled arm across his chest before he could accidental y betray us.

Can’t be, I mouthed. He nodded. Which was as close as he’d ever get to Can too, Jasmine.

Now wrap your mind around this before all your moving parts freeze permanently.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, feeling the air of a rarified plane slide in and out of my nostrils as I accepted the inevitable. I’d just seen one of the most twisted creatures ever created. According to legend the first blemuth had begun life as a dragon’s egg, but once the sorcerer Aliré had shoved his wand and a huge glob of ogre slime into the guts of the poor thing’s DNA, it had very little chance of hatching into anything but what it became: A war machine, programmed to decimate every living thing it encountered. What surprised me was that it had enough soul left to get itself trapped in any sort of afterlife. Most creatures like the blemuth managed to incinerate themselves completely when their time came. The fact that this one had remained to rampage through the Thin worried me more than I liked to let on.

I caught Vayl’s attention and mimed shivering and then breaking spaghetti between my hands.

He understood that I wanted to know if he could freeze the blemuth long enough for us to attempt to hamstring it. When he shrugged, I understood we’d be winging this one. Vayl might be überexperienced, but even he’d never had to face a creature with the reputation for being resistant to attack. As in every. Single. Kind.

I wondered how keen the Dogs were to complete their mission now they’d seen how much tougher the blemuth was going to make it. They didn’t leave me curious for long. Pointing to each other and then making huge circles with their hands, they let us know that they wanted to be the ones to tackle the creature.

Hey, the dumbasses wanna be heroes. That’s so damn sexy, said my Inner Bimbo. She spun around on her bar stool, singing, “I think I’m in love, and my life’s lookin’ up.” She should let Eddie Money do his own songs. She’s just butchering the hell out of that piece, Granny May murmured. What she real y wanted to say was that Bimbetta was sick and twisted, so that was the issue I addressed.

I said, If not for you it could’ve been worse.

So true. Granny looked at me, then she pointed to the needlepoint of the cowboy, Zel Culver.

Once you’ve unchained Aaron Senior, don’t let him go until you ask him about the cowboy.

Wow, that was kinda out of the blue, Gran, but okay.

Sometimes it pays to listen to the voices in your head. Sometimes you end up looking like a complete loon. Soon I’d get to see which category I’d be playing for. But for now I watched the Dogs get into position to take down the blemuth. It wasn’t pretty. Later I figured their lack of good judgment was caused by the fact that they’d been forced to leave their uniforms behind. Some people just don’t think wel in civvies. Like the Dogs. Who stood up. Barked. And charged.

“Why does it always seem like our team is heavily seeded with dumbshits?” I yel ed to Vayl as I fol owed him into the melee.

He grinned over his shoulder at me. “You are only saying that because we are outnumbered, outsized, and outvicioused.”

I felt my lips draw back from my teeth, the pre-battle smile brought to life by my lover’s excitement. “Vayl! Did you just make up a word?”

“Perhaps I did at that.”

And then we were too surrounded to talk. Vayl and I stood back-to-back with Raoul and Aaron just to our right. Brude’s mercenaries came at us randomly, their attacks as disordered and chaotic as the realm they defended. It worked to our advantage. A foe who fights out of pure emotion leaves plenty of openings for the clear-minded defender to exploit.

I’m not saying it was easy. Their blades were just as sharp and deadly as ours. But raised too high, or held too far away from the body, they did nothing to protect the most vulnerable spots, the places we’d been taught to target since our rookie days in the field. The moment my sword sliced through a former Nazi’s jugular, I knew we were going to clean up.

Grunting. The sound of whistling blades, the scream of dying spirits, and I was right. We were winning. I could feel the tide turn before I saw it. Brude’s mercenaries fel at our feet like dead leaves. They hadn’t even managed to cut one of us, so that the smel of our blood would bring more spirits screaming down on our heads. And then the blemuth stepped into the center of our ring, one screaming Dog clutched in each taloned fist.

It slapped them together like a couple of cymbals and spirit residue fel on our heads like bloody rain. Before the Dogs could melt into the ethos, the blemuth stuffed them into his giant, gap-fanged mouth, crunching them up like fresh celery sticks.

“Shit!” I yel ed, wiping sweat and Dog remains out of my eyes.

My Spirit Guide skewered two of his foes like they were a couple of chickens headed to the barbecue. Nobody stepped up to take their places right away, which gave him time to yel over to me, “Save yours for later!”

I said, “Okay!” My opponent, a former member of the Republican Guard, made a stupid move, raising his sword over his head with both hands. I took the advantage and split him like a ripe melon, amazed that the sound of skin tearing and blood spurting stil worked here, where so many of the world’s rules had been shattered. I looked over at Raoul guiltily. “That was just too easy. You saw.”

“Can’t you do one thing without putting your signature on it?” Raoul bel owed.

Vayl snorted. And although he didn’t say anything, I got the picture. Jaz had forgotten how to be a team player. Probably sometime during childhood, when al Evie wanted to do was play Barbies, and Dave couldn’t be distracted from his G.I. Joe’s imaginary missions to, of al places, Pennsylvania.

Wel , fine. If Raoul wanted a prisoner I could probably round one up for him. In fact… the stench of rotten flesh brought my attention to the blemuth. Who was picking pieces of Dog out of his teeth with a bloody talon and, in the brain-scrambled way of his kind, just now deciding what to do next.

Something I’d heard years ago swam to the top of my head. A way to tame these huge beasts so that they were forced to obey every command. I couldn’t remember which of my col ege professors had done the field research, but I decided now was the time to put it to the test.

I ran toward the blemuth. The closer I got the more I decided the yel ow gunk caked under its thick black toenails was probably old, rotten cheese. Wishing for a bandana to tie over my nose, or even a horrible cold, I charged toward the opening between the pads of the blemuth’s first toe and the one right next door.

Wanting badly to look away, knowing I couldn’t even squeeze my eyes shut, I shoved my sword into the gap between pads, gagging as the smel of foul feet and new blood mixed with the air my body needed for survival. It got even worse when the blemuth bel owed in pain and jerked his foot back, pul ing me and the sword I clutched with him.

“Jasmine!” I heard Vayl cal behind me. “What are you doing?”

“Taking a prisoner!” I yel ed back. “Just give me a—” A dry heave stopped me as a big chunk of toenail trash came loose and flew past my head. Knowing I could only dangle from my sword for so long before I was either smashed by the blemuth’s descending foot or so revolted that I wil ingly jumped to my death, I scrambled to the top of the foot. Which was when I realized the creature was made of more than wisps of soul and cosmos dust. Somehow Brude had managed to import a real live soul-crusher into his realm.

I knew I was right when the king’s tinny laughter echoed off the insides of my head, leaving spikes of pain every time it bounced off one of the wal s that kept it contained. I felt a wetness beneath my nose, pressed it into my shoulder, and knew without looking that blood stained my sleeve. More laughter from Satan’s most dangerous adversary.

Go ahead and laugh, you fucker. You’re still my prisoner. And soon you’ll be staring down your own execution.

Silence, sweet and pure as a mountain stream, inside my mind. It al owed me to climb the blemuth’s blue-scaled foreleg with the ease of a kid on a jungle gym. I kept moving up until I’d reached the top of its plated shoulder. I found the joint where a pathetic sort of chicken wing grew out of its upper back, a reminder of what could’ve been if Aliré hadn’t mutilated Mother Nature.

Balancing myself on that spot, I drew my knife and shoved it into the blemuth’s scale-covered earlobe. It pinched just enough that he yelped. “Listen up, train wreck. You feel that pain in your foot?”

He nodded. One fat tear rol ed down his snout and plopped so close to Aaron that his pants were soaked from calf to ankle. He jumped and swore, looking up to find the source of the attack.

When a snot bubble quickly fol owed, he dove for cover.

I might’ve felt sorry for the blemuth. After al , the worst pains often seem to be the smal est. I was gored by a Kyron and shed not a single tear, but paper cuts have made me cry. And he was obviously hurting. Except that part of a Dog’s disguise had gotten caught in his lower tooth and was stil dangling out of his mouth. So, yeah, no sympathy for the spirit-eater.

Instead I said, “I’m the thorn in your paw.” Suddenly I realized. Oh crap. I’m basing this entire idea, not on years of professorial research, but on some kid’s story Granny May read to us that I thought was bogus then! We are so screwed.

But it was way too late to back out now. So I talked fast, hoping this blemuth’s brains were more scrambled than breakfast eggs at Denny’s. “When you’ve done everything I ask, I’l stop the pain for good. Do you understand?”

He nodded. Blinked. A few more tears plopped to the ground. Raoul and Vayl, who were far too self-respecting to run for cover, chose the next best course and ascended the blemuth like a couple of seasoned mountaineers. I kept talking while they climbed, hoping he wouldn’t notice al the “fleas” he’d suddenly attracted.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Daisy.”

I coughed. “Wh-huh?” My eyes took another roam over the blemuth’s reptilian body. “You want me to cal you Daisy?”

He nodded. “I’m Daisy.”

I blew out my breath. I’d just temporarily enslaved a gigantic, Dog-eating blemuth named Daisy who, if everything went right, would help us save a trapped spirit. Even Granny May didn’t dare tel me that stranger things had happened. This one broke the scale.

I cal ed down to Aaron. “Climb up here, ya quivering sack of pudding! We’re taking the express to Brude’s place!”

Aaron peered up at us, briefly weighed his options, and then shook his head.

“Another patrol wil find you,” Vayl told him. “They are just as capable of eating you alive as this blemuth.”

Raoul, who’d settled on Daisy’s other wing joint, sat forward to frown at Vayl and me. I shrugged and held up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

Stil , Raoul told Vayl, “Your fatherly advice is about as helpful as a case of smal pox.”

“I was simply tel ing him the truth.”

Raoul cal ed down to Aaron, “Why don’t you want to come?”

“I’m afraid of heights!”

My Spirit Guide’s frown deepened as he looked over at us. “I don’t suppose either one of you thought to bring rope.”

“One of our Dogs was carrying some,” I said. “Should we assume it got eaten?”

“Blech,” said the blemuth.

“I’l take that as a no.” I leaned over until I could see the acrophobe. “Yo, Aaron! Look around for the Dog’s pack! It had rope in it!”

While he searched I said, “Vayl, do you trust me?”

“Implicitly,” he replied.

“Then wil you let me handle this situation? I think it needs a woman’s touch.” He lifted my hand and kissed it, his lips lingering just long enough to remind me that we hadn’t had any us time in so long that my body had started to ache in al the special places only he could touch. “As you like, my love. Only be quick. I sense another patrol approaching.” I licked my lips to keep them from pressing against his and climbed down as fast as I could.

Yanking Aaron from cover and whispering fiercely, “Quit being a big pussy just when your dad needs you the most,” I pul ed the pack from the bush where it had landed when the straps had broken, and jerked the rope out of it. As I unwound it I said, “I’m going to tie this around you. Then I’m going to climb back up there and tie it around the blemuth’s wing. There wil be no way you can fal because Raoul and Vayl wil also be holding on to the rope and together they’re about as strong as a construction crane. So al you have to do is climb. Got it? Good. How the hel long is this sucker?

Shit, we could probably summit Mount Rainier after we’re done here. Come on, turn around.” After I knotted Aaron in, I also cut myself a good length and secured it to the pommel of the sword that was stil securely jammed between the blemuth’s toes. Taking the ends of both ropes, I wrapped them around my wrist a few times, tucked the raw ends under, and made my climb, al the time saying, “See how easy this is? A monkey could do it. In fact monkeys do it al the time.”

“Monkeys have tails!” Aaron cal ed.

“They are also often being chased by bigger monkeys,” Vayl told him. “In your case, that would be another group of Brude’s fighters, closing in on our position more quickly than I anticipated. Is someone bleeding?”

We al checked ourselves, found no cuts or bruises. Then I realized. “It’s the blemuth. He’s as real as we are. They’ve got to be smel ing his injury.”

Raoul cal ed down, “Aaron! You have about thirty seconds before we’re surrounded again! Get your ass up here!”

I glanced at Vayl and whispered, “Raoul said ‘ass.’”

Vayl’s head descended a notch, his version of a nod. “He seems to be quite excited. I think he may be enjoying this adventure of ours.”

“And you’re not?”

“I am with the woman I love and one of my sons. My life has never been so complete.” I glanced down. “So how long are we going to let him dangle there before we start pul ing him up?”

“Give him a few more seconds. His character could use some polishing.”

“You real y do love him, don’t you?”

Vayl sighed down at Junior, who was making the ascension about fifty times more difficult than it had to be. “I love him more than life itself. However I do not like him much yet. I am hoping that wil change as we spend more time together.”

“Aaah!” Aaron looked down, flipped out, lost his grip and slipped a total of twelve inches. Vayl nodded to Raoul, who came over to our side to help haul the kid up. “He’s something next to useless,” Raoul growled.

“Not everyone was meant to save the world,” Vayl said. He looked down at Aaron fondly. “But the fact that he is trying to rescue his father, despite the fear that hounds him, continues to draw my admiration.”

I wasn’t sure how impressed Vayl was when Aaron final y joined us at the blemuth’s shoulder, accidental y caught sight of the ground, and passed out. But, having spent some anxious moments inside elevators and, once, a very smal closet, I could admit that we’ve al had better moments.

Maybe Junior’s were stil ahead of him.

Vayl didn’t seem quite as hopeful. He leaned over his son and brushed his hair back from his forehead. When he looked up the concern made deep furrows between his eyes. “Tel me, does it look to you as if he is fading?”

He did look pale. I held my hands in front of my face. No sign yet that our extended absence from the world had affected me physical y. Maybe I was building up some kind of resistance from previous “vacations.” But the fact was that we didn’t belong here and our bodies knew it. If they failed before our mission was accomplished, we could wel be stuck in Brude’s horror show for eternity. I yanked on Daisy’s ear and got a low, rumbling growl to let me know he was paying attention.

“Take us back to the castle.”

Daisy began to lope, like a horse who’s been working al day and suddenly catches a whiff of his trough ful of oats. Surreal, the feeling of riding on a giant creature’s shoulders. I told myself it was just like gal oping through the fields on the back of my grandpa’s old gelding. Except supersized.

With a fairy-tale element that I’d thought was rarer than platinum until I’d hit high school and found a brownie hiding under my desk because he didn’t want his wife to discover he’d been out drinking al night. Which was when I realized how much humans silently agreed not to see or discuss so that they could live happy, comfortable lives. And when I knew that I could no longer be one of them.

So I acknowledged how weird it was to feel the wind of the Thin blow the hair back from my face as I rode toward the absent king’s torture chamber, while the king himself, or at least the most important part of him, remained imprisoned inside my own skul .

Beyond walking the length and width of his cel , Brude had been quiet since his last outburst.

Too quiet. Which let me know that he knew the score. Maybe he could smel his castle, coming closer with every giant step of his spirit-crusher, the scent of despair coming to him through my own nostrils. I knew the stil ness within my brain wouldn’t last forever. He’d know when we reached his base. He’d try like hel to escape. And it was entirely possible that nothing I could do would hold him back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Saturday, June 16, 11:45 p.m.

I’l give blemuths this much, when they want to cover ground, they can move. We crossed fields, forded creeks, waded through dark forests that should’ve taken days to negotiate. I wasn’t happy about the hanging bridge that creaked and swung like something from a neglected playground, or the raft that kept threatening to capsize every time the ferryman stuck his pole into the grimy green water below it. But at least he accepted our story that we were new recruits, just come from the world to lead Brude’s armies to victory.

Al around us I felt the soft wisps of passing spirits, most of them moving too quickly to be caught in the net of the Thin. They made the air feel hotly humid, as if the exhaust of their flight influenced the climate of the place Brude wanted to fashion into New Hel . Had that been the reason he’d chosen it? For the heat? Or because every once in a while some poor schmo did get caught, and then we found them dangling in the tops of the trees or slumped against a boulder, exhausted from the fal ?

Then the blemuth would set them on their feet and motion for them to fol ow. Like a fluteless Pied Piper, al he had to do was crook his gore-caked talon and they stepped in line behind him. By the time we reached the gray stone castle that Brude had built on a plain of salted ground we had a parade of fifteen spirits trailing us.

I glanced over at Vayl. “This has got to be the most obvious jailbreak attempt in the history of mankind. Ever.”

He grinned at me again, possibly breaking his record for most fang revealed in a single day.

And reminding me, once again, that parts of him were pure predator. “We know it is a jailbreak. For all they know, the blemuth has captured a great many humans for the kitchen fire. Let us see how long we can make that il usion last, shal we?”

He sprang to his feet and pinched the blemuth’s neck. “Do you want the stinger out of your foot?” The blemuth moaned in agreement. “Then take us inside and pretend we are your prisoners.

Straight to the dungeon with you.”

Which was when I felt Brude stir inside my head, his movements coinciding with the first pangs of a headache. “He knows we’re here,” I whispered.

Vayl brushed his hand over mine and the pain in my head receded. “Can you handle him?”

“I think so. But if it gets bad, you may need to… do something.”

“Al right.” We stared at each other. Neither of us quite knew what that would be. We were just hoping we’d be able to figure it out if the situation came to that.

Vayl leaned forward so he could see Raoul and Aaron. “Soon,” he told them. “Wil you be ready?”

Raoul nodded and dragged Aaron to his feet. I heard him tel Junior, “There’s nowhere to run that won’t get you into worse trouble here, understand? These spirits can sense weakness, and as soon as they do, they attack. So you need to at least pretend to be tough.”

“When I’ve never been more scared in al my life?” Aaron asked.

“Do you want to see your own intestines today?” Raoul said.

“No.”

“Then find a way.”

Aaron swal owed hard and pressed his hand against his stomach, like he was promising his entire digestive system he would do everything in his power to ensure it remained intact. He kept it there the entire trip through the castle, while the spirits of Brude’s army howled at the blemuth, demanding news of the patrol, information about us, and above al else a taste of our delectable flesh. A couple of reminder pinches to the ear forced him to ignore them al and even smash a few of the more persistent ones against the mold-covered wal s.

Those wal s were lit, as I’d remembered from my first visit to Brude’s castle, with stacks of burning skul s set in wal brackets. It didn’t seem like they should give us that clear a view as we wound our way to the lower levels. But we had no problem picking out members of the king’s personal guard lounging against the wal s, throwing dice, playing find-the-wench’s-giggly-spots, or tearing out each other’s hearts over a minor disagreement regarding the bloodline of the hound lapping up the fluids dripping from their everwidening wounds.

I heard Aaron whisper, “I think I’m going to be sick,” and Raoul reply, “Are you ready to die so soon?” before the blemuth reached the bottom of the winding stairs.

The hal s had been built wide enough to hold a Sherman tank, tal enough to make a herd of elephants feel comfortably cozy. The blemuth stil had to squeeze to get through to the dungeon, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I suspected that twinkle in his flat yel ow eyes was pure glee as he viewed the havoc Brude’s forces had wrought among the realms of the Thin and, occasional y, Brude’s own people.

In hel , spirits are forced back into physical form. This in itself is torture for a soul that has, at least for a while, experienced pure freedom. It also aids in further tortures as the various demons and devices of hel become inspired with increasingly malicious ideas. Brude had fol owed his master’s lead to a degree. But rather than pushing his prisoners’ spirits completely back into the flesh form, he’d gone in the opposite direction. So the straps of the rack on which one of Queen Marie’s Dogs was currently being broken were made from the skin of another human’s wrists and legs. This both held him firm, and burned him through, because it wasn’t his flesh. Clever. Diabolical.

Inside my mind Brude laughed and, true to pattern, the headache began.

Unfortunately it wasn’t blinding, so I clearly saw the spirits hanging like psychopathic artwork on the bloodstained wal s, dangling from manacles made of human flesh. Elsewhere they writhed on beds of nails carved from human bone and half-drowned in repeated dousings of human excrement.

Having already been to hel , I thought I was hardened to the worst that evil could shove in front of my eyes. But my stomach clenched when I saw the cage.

I knew it was important by the way it hung suspended in midair by heavy chains anchored to the ceiling and the floor. But that was where my mind stuttered, begging me not to process what it was made of. The sharp pain behind my right eye, accompanied by Aaron’s gasped, “No! Raoul, tel me I’m not seeing that!” confirmed the worst. The four-foot-by-five-foot rectangle was made of human skin, stitched together by dried intestines, stretched over a large col ection of leg and arm bones.

“Jesus.” It was the closest I’d gotten to a prayer in a while.

“They had to confine him,” Vayl said, his voice so sad and low I only caught it because I was used to listening for it. “His spirit was too important to leave to chance.” He nodded to the prisoners moaning their misery al around us.

“So.” I nodded at the cage. “It’s a trap?”

“I am sure that if we breach that cage, al of Brude’s home guard wil be alerted to our presence.

In fact, he and his al ies are counting on just that.”

“But it’s my dad!” Aaron cried. “We can’t just leave him there!” As if to underscore his point, an unearthly wail came pouring out of the cage, its anguish so acute I felt my heart break a little to hear it. Stil …

I said, “Aaron, we can’t risk it. So far we’ve been able to fight Brude’s forces. But I guarantee whatever trap he’s laid has been heavily tipped in his favor. I’m not saying we’re giving up for good.

Just for now. Until we can figure out—”

“I have an idea,” said Raoul.

At the exact same moment Vayl and Aaron asked, “What is it?”

Inside my head Brude yel ed in protest. I fought to keep my hands from clamping at my temples.

No sense in worrying the men just yet. It was only pain, right?

Raoul said, “The doors. The ones that al ow us to move from plane to plane—they fol ow Jaz closely, almost like Jack and Astral.”

I looked around. “That’s true, but I don’t see one here.”

He nodded. “I think you can cal them. In fact, I suspect you do subconsciously. It’s part of who you are as an Eldhayr. Part of what you cal your Sensitivity. You’ve never been able to control it because you didn’t know you could. But now you have to. Cal us one that would fit a plane hangar.”

“Sure, no problem, Raoul, like I’m gonna be able to make an interplanar doorway that burns around its rim appear just like that!” I snapped my fingers. And a door appeared. In the air. Right next to the hanging cage. “Holy shit!”

Vayl frowned at me. “Your language has deteriorated remarkably quickly in the past few weeks.”

“I’m wil ing to give her a break on this one,” Raoul said. He turned to me. “Can you make it bigger? And then—”

But I was way ahead of him. Drawing lines in the air. Stretching the parameters of the door in my head. Feeling it widen and lengthen, and watching it cooperate in this particular reality as if it were no more than one of Astral’s holographic images. Final y it seemed more than big enough to hold its cargo.

But it wasn’t easy. I might have snapped my fingers, but the moment the door appeared I felt like the fire lighting its frame was burning me up inside. No fever had ever worked on me the way this heat did. Sweat dripped down my face as the pain in my head built to new heights. I felt sure that if we didn’t wind this up soon, the heat would melt my eyebal s from the inside out.

“Everybody off the blemuth,” I muttered. Raoul and Aaron began to scramble down while Vayl held my wrist, staying with me as I delivered Daisy’s final instructions. The blemuth grunted that he understood.

“What about the thorn?” he asked plaintively.

“Just as soon as you deliver,” I promised.

He nodded his understanding as Vayl and I descended. My palms were so wet with sweat that I slipped and nearly fel , but Vayl caught me before I could hit the floor.

“You are burning up,” he whispered.

“It’s the door.”

“Your nose is bleeding as wel .”

“Brude,” I muttered.

“You cannot contain it al ,” he said as we made our way to the filthy stones beneath the blemuth’s paws.

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Perhaps you should light a smal fire of your own?”

“No.” One of the talents that had risen in me after I donated blood to a dying Were named Trayton was the ability to start fires. First they’d just appeared as an extension of my extreme emotions. Then I’d figured out how to control them just in time to save precious lives, including my own. But I’d learned that the flames I shot out from my Spirit Eye also burned a part of me. And I couldn’t trudge through life hoping bits of my soul would grow back before I watched my niece walk down the aisle. So I held back, keeping the burn in check even when I was at my most furious. Then Vayl said, “Perhaps this is why you were given the power in the first place. Not to destroy those who would harm you. But to protect yourself from the fires that are sent against you.” Inside my head a chorus of girls went, Aha! Everyone needs a shield. Brude had his tattoos.

Vayl could once cal up armor made entirely of ice. I’d fought reavers who were so thoroughly protected that hitting them felt like pounding your fists into a brick wal . So why shouldn’t I get some sort of defense? Especial y when I kept having to fight hel spawn?

“Okay,” I told him. “I’l try.” But for the moment I had to concentrate on the rope that I stil held in my hand, the one tied to the “thorn” in Daisy’s paw. I made sure it couldn’t get looped around anything. I checked that Raoul and Aaron had found places to perch among the links of the skin-cel ’s chain.

“It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” I warned them. “You may not be able to hold on by pure strength.” Aaron unbuckled his belt and used it to strap himself around the link he’d chosen. Raoul had already done the same with his sword belt.

When Vayl and I had tied ourselves in to our satisfaction we nodded to each other. “Okay!” I yel ed to the blemuth. “Upsy Daisy!” Then I snorted, because I’d always wanted to say that, and damned if this wasn’t the perfect time!

The blemuth grabbed the ceiling-bound chain of Aaron Sr.’s cel between its teeth and yanked.

Debris began to fal . The torturing crew final y looked up from their grisly business and realized the blemuth wasn’t in it for the fun, like they’d assumed. They screamed as more of the ceiling fel , crushing them and a few of their victims alike.

When a slab of rock the size of my Corvette landed right next to me I said to Vayl, “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”

“It was better than any of the alternatives. How are you feeling?”

“Why?”

“You are bleeding from both nostrils.” He touched the back of his hand to my forehead. “If we were in the world, I would take you straight to an emergency room. Brude is attacking you from the inside. He knows this is his last chance to escape before we take him to hel . And that door—” He nodded up to the portal, whose flames had turned a startling shade of magenta. “Its power is immense. I can feel it pul ing at you. Trying to suck you dry. Where is your fire, Jasmine? Where is the heat of your resistance?”

I felt the blood drip from my nose down to my chin. The pounding in my head had gone so far past migraine I was seeing pink. The domytr had begun raking at the wal s of my mind with his fingernails, pounding them with his fists and feet, leaving rivulets of blood and bruises in his wake.

And the portal, I could sense it, just like Vayl had said. Eager for my power. Lapping at the energy that had cal ed it despite the fact that it could stand on its own.

Suddenly I was so tired. I wanted to fal to my knees, bury my head in my hands, and cry until somebody came to save me. And Vayl would try. But he couldn’t fight invisible demons. Al he could do was stand beside me, hold me up, and hope I was strong enough to battle through to the end.

I reached inside for the rage that never seemed to stop burning, even during my happiest moments. It leaped to my hand like a longlost pet. And I welcomed it. Knew it was the reason I was strong and, after everything, stil vibrantly alive.

I pul ed it around me like a Kevlar cloak. And then I pushed it outward like the shel of an exploding bomb, driving Brude into a howling retreat as he beat at the flames that singed his hair, his skin, and his beard. The flames of the portal bil owed and shot straight upward, burning the pieces of debris as Daisy shook them out of the ceiling. They tried to reach for me as wel , but my fire was bigger, hotter, and it burned them back to where they belonged.

And then I felt myself lifted into the air. Daisy had broken our anchor from the ground. The ceiling anchor had come free as wel . Just in time, too, because Brude’s guards had come howling into the chamber, waving their weapons over their heads as if we should be intimidated by their noise and motion alone.

“Now, Daisy!” Vayl yel ed. “Into the gateway with us!”

The blemuth swung us into the portal, and as we flew through, I yanked on the rope, pul ing my sword free of the monster’s foot, gaining myself a roar of thanks as we hurtled out of the Thin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sunday, June 17, 12:15 a.m.

No other motion feels quite as exhilarating as flying, whether you’re parachuting from a Cessna Caravan at thirteen thousand feet or hang gliding off the cliffs at Mission Beach. However, in those cases you know that you have at least a decent chance of landing softly enough to maintain the integrity of your skeletal structure. Not so much when a blemuth has tossed you high into the cosmos and you’re not even sure your landing site is solid. So, while part of me grooved on defying gravity to the point that I felt like I was thumbing my nose at Mother Nature, the rest was trying desperately to figure out what I was hurtling toward.

I ruled out hot lava, just because our landing site wasn’t particularly glowing. I couldn’t hear surf, so we probably wouldn’t be swimming for it. Which left sharp, spiky rocks that could impale us in the most ghastly, gut-wrenching ways. Or some guy’s roof, in which case only a couple of us would have to worry about taking a furnace chimney up the ass while the rest of us could enjoy more typical crash-related injuries. Or—

“Trees!” Raoul cal ed out. “Get ready for a beating!”

Oh. Goody.

They were pines. So besides the abuse we took from smashing through at least half a dozen treetops whose branches tried their hardest to whip us off our perches, we also sustained slashes, cuts, and bruises that would take days to heal. But we didn’t die. I decided that was a plus.

When we final y dropped to the ground we lay there for a few minutes, gasping and sore, trying to convince ourselves we’d survived. Vayl was the first to decide he should ask the rest of us just to be sure.

“Jasmine.” He reached out to touch my bare shoulder where a piece of my shirt had ripped away. I shivered, laughed lightly. Only he could get a rise out of me after I’d nearly been stoned to death by a fal ing ceiling and then thrashed soundly by a forest. “Are you al right?” he asked.

“Yuh,” I answered. I touched my tongue, which was so sore it hadn’t wanted to make the S sound so I could reply to Vayl with a “Yes.” It was bleeding and slightly swol en. I must’ve bitten it during the landing.

Vayl sighed with relief. Then he said, “Aaron? Raoul? Did you make it?”

“We’re fine,” said Raoul.

“I need a knife!” Aaron replied. He’d already made it to his feet and was scouting for rips in his father’s cel . Though some of the bones that formed its structure had broken in the fal , the membrane itself remained horribly intact.

“Let us do this,” Vayl said as he helped me to my feet.

When Aaron started to protest I added, “We’re pretty handy with weapons. It would be a shame if you sliced half of your fingers off and bled to death at your moment of triumph, now, wouldn’t it?” First, however—“I’ve gotta talk to Aaron Senior.”

Vayl held out his hand. “Let us free him and see if he is in the mood to converse then, shal we?” I nodded, pul ing my bolo and giving it to him as we approached the corner of the cel where Raoul and Aaron were already standing.

Aaron went into a crouch and said gently, “We’re gonna get you out, Dad. Just go to the other side of the cel for a second, okay?”

In the moonlight that shone down through the broken treetops we saw the shadow inside the box move to its opposite end. Vayl made three quick cuts and a flap the size of a doggy door fel down inside the horror room.

The smel that wafted out gagged us, backing us al off a step or two. Then Aaron Junior’s dad came rocketing out of that place so fast that I could see the air flowing off his shoulders just as if he were a race car barreling down the track.

“Get back here right this minute, you ungrateful bastard!” I yel ed.

He swooped down and hovered in front of me, his grin showing a huge gap between his front teeth. “Forgive me. You can’t imagine how awful it’s been being cooped up in there al this time.”

“Wel , you’re about to be free forever,” Raoul told him.

“Except,” I added. Everyone paused to look at me. “The cowboy, Zel Culver. Did you know him?

I mean, did you meet him in the Thin or anything?”

Aaron Senior shook his bald head. “I didn’t meet any cowboys. Not anybody at al , real y, after they had the cel assembled. Except”—he nodded toward our group—“you people, the one time I was al owed out.”

I pul ed the Rocenz from my belt. “Does this look familiar?”

“No.”

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. I was missing something. Senior was important, or Granny May wouldn’t have made her suggestion in the first place. And then I had a thought. “Does the number twenty-three mean anything to you?”

He shrugged. “That’s the mystery tattoo.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wel .” He jerked his head back toward his cel . “Lots of those wal s came from parts of people that had been tattooed. To keep myself from going crazy I numbered them. Number twenty-three never made sense to me, so I always thought of it as the mystery tattoo.” I glanced at Vayl, whose eyes reflected the same excitement I felt building in my gut. “Show us,” he demanded.

Senior led us into the horror chamber and obediently pointed out a stretched bit of yel owed leathery skin covered with the words the soul splits, with a ragged tear and nothing after the comma.

“See?” he said. “The soul splits. Whatever fol ows that last S looks to have been cut off and left,” he sighed, “with the rest of the body.”

I just stared, because when Senior had said “The soul splits,” the Rocenz had warmed in my hand like cheese in a microwave. “Vayl, we—” I swal owed, grossed out by my next words before I had to say them. “We need that tattoo.”

He cut the piece away from its anchors, the ripping sound the knife made as it freed its second prisoner of the day making me wince. When he was done he folded the patch neatly inside his handkerchief. And then handed it to me.

Ugh. I bolted out of the chamber, fol owed closely by Vayl. Senior had left the minute he knew he was no longer needed. He was hovering beside Junior, talking quietly to his namesake as Raoul watched them with a look of regret that spel ed out just how long they had left together. As I moved toward my Spirit Guide I rebelted the Rocenz and tucked the tattoo inside my jacket pocket. The one that zipped, so I wouldn’t lose it. Or worse, accidental y stick my hand in there and feel it. By the time I’d stowed everything safely I’d moved within earshot of Aaron Junior and his dad.

“You’re going to be free now,” Aaron was saying. “Don’t get caught in the Thin again. Go straight toward, I don’t know, I’ve heard there’s a light or something.” Senior had started to shake. “Don’t worry. I’l fly like a rocket ship. I won’t even look back. Or down. Or to the side, because there are scary things in the dark with eyes that glow a sort of purply red—”

Raoul cleared his throat. “You’l see the Path clearly as soon as the Way opens for you. Stay on it. It’s that easy.”

Now Senior looked like he wanted to hug everyone. “Oh! Thank you al so much!” Junior brushed tears from his eyes. “Be careful, Dad.”

“Of course!”

“And say hi to Grandpa for me.”

“That too.” Senior gave his kid a kindly look. “Make sure you walk on the lit side of the street at night. And don’t think, just because you don’t have a fever, that you should skip going to the doctor when you feel sick. People die that way, you know.”

“Yeah, Dad. I know.”

“Al right, then. If you can figure out a way to that won’t send her screaming to her psychiatrist, tel your mom I love her.”

“Okay.”

Vayl slipped his hand around mine, his signal to stop eavesdropping on the family convo. We backed off as Raoul signaled Senior that it was time to stand, or rather hover, front and center.

“Keep watch,” Raoul muttered quietly.

He meant for anything that might come through the opening he was about to make. Anything undirected and entirely neutral, with the ability to slither through the cracks before we could catch it.

I said, “Okay.” I held my bolo as Vayl lifted the tip of his cane from the ground and rested the shaft over his shoulder, casual y, as if he weren’t primed to spring the shaft off the sword that rested inside and skewer the first monster that crossed his path.

Casting a frightened look at his son, Senior had moved to stand in front of Raoul. Raoul clasped his hands together, making a smal circle with his own body, and began to chant. I always felt Vayl’s powers, like a slow simmer that usual y gave me the kind of comfort you get from locked doors and wel -trained dogs. Raoul’s were never evident until he blasted them at you like a wel -aimed rocket.

Now the tips of my curls wound tighter as they emerged, ful and pure as a Brazilian waterfal . Fal ing over Aaron Senior, they began to reveal him as he truly was, a scared and wounded soul desperate for redemption. As the seconds ticked past he stopped resembling a pale echo of an overworked beer bottler, and instead took on the glittering beauty of a gem-laced spirit ful of the colors his life had laid on him, most of them the sweet pastels of spring.

As Senior took his true form, the words of Raoul’s chant blew from his lips ful y formed, wisps of silver coated in the cold fog of his breath. And I realized my sverhamin’s powers had risen, as if summoned by Raoul’s. Mine, also, had sharpened. How else could I be seeing so clearly? Vayl’s fingers tightened on mine and suddenly, without his even opening a vein, his magic coursed through me. I jerked my head back, shouting to the skies as I pushed my Sight into Vayl’s glittering green eyes, and knew that he shared it completely.

Aaron Senior gasped, tears running down his face as he rose into a whirlwind composed of pine needles, snowflakes, and bil owing clouds so purely white I final y knew the color of peace. Another minute and he was gone. Vayl and I fel silent, though we couldn’t let each other go. We just stood there, lost in one another’s eyes, the rapture of entanglement so complete I knew we’d never feel alone again.

Then Junior sniffed. And said, “Does anyone have a handkerchief? I hate rubbing snot on my shirtsleeves.”

I looked over at him. Tears were streaming down his face. And, yup, his nose was trying to add to the river. I sighed. Then I looked at Vayl. “I’l bet they don’t have boogers in heaven.”

“No. And, most likely, your underwear never gets stuck up your crack just when you are required to meet important people like, oh, the President of the United States.” I dropped his hands. “How did you know about that?”

His lips twitched. “Sometimes you talk in your sleep.”

“Great. Just great. My most embarrassing moments are a hit parade for you the second I start snoring!”

He pul ed me into his arms. “You are quite adorable. And I know you have always wanted to meet Abraham Lincoln. So I am simply assuring you that when the time comes, you can calm yourself in the knowledge that your panties wil remain securely in place.” Raoul cleared his throat. “I’m uncomfortable now!”

Vayl laid a soft kiss on my cheekbone, a caress completely innocent to witness but highly erotic to receive from lips so warm and promising, before he smiled over the top of my head at my Spirit Guide and said, “Then let us rejoin the rest of our crew, shal we? I believe I have another son to account for.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Sunday, June 17, 3:30 a.m.

Vayl’s positive mood lasted until Dave’s report. After which he snapped that since our trip to hel was stil on hold, we might as wel be driving in the direction of Hanzi’s rescue as staring baleful y at one another like a bunch of grave diggers. Then he dropped into the passenger seat of the Galaxie and began to brood. He spent long tracts of time staring out the window as we headed toward Spain, where Dave was sure he’d seen Hanzi in dire straits. He interrupted his thoughts only to throw a barrage of questions at my brother, who’d given his tour bus responsibilities to Cole so he could report on what Cassandra cal ed his “Spiritwalk” directly to Vayl. Our psychic sat in the backseat beside him to help fil in the blanks, though his memory never failed, possibly because he’d reviewed Astral’s holographic recording of the event three times before leaving the cat with Bergman. (Yeah, it would’ve helped to have her in on the review as wel , but our tech guru had said he wanted to tinker with her some more to make sure she didn’t have another funky fal ing-people episode. I thought he just wanted something to take his mind off his near-death experience. Hey, no judgments from my corner. If it worked for him I was going to try it the next chance I got.) We’d been driving for three hours when Vayl twisted in his seat. Cassandra poked Dave to wake him just before my sverhamin leaned toward him. “Tel me again where you saw him.”

“Vayl, we’ve been over this,” Dave said. “It was some kind of accident waiting to happen. Your kid on a col ision course with a semi.”

“No, I do not mean the specifics of the vision. I mean the periphery.” Vayl shook his head with frustration. “A Sister of the Second Sight told me that I would meet my sons in America. It was why I moved there over eighty years ago. And I did encounter Badu, pardon me, Aaron,” he said, nodding toward the tour bus behind us, where Junior was snoring loud enough to be heard over Bergman’s Party Line, “in Ohio. So it makes no sense to me that we should be heading toward Andalusia.”

“Your kid’s in southern Spain,” Dave insisted. “That at least I could figure out from the writing on the side of the truck.” I recognized the tone in his voice. He was starting to get pissed. Which meant he’d dug in his heels. But Vayl had spent enough time with me to know how to handle Parks stubbornness.

“Al right, then,” Vayl said, so calmly that Dave blinked and pul ed in his just-try-to-change-my-mind attitude. “My firstborn is riding a motorcycle toward a semi truck in the southernmost region of Spain. Can he see the truck or is it blocked from his view?”

“He’s looking right at it.”

“Is he on a blind curve?”

“No. It’s a—wel .” Dave’s pause brought Vayl up in his seat. “It’s so wide it doesn’t even seem like a road. More like a runway.”

“Can you see the edges?” asked Vayl. “Are there planes? Do you see more semi trucks?”

“People,” Dave final y answered after a lot of thought. “Temporary viewing stands ful of people.

And some of them are in uniform.” His face suddenly lit up like he’d been granted his dearest wish. “I know the place! It’s our air base in Morón!”

“US soil,” Vayl murmured. “Hanzi is on US soil. But I stil do not understand what you have seen.”

“Me either. Maybe your kid’s demonstrating some new military weapon or something. Doesn’t matter. We’ve gotta get there before he turns himself into Hanzi-sauce.”

“Wel said.” Vayl tapped at his earpiece. “Cole, Jasmine’s car wil do one hundred and eighty miles an hour without even a shimmy. Surely you could get your contraption to move somewhat faster than sixty?”

Our bus driver had been humming an old Alabama tune cal ed “Dixieland Delight,” belting out the lyrics when he wasn’t blowing bubbles and popping them into our receivers. At the moment he was singing, “Hold her up tight, make a little lovin’/A little turtledovin’ on a Mason-Dixon night.” He cleared his throat and pronounced, with a Bil Cosby–esque twang in his voice, “Fathers should al be regularly tranquilized the minute their children turn thirteen. And what I mean by that is, if I go any faster, I’m pretty sure the chassis of this old bug wil disintegrate, at which time Bergman wil go flying out the back like a paper napkin.”

Cole sang another couple of bars from his chosen tune. Then he stopped to say, “So tel us, Vayl, since you’re old enough to have legitimately turtledoved, and the guys in Alabama seem pretty psyched about the idea, is it everything it’s cracked up to be? Also, can you turtledove just any girl?

Or does she have to have a certain, shal we say, generously mounded upper quadrant?” Despite the shade Vayl’s face had reddened to, Dave chuckled. “Wouldn’t quadrant be referring to four boobs? That’s kinda sci-fi, Cole, even for you.”

Cole said, “I would total y go there. For my country’s sake, of course.” Vayl blew an irritated breath out his nose. It was so close to the snort a pissed-off bul makes just before he charges that I was amazed Cole kept the tour bus moving in a straight line. I figured even he was smart enough to change the subject while our leader was so anxious about Hanzi’s safety, but before he could do anything that smart, Vayl sat back, his entire posture relaxing as he looked at me like he’d only just seen me for the first time that day. It was like he suddenly realized that Cole wasn’t trying to piss him off at al , that he just wanted to help him get through the trip so that by the end he stil possessed at least a shred of sanity.

He said, “I cannot imagine anyone of your temperament taking the time to turtledove a lady.

However, if you ever manage to slow down long enough to enjoy the finer moments of seduction, remember that a woman’s body is like fine art, to be taken in by al the senses until she is enveloped in them so completely that she is no longer separate from you.” Because holding Vayl’s eyes would probably lead to a fatal accident, I was that distracted, I glanced in the rearview and noticed Dave sitting in rapt attention, taking mental notes with his sharp little brain pencil because he knew the master rarely spoke, and he’d better not blow this chance to file away a few precious pointers. Given his attitude and the total lack of comment by Cole, Bergman, Raoul, and Aaron, I figured al of them felt pretty much the same about this moment. Which made me want to sit up straight, tap the back of the seat, and announce, “Gentlemen, there wil be a test later. Try not to muff it.” But then they’d al giggle at my terrible pun and forget everything they’d learned in the past thirty seconds. And I just couldn’t do that to the women in their lives. So I kept my mouth shut and basked in the glow that was part of being Vayl’s lucky girl.

Cole said, “Vayl, I bow to you. Look over your shoulder. See? My forehead’s touching the steering wheel. As for moving faster? At this rate we’l make our destination in, like, thirty-nine hours.

Maybe more, because Jack has told me he’l have to stop to pee at some point. I wil just crank open a window when the urge strikes—you’re welcome, by the way. Bottom line? I suggest you settle in.” Vayl turned back to Dave. “That wil not do.”

“We could fly,” Dave said. “That would cut our time to about eight hours, but when you count ticket-buying time, security checkpoints, stopovers, that kind of thing, it would expand to twice that.

Plus we have the animals and gear that would have to be dealt with so it’s kind of a wash.” Vayl spun to me. “Jasmine, we need another door.”

“What do I look like, some kind of genie? Holy crap, the last one practical y fried my eyebrows from the inside!”

When he simply looked at me, not pouting, not pleading, just waiting for me to put myself in his shoes and understand his need, I sighed. “I can take you to another plane, like Raoul’s apartment, maybe. But then when you step back out of the door, it’s going to drop you pretty much where you started. That’s been the way they’ve worked ever since I could see the damned things.” Vayl touched his ear again, a gesture I was beginning to find charming in a Star Trek–ian kind of way. He said, “Raoul, you could do it. You could take us to your penthouse, and from there you can descend to any spot on Earth. You could drop us right into the path of Hanzi’s motorcycle.” Raoul had been sitting quietly beside his window in the bus, staring out at the darkened countryside of what I was pretty sure was now northern Croatia. Later Cole told me that Astral had curled up in Raoul’s lap and he’d been petting her as if she were his own cat. Apparently they’d bonded during the time I’d loaned her to him as a prop to help him net a date. Now his voice seemed to come from the bottom of a lake, dark and mysterious as the creatures that swam there as he said, “I could, but I won’t. This is one event I cannot interfere with.”

“So you know what’s going to happen?” I asked.

No answer.

“Then I’l take that as a yes.”

Stil nothing. Vayl and I shared narrowed eyes. What the hel kind of truth did he have access to?

Bergman, who’d been so silent that I’d almost decided he was sleeping off his nightmare tangle with the Rider, spoke up. Perkily, as if he hadn’t just been mental y and physical y gnawed on by an evolutionary throwback. He asked, “Raoul, are you some kind of prophet? Should we be writing everything you say down?” And then, “Jaz. Astral’s recording everything he says, right?”

“That seems like an invasion of privacy, Bergman. Why don’t you just stalk him instead?” Cole began to snicker and Astral, apparently feeling she should have some say in the matter, began to speak. “Metamorphosis in five seconds. Four, three, two…”

“Bergman, now look what you’ve done,” said Raoul. “She’s turned into a pancake!”

“That’s not supposed to happen,” said Bergman. “Don’t let her jump… Raoul! I wanted to test her timing system!”

I glanced back and saw Aaron rise in his seat so he could see farther forward. “What’s the cat doing to the dog?” he asked curiously.

“Somebody let me in on the action,” I demanded.

“Yeah!” Cole seconded me. “I can’t see them from up here!”

Aaron had moved into the aisle for a better view. “The cat’s sliding over to where the dog is lying under the front seat.”

“The dog is Jack; the cat is Astral,” I reminded him. “If you’re going to be traveling with us for the next couple of days, it would be nice if you memorized a few names. You know, in case you get lost and have to ask the Walmart lady to page us over the intercom.” Ignoring me, Aaron said, “Jack’s twitching in his sleep. What does a dog of yours dream about, Ms. Parks?”

I said, “I always figured Jack was chasing bad guys across endless fields of clover. Not sure he ever catches them, but he has a fabulous time trying.”

“O-kay then… wel , I think he’s going to be in for a surprise. Because the cat, Astral, I mean, has positioned herself between his paws. She looks like a warped Frisbee. But at least now al his twitching makes sense.”

Realizing how badly she was going to freak him out when she popped back into her ful form, I said, “Whoever is closest to her needs to lean over, snap their fingers, and order her back to normal.”

Aaron said, “Okay, I can—”

Loud, brash music blared from the floor of the tour bus.

“What’s happening?” I demanded as Dave and Cassandra both turned in the backseat to see if they could get a better view.

“It’s Astral!” Aaron yel ed. “She’s playing that AC/DC song. You know which one I mean?”

“We can al hear ‘Back in Black,’ Aaron,” Cole drawled. “In fact, I think the first three lines are now imprinted on my eardrums.”

Aaron laughed. “Oh my God, it was great! Jack jumped completely off the floor. He looked like a grizzly bear that’s just been stung in the butt by a bumblebee! That’s a smart dog of yours, Ms.

Parks. It only took him, like, two seconds to figure out that Astral was screwing with him. Oh, man!”

“What’s he doing now?” asked Cassandra.

“He’s sitting down on the floor in front of her,” reported Aaron. “He’s looking at her kind of sideways.”

“Uh-oh,” I said.

My brother and sister-in-law turned toward me. “What does that mean?” asked Dave.

“He’s planning something,” I predicted, wishing I were on the bus so I could prevent whatever catastrophe was about to occur to what had to be a multimil ion-dol ar piece of technology and, even better, keep Bergman from experiencing his first heart attack.

“You’re right!” Aaron said. “He’s leaning over, real slow. Like he’s afraid he’s going to spook her.

And now, wow, he’s real y being gentle! He’s clamping her head in his jaws, just enough so he can give it a quarter of a turn to the right. Now he’s letting go. He’s coming down the aisle, and now he’s hopped into Bergman’s lap.”

As if the sudden groan from Bergman wasn’t an even better clue.

“What was that al about?” Aaron asked me.

“Jack was sending Astral a message she’d understand. He was tel ing her, Remember that time I accidentally blew your head off? Well, I’m not above doing it again, this time on purpose.

And now he’s planted himself on top of the one man who can fix her if anything goes wrong. My guess? She’l behave herself for at least the next twelve hours.” Murmurs of wonder and pride from the rest of the crew as they settled into what was fast becoming the longest marathon drive of my life. And then Vayl said, “Stop the car.” Such a quiet command, but it would’ve easily halted a battalion of tanks. I pul ed over, Cole lined up behind me, and we al gathered onto the shoulder of the road, which I thought was a good thing for several reasons. I needed a break from dodging potholes the size of my hubcaps. I was tired of fol owing oxcarts ful of mystery plants that were bigger and scarier than corn, and passing when I felt like the next pothole might be deep enough to lead into an entirely new dimension. Plus Jack needed some exercise. So I was feeling pretty positive about this new turn of events until Vayl stepped into Raoul’s personal space, his cane nearly impaling my Spirit Guide’s foot as he stood nose-to-nose with the Eldhayr who’d saved my life.

Even Jack cut his relief time to a minimum and came back to stand at my side as the atmosphere spiked into the same realm of intensity that must have been felt inside the boardroom during the last postwar peace treaty negotiations.

“Your attempt to distract me from your remarkable lack of interest in a human’s impending death has failed, Raoul.” Vayl spoke so slowly that even my Spirit Guide could tel he was reaching hard for tact because the predator in him was swimming hard toward the surface. “Tel me. From what are you not protecting my son?”

Raoul’s face took on that frozen look that so often preceded a barked recitation of name, rank, and serial number fol owed by stony silence. Then his lips pursed, and his loyalty to the Trust he’d become part of without even meaning to won out. He said, “Hanzi’s fate has come to a crossroads.

It’s not for me to make his choices now.” He nailed Vayl with a hard look. “Or you.” My ears started to tingle. I said, “What the fuck does that mean? Speak plain, Raoul. We’re not into riddles, especial y not this late in the game.”

Raoul squeezed his eyes shut. The international sign for I have paddled so far up Shit Creek I will never smell good again. He said, “Hanzi’s soul hasn’t evolved a great deal in the lives he’s led since he was Vayl’s son.”

“I got that feeling during my Spiritwalk,” Dave muttered to Cassandra. “But how do you tel a guy his son’s been pretty much a jerkoff for the past three centuries?” A slight turn of Vayl’s head acknowledged he’d heard the whisper, but he let the comment go because he was so fixated on Raoul. “Give me a bottom line, Raoul. I have time for little else today.” Raoul’s shoulders tightened. Vayl’s were already so stiff they could’ve doubled as car jacks.

Raoul said, “Hanzi may very wel die today. A crew of demons is waiting to take him if he does. If the humans at the event where it is to happen can resuscitate him, the Eminent hope that he wil make the choice to change his life. In that case he would be a fine addition to our circle. But, because of how he has lived to this point, they’ve ordered us not to interfere.” He stared hard at Vayl. “This is one place where I can’t help you.” Vayl nodded, understanding as clearly as I did that if we got there in time, Raoul wouldn’t interfere with any plan we might come up with.

He rammed his cane into the road so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter. In his most control ed, and therefore dangerous, voice he grated, “We must reach Andalusia as quickly as possible.” My Spirit Guide looked up, like the clouds held a map only he could see. “We’l make it in time,” he said. He looked at Vayl and said cryptical y, “Just be ready for a few more surprises from your firstborn. I haven’t told you everything because, wel , for you I think some things have to be seen to be believed.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Sunday, June 17, 3:50 a.m.

Since it was nearly four in the morning, giving us only ninety minutes until dawn, we decided to find ourselves a place to shower, grab a meal, and set Vayl up inside his sleeping tent before jumping back onto the road, where we’d take shifts sleeping on the bus. Having already left Bucharest far behind us, we gathered in the bus and broke out the maps and laptops. Bergman, Aaron, and Cassandra searched for hotels while Dave, Vayl, Raoul, Cole, and I plotted our next big move.

“I can’t imagine it happening,” I told Cole.

“Come on,” he whined. “We’re right on the border of Slovenia. I can practical y see the guards waving leis at us from here. This is our big chance to experience true Slovenian culture.” Vayl shook his head. “I am certain the lei is a Hawaiian tradition. And I do not see how dressing up in leopard-print uniforms and racing l amas around the city square while we shout ‘Long live General Maister!’ has anything to do with being Slovenian.”

“Trust me, it does. I should know, my grandma married a guy who could answer al the crossword puzzle questions that made any reference to Eastern Europe.” He clapped a hand on Vayl’s shoulder. “I’m tel ing you, buddy, you’l feel so Slavic when you’re done you may just get the urge to talk out of the back of your throat for the rest of your life.”

“I’ve never ridden a l ama,” said Raoul. “Are they comfortable?”

“They’re covered in wool!” Cole said. “It’s like sitting on a pile of sweaters!” Dave snorted. “Sweaters with teeth, maybe.”

I know, I know. We should’ve shut him down the minute Cole uttered the words “l ama saddle.” But those of us who hadn’t been in the room when our wizard friend Sterling brought his soul back from the brink of Spawn City had heard the story enough times to know that these moments, above al others, were the ones that Cole needed to help him maintain his humanity. So we indulged him until Bergman hooted in triumph.

“I found something! It’s a place cal ed the Flibbino Inn. Oh wait, the reviews are pretty scary.

There’s no indoor plumbing, and this one lady says they give you a toilet lid to take outside with you when you have to go, otherwise the neighbor kids steal them for their own outhouses.”

“I wonder if they’re the squishy kind,” Cole said.

“Is that real y going to make a difference in your decision?” Cassandra asked him.

He thought a minute. “That depends on the reading material that goes along with the lid,” he decided.

“I’m beat,” Dave said. “As long as nobody mentions bedbugs, I’m wil ing to put up with primitive conditions for one night.”

I glanced at Aaron expecting, at the very least, the look of lawyerly disdain he’d probably practiced in the mirror for the day he final y passed the bar. He said, “I was a Boy Scout. I can sleep on the floor if I have to.”

As I shared a look of dawning respect with Vayl, Bergman tapped at his keys a few times. “No bugs here,” he said. “Although one reviewer felt the rooster was kind of a pest.”

“Am I to understand this inn is situated on a farm?” Vayl asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Pass,” I said. “The last thing I need is to be squatting in an outhouse on an unattached lid when some big-and-ugly jumps down from the haymow because, guess what? it’s my time to die.” Among a general chorus of agreement, during which somebody mentioned that Bergman might even accidental y slip down the hole in such a situation, Cassandra came up with plan B. “How about this place?” she asked. “Its name is translated as The Stopover.” She passed around the laptop so we could al study three muzzy shots of the trucker-type hotel situated between a major highway and what looked to be a wel -traveled goat track lined with beech trees. The Stopover stood two stories tal , a square brown edifice that drooped at the corners, making it resemble a pile of giant poo. In front sat a line of three gas pumps, one of which was servicing a car so ancient even I couldn’t tel in what year it had pul ed out of the factory lot.

The lobby could’ve doubled as a convenience store. Who knows, maybe it did. And the rooms looked like they’d been decorated by depressed nuns. Behind the hotel stood a second building whose purpose remained a mystery. Bergman pointed to it. “That’s probably where they hide the bodies until it’s dark enough to dispose of them.”

Cassandra laughed. “Miles! It’s not that bad! Believe me, I’ve slept in dives that make this place look like the Ritz!”

Bergman shook his head. “I hate to disagree with you. Wel , actual y, it doesn’t bother me at al to disagree with you. But it seemed like a nice way to start out saying you’re ful of crap. This is total y a Norman Bates hotel. I’l bet the owner has a furnace in the basement just like Sweeney Todd.” Dave held up his hand. “You can’t mix movie slashers with musical vil ains. It’s just wrong, Bergman. I thought you knew that.”

“I don’t know,” said Cole. “I could happily spend the next half hour discussing which of those guys is the most twisted.”

“Definitely Sweeney Todd,” Aaron offered. “The guy ate his victims after al .”

“Did he eat them, or did he sel them to other people to eat?” asked Cole.

“Does it matter?” asked Cassandra.

“I’m not sure there’s a line that fine,” I said. The last word came out as a grunt, mostly because Jack had, once again, stepped on a major organ in his attempt to pass himself off as a Pomeranian.

I was trying to decide if a paw could actual y fit between my pancreas and liver when Vayl found that ticklish spot underneath my earlobe and began to circle it with his thumb. I blanked on everyone else in the bus as my mind centered on Vayl’s touch. Such a little thing, and yet I nearly gasped out loud when his fingers, which had been folded and resting against my neck, uncurled. His fingertips, hidden by my hair, brushed toward my spine, making me shiver with anticipation.

“Jasmine?”

“Huh?”

“What do you think?”

“Uh-huh.”

“About the hotel,” Vayl clarified, amusement threading through his voice now.

“We need to stop somewhere,” I said.

I saw a quick glint of fang and then his hand went stil . Mine rushed to cover it, a silent protest I hoped the others wouldn’t notice. He murmured, “You must think for everyone, not just us. It wil not be a pleasant day, Bergman’s reviews have assured us of that.” I dropped my hand to Jack’s head and rubbed at his soft fur. Reality came flooding into my mind so fast that it felt like somewhere a water main had exploded. “We’re going to hel tomorrow,” I murmured. “It seems right that we should take our first step in this world.”

“Perhaps the hotel’s owners would not appreciate such a comparison?” I shrugged. “Then they shouldn’t have painted their place the color of shit.” CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sunday, June 17, 4:25 a.m.

Thirty-five minutes after discovering The Stopover hotel on our laptops, we puled into its garbage-strewn parking lot. Not a single light provided extra security, or the ability to see where to walk Jack for his pee break so he wouldn’t tread on broken glass. Since Vayl could navigate the dark better than any of us, he took my dog’s lead while the rest of us got shower gear and clean clothes out of our overnight bags. I hated to leave my Galaxie in a lot where there were more hubcaps than cars, but I’d made my choice, and an hour from dawn was no time to back out. So I locked the doors and hoped that the thieves were into VW buses as I looked down at the cat standing beside me.

“Okay, Astral,” I told the kittybot. “No talking in front of strangers.” She looked up at me innocently, as if she was offended I would think she was capable of such rudeness. I pointed my finger at her. “No freaking out the dog. And definitely no home movies of people fal ing off mountains. You got me?”

She stared down at the asphalt, paying close attention to her trotting paws as she fol owed me toward the front entrance. But I thought I heard her say, “Dammit” in a smal metal ic voice that stil managed to express disappointment.

Suddenly every light in the place flipped on. The ones above the gas pumps came to life too, bright neon white spotlighting us like a bunch of military targets. I knew Dave was thinking the same thing when he yel ed, “Take cover!”

He wrapped his arm around Cassandra’s waist and pul ed her into the alcove between the front door and the building’s outer wal .

I pul ed Grief and shot out the gas pump lights, backing toward the tour bus with Astral at my heels. Vayl and Jack met us there. Bergman, Aaron, and Raoul had clambered back inside the vehicle, abandoning their bags halfway between the building and the bus. Cole had taken shelter against the only other automobile in the parking lot, a black sedan so covered with grime it couldn’t have been washed since the country’s last election.

The door to the inn flew open. “Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot!” A skinny old Indian man with a thin mustache, wearing a brown vest and blue pants, walked into the parking lot with his hands held high above his head. “She said you would come here. She is the one playing with the lights, not us.

Please, those bulbs are expensive!”

I lowered my gun as Vayl demanded, “Who said we would come?”

“The woman in black. She has taken over our entire establishment. She has been just waiting, waiting for you to arrive. Please, please talk to her now so she wil leave us alone.” He clasped his hands together, real y begging, truly scared of whoever was waiting for us inside.

As Cole left cover and Raoul opened the bus door for Bergman and Aaron, the owner of The Stopover, whose name badge said we could cal him Sanji, motioned for us to join him. Dave, stil holding Cassandra safe behind him, remained in the shadows. With my arms stil at my sides, I lifted my palm to him, silently encouraging him to keep it that way. We held our weapons out where Sanji could see them as we approached him and the front door. “Please,” he said again. “She said she would go as soon as she spoke to you.”

“Did she give you her name?” Vayl asked.

“Bemont,” he said. “When she checked in she said her name was Mrs. Bemont.” Even Aaron knew better than to gape at Cole. But we al felt the shock that shot through him at hearing that whoever had anticipated a move we’d only just decided to make was posing as his wife. I reminded myself, once again, to create a whole new vocabulary for our line of work, because

“creepy” just didn’t cover it.

When we didn’t show any signs of movement, Sanji asked, “Are you ready now? Mrs. Bemont is not a patient woman. You should hear the yel ing if we are late with her breakfast.” Vayl held up his hand. “In a moment. Cole.” Our sniper stepped forward. In his hand he held a duffel ful of clean clothes and a second padded bag containing his rifle, a Heckler & Koch PSG1

that was nearly new but had already seen action (translation: Saved our asses) in Marrakech. Vayl said, “Find the back way in. Clear it if necessary. Then cover Mrs. Bemont’s room. But before you go, give Raoul your pistol.”

Cole reached into his shoulder holster and pul ed out his Beretta. Handing it to my Spirit Guide he said, “I know it’s been a while. Do you need a refresher course so I don’t have to worry about you shooting off your big toe?”

Raoul took the gun with a wel -practiced hand, making sure to keep the business end pointed away from the rest of us. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Vayl said, “I suppose I shal need something as wel . Sanji, give me your gun.”

“I-I have nothing of the sort!” blustered the manager. “I’m a peaceful man—”

“I beg to differ,” Vayl replied, his voice so mild Sanji had no idea how close he was to getting his head slammed against the wal . “You run a rotten hotel in a neighborhood infested with criminals.

Where do you keep it, behind the counter? If not, I wil be happy to tear this place apart until I locate it.”

“No! No, that won’t be necessary.” Sanji rushed into his office and came out carrying a sawed-off shotgun.

I said, “Now I’m having weapon envy.”

My sverhamin smirked at me. “You are just saying that because you know how much I would rather use my cane.” He turned to Sanji. “Where is Mrs. Bemont staying?”

“She’s in the honeymoon suite.”

We stared up at the sagging building. “You have a honeymoon suite?” It was the first time Aaron had spoken since he left the bus. And I was sure these words had been ripped out of him by pure disbelief.

Sanji shrugged. “It’s the biggest room in the establishment, real y two rooms put together. Up there, on the corner of the second floor.” He pointed to the windows, the curtains of which were closed tight. Vayl nodded to Cole, who left so swiftly that Sanji didn’t even notice. He just kept blabbing in the way of lonely innkeepers, “I think they forgot to put the wal up in between them when they raised the building, so now it’s the honeymoon suite. It has a wonderful view of the river.”

“How does Mrs. Bemont like the view?” I asked.

“I don’t think she ever looks. She just complains about no running water and makes us haul buckets up to fil the tub we had to buy for her. She bathes quite often. ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness,’ she says, and then she cackles in that awful way she has, as if she’s got razor blades stuck in her throat.”

We al nodded sympathetical y until Vayl was final y satisfied that we were set to meet Cole’s fake wife. He’d made sure that I stil carried Grief and that I was armed both with the holy water I carried on my right wrist and the bolo sheathed in my pocket. He’d also checked to see that Raoul stil carried his holy blade, it was just hidden beneath the back of his jacket at the moment. Bergman, as usual, hadn’t thought to arm himself, and Aaron was without weaponry as wel .

Vayl handed Bergman his cane, saying, “I noticed you turned your ankle slightly while you were debarking the bus earlier this evening. Here, please feel free to use this to aid you for the rest of the evening.”

Bergman received the cane as if he were being given the care of a kingdom’s crown. His reverence nearly brought me out of the intense concentration I’d thrown myself into the moment the lights came on. Aaron’s whine, “What about me?” did the rest of the job.

“You’d manage to kil one of us with a butter knife,” I snapped. “Stay out of the way until further notice.”

He looked to Vayl for support, which amused me. Like some kid running to Daddy for permission after Mommy’s barred him from the cookie jar. The twinkle in Vayl’s eyes let me know his mind had fal en into the same track. He said, “Jasmine is right. If you would like to be trained so you know what to do in these situations in the future, I wil be happy to accommodate you. But for now your life, and ours, depend on your staying safely out of the way.” I smiled inwardly as Aaron bobbed his head. Final y a little respect from the would-be kil er. And al it had taken was major risk to his own hide. As soon as he fel to the back of the line I al owed myself to refocus. This deal, whatever it was, smacked of foul spel s and demoncraft. I’d need to be on my toes if I wanted to bring everybody back from this one. And oh God, did I ever want everybody to survive. One more second to recognize the crack in my shel , to realize nearly everyone I loved was in this place at this time. And then I shoved that sucker together, sealed it with superglue, and got on with my job.

Which, at the moment, was to fol ow Vayl and Sanji into a building I’d never scouted before, knowing ful wel it could be boobytrapped, packed with enemy forces, or just plain bad for the sinuses. I whispered down to Astral, “You go ahead of us. Let me know if you see hostiles.” She trotted ahead, slipping through the doorway as soon as Sanji opened it, and disappearing into the recesses of the building long before we reached its lobby.

I’d taken Jack’s lead from Vayl and wrapped it around my left wrist. But since I needed both hands to shoot straight, now I knotted it through my belt loop. “Be calm, boy,” I told my malamute, whose ears were perky enough to say he was enjoying this outing, but whose sleepy eyes thought I was way overreacting to a few surprise neons and what quite possibly was just a bitchy ex-girlfriend.

“Oh, I would be so pissed off if that was the case,” I whispered down to my dog. “Do you think he would actual y date somebody that crazy? Don’t answer that. I already know.” Fol owed closely by Bergman, Raoul, and Aaron, Vayl and I trailed Sanji into the lobby, which held several shelves ful of snack foods as wel as necessities like toothpaste and smal bottles of Tylenol. Across from these shelves stood the counter where, presumably, you could either pay for your gas, buy munchables, or rent a room. We walked past this area into a short hal way that turned sharply right, giving us the choice of taking the elevator or the stairs to the second floor. I told myself that I chose stairs because Jack needed the exercise. No, it wasn’t at al because I’d rather eat raw slugs than pile into an elevator with more than, say, one short, skinny, ideal y under-the-age-of-three person. That is, after al , the only time there’s enough room in an elevator. Strike that. Because, truthful y, there’s never enough room in an elevator. If there were, they’d cal it a mobile home.

Jack and I were halfway to the second floor, which Astral had already shown me consisted of a typical hal way lined with faded green carpeting and diarrhea-brown doors, when I realized everyone had fol owed my lead. When Vayl stood beside me once more at the top he said, “I presume you feel better.”

I nodded. So did Jack, because he’s just that supportive. “Aerobical y speaking, we are now completely warmed up and ready to rol .”

His dimple made a brief appearance. “Then I take it you are looking forward to our next confrontation?”

I took Grief’s safety off and made it ready to fire. “You could say that.”

“Would you do me a favor, then?”

His suddenly serious look caught me off guard. “Of course.”

He stepped into me until our thighs aligned. When his arm went around my waist and lifted, our hips locked like they’d been made in the same factory. “Make sure Raoul is not merely here to take you away from me forever.”

He let the words loose carelessly, but I heard the desperation behind them. Don’t die tonight, Jasmine, you’re all I’ve got. That’s what his purple eyes told me. The message had been significant in earlier times, when that had been true. But now that he’d found Aaron, now that he was closing in on Hanzi, they stirred my heart like never before.

“I’l be careful,” I promised him.

He nodded. “Good.”

A kiss, the brush of lips that sent tingles racing straight to my toes, sealed the deal. And then we were leading Raoul, Bergman, and Aaron down the hal way toward an ugly brown door onto which a scratched brown plaque had been glued. I didn’t know Slovenian, but there was no mistaking the message. This was the honeymoon suite. Astral sat at the base of the door, as if she’d known right where I needed her to go. Fuh-reaky.

“Cole, are you in place?” asked Vayl.

“I’m in the attic above the suite’s bathroom. Luckily somebody here’s a big pervert, because there’s a camera system al set up, with predril ed holes for the naughty boy to peep into the shower anytime he can get away from the front desk. Jaz, when you get a chance, you may want to kick old Sanji there right in the gonadiphones.”

“Wil do,” I said.

Raoul tapped me on the shoulder. “It might not be him, you know.”

“I’m wil ing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But you’d better not be holding me back if we find him drooling over sex tapes after this is al said and done.”

“That’s a deal.”

We stopped outside the door. I handed Aaron Jack’s lead and scooped Astral into his free arm.

He nodded over what he understood was an enormous responsibility, especial y after I pointed to him, then to the animals, and made my if-anything-happens-tothem-I’l -kil -you face.

Bergman whispered, “Should we knock?”

I glanced at him. He was pale, but not nearly as shaky as the old Miles I’d known, who would’ve found five perfectly logical reasons to wait for us in the bus. I said, “She knew we were coming before we did. I imagine she’s got cookies and milk waiting on the table for us, don’t you?” He shrugged, then nodded, then shrugged again. “I’m new at this,” he final y said, in an effort to explain his indecision.

Vayl said, “You wil be fine, Bergman. Al you have to do is open the door and get out of the way.

I expect it to be unlocked. If it is not, just move out of my line of fire. Can you do that?” Bergman swal owed so hard that for a second it looked like he had a chicken bone stuck in his throat. Then he held up the cane and shook it a couple of times to express his certainty.

“Excel ent.” Vayl looked to one side, like he could see Dave and Cassandra through the wal s of the inn. To them as much as to our inside backup he said, “We are going in. Be on your toes, please. Our lives may be in your hands.”

“Yes sir,” Cole replied.

Dave maintained Party Line silence. The fact that he’d chosen to go into pure stealth mode, combined with Vayl’s refusal to mention him by name, gave me an odd sense of comfort. No tel ing how long ago “Mrs. Bemont” had predicted this meeting. But Dave and Cassandra had been last-minute additions to our crew. So if luck was on our side, and none of us blew their cover, my brother and his lovely, magical wife could turn out to be our secret weapons.

We lined up on the latch side of the door, just like we were in kindergarten and it was time for recess. Only this time we were required to keep contact, my hand on Vayl’s shoulder, Raoul’s on mine. Vayl and I knew our responsibilities once we were inside. I’d already told Raoul what part of the room to cover. Bergman would enter after we’d cleared the room, and Aaron had been instructed to stay in the hal unless he deemed it safer to slip into the room behind us.

Which left it to Vayl to begin. On his nod, I waited for Raoul to squeeze my shoulder. When I got his I’m-ready message I squeezed Vayl’s shoulder and he motioned to Bergman to open the door and step out of the way.

The door wasn’t heavy, like you’d expect in an American hotel. Miles could’ve swung it open with his pinky. Instead he jerked the latch down and shoved it wide, causing it to bang against the wal as we rushed into the room.

We stayed tight so we wouldn’t stray into each other’s line of fire. Vayl moved directly to his right, covering that corner of the room. I took the center and Raoul, stepping in directly behind me, covered the left corner. I could feel Bergman’s breath, hot against my neck, as he shadowed me, Vayl’s cane tapping nervously against the dingy wooden floor. I didn’t bother tracking Aaron. Some people are just born with a wel -defined sense of self-preservation. He, Jack, and Astral would be fine.

We al spoke at the same time.

“Clear,” Vayl said.

“Clear,” Raoul echoed.

“Don’t move or I’l shoot,” I snapped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sunday, June 17, 4:45 a.m.

The creature lounging in the middle of the unmade bed looked, and smeled, like it hadn’t stirred from that spot in days. Covered in black from head to toe, it seemed more like a pile of funeral laundry than a living being. Until it turned its head.

“Holy shit!” I jerked back, immediately pul ing my finger off the trigger because I was afraid I’d twitch again and shoot it accidental y.

Sometime in the creature’s recent past it must’ve stood in the middle of a bonfire. Nothing else could’ve caused the scars I tried not to see as I winced at the massive damage that had made it cease to seem human. I assumed it had survived the burning because of the otherworldly power I felt seeping out of it like pus from an infected wound. And even then I could tel that it had only barely escaped. The skin of its face had a red, puckered texture as if it had been gone over with a cheese grater. Its nose had melted to half its normal size, and its lips had been incinerated, leaving only a line of thin white skin to mark the barrier between face and teeth. No eyebrows or lashes gave evidence of masculinity or femininity. Just misery. That was what oozed from the creature. Wave after wave of pain-laced despair.

It had covered itself with a chador, the black tent-dress we had seen women wear so often during our trip to Iran. Over its head it had draped a black shawl nearly as long as the dress, under which it huddled so successful y that I couldn’t see a hint of any other skin. No jewelry gave us a clue as to who the creature might be, so Vayl decided to go at it with a directness that surprised me.

“You cannot be Mrs. Bemont,” he said. “We have seen pictures of Cole’s mother, and she looks nothing like you.”

The creature’s awful pink tongue darted out and licked a bead of sweat off what now passed for its upper lip. “Is that how you greet an old friend, Vayl?” It nodded toward me. “You’ve been spending too much time with Little Miss Mannerless over there.”

I felt my brows come together. The voice, raspy as it was, stil sounded eerily familiar. Where had I heard it before?

Before I could think of a legit question that would force the creature to speak again, Raoul began to shift from one foot to another as he plucked at the buttons of his shirt like they’d been heated over a stove. When he backed off to where Aaron stood beside the door, holding the handle with the hand that also prevented Jack from leaping to my side while he clutched Astral to his chest with the other, Raoul visibly relaxed. The fact that he’d drawn his sword didn’t hurt his demeanor either.

“What is it?” I asked him.

He nodded toward the bed. “That is an abomination.”

My stomach fel , hard, like it had just slipped on a trail of bacon grease. Raoul had worked around unholy types before. He’d taken me on a field trip to hel , for Pete’s sake! And he’d never reacted like this. I slipped my finger back onto the trigger.

“Whatcha got going on under al that material, Mrs. Bemont?” I asked the creature as I stepped toward it.

“Oh, I’l show you soon enough,” it assured me. “But first, I made a promise to you not so long ago. Do you remember, Jasmine? Standing in the rubble you made when you blew the seal off the entrance to Satan’s canal, watching me steal the Rocenz from right under your nose? I told you then that if you got it back I would meet you at the gates of hel to help you defeat Brude.” The creature motioned with one black-draped arm to the gleaming silver tool at my belt. “You have it back. And I am sitting at one of the gates even as we speak.”

“How can that be?” whispered Bergman. He’d stayed so close to my shoulder that if someone had turned on a bright light he’d have blotted out my shadow.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “It’s not one of your physics problems you can work out with a little thought and a great calculator, Miles. Some things just don’t make sense.”

“And yet…” Raoul cocked his head. He came forward and yanked off the black blanket that covered both the bed and the creature’s lower half, and we al jumped back. It wasn’t sitting on a bed at al . It was dangling. Impaled on a spike that reached down into a fog that writhed with tortured souls.

The creature’s smile turned ghastly as blood wel ed up from its throat and coated its teeth. And that was the easiest sight to handle. Because its spike didn’t stand alone. In the space the bed should’ve taken up, standing as if in a cavern created from another universe, more posts carved to evil points at their tips rose from a surface that smel ed like a slowly burning landfil . Every post was stuck through a body. And every single body twitched or moaned in its turn, assuring us that no creature who rode a roughly hewn spear had been blessed with death.

Final y I found my voice. And the knowledge that had been scratching at my brain for the past few minutes. “Kyphas? Is that you? We thought…” I glanced at Vayl. “We were sure you’d died.” Even without her lips, the demon whose beauty had once raised a desire in me that had made me grateful I liked guys managed a sneer. “Since when have you played pretty with your words, Jasmine?” She compounded the insult by pronouncing my name as only Vayl did, Yaz-mee-na, hoping, I was sure, that the next time he whispered it in my ear, my shiver would be as far from one of ecstasy as it was possible to get.

She said, “Speak it plain, or by al that’s evil I wil break my vow and suffer torments stacked on those I’ve already brought on myself just for the satisfaction of seeing you pout.” I briefly considered shooting her through the head. The only reason I decided against it was that it would only cause her more pain. Instead I said, “Miles and I saw you sucked through that planar door.” Bergman had hugged against my back the moment he realized we were facing the demon who’d nearly dragged him into hel with her. I could literal y feel him nod in agreement. I went on. “We also saw Vayl and Astral jump through to fight you. And when they came back, al they brought with them was your severed hands.”

“What? You mean these?” She raised her arms and the material fel back.

“Jeeezus,” whispered Bergman, who’d never felt the need to cal on any deities in person until this moment and who, I was pretty sure, had been raised Jewish. I would’ve joined him, but I was too busy watching al my inner girls fal to their knees in panicked prayer.

Even now, three weeks later, Kyphas’s wrists were stil leaking black gouts of blood and gore.

But they didn’t end in stumps as we’d expected. The same vil ain who’d burned her face into an unrecognizable mask and shoved her on a stick like some sick puppeteer had welded a three-headed hydra to each of her wrists. Each head was taking turns sinking its fangs into her wounds, causing her to shake like a malaria victim as it drank its fil .

“What happened to you?” Vayl asked, his shoulders tightening into steel plates at the sight of Kyphas’s snakes. “You are the daughter of a Lord of Hel . Where is your father? Why did he al ow this?”

“I gave up my heartstone,” she said. “Or have you forgotten? Leonard has turned his back on me.”

“Oh, don’t act like it was some great act of charity,” I snapped, using my resentment to cover my horror at her pain and my surprise at her lineage. Her father was the Lord of Black Magic and Sorcery. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t tried to pul some strings to give her at least some relief. “You were trying to turn Cole into a demon. If you hadn’t given your heartstone to us he’d be trol ing Satan’s playground for cute babes to skin alive even as we speak.”

“I broke the Second Law,” Kyphas informed me.

Even though I’d never warmed to Kyphas, I was beginning to believe she real y had wrapped her arms around this fate for Cole’s sake. Demons took al kinds of crap for letting souls slip through their fingers, but they never experienced true punishments for the failure, because it was so hard to snag them in the first place. Only when someone like Cole was al owed to escape on purpose, breaking Satan’s Second Law, did demons burn. Which meant she’d acted out of real love. Damn.

I cleared my throat. “How long…” I couldn’t finish, couldn’t imagine the pain she must be enduring.

She said, “I am to be punished for the next half-century for my crime. And yet my vow supersedes even my jailer’s power. So I’ve come to give you the last bit of help that I’m required to.”

“How did you know we were coming?” I asked, knowing that as soon as she fulfil ed her vow she’d disappear again. And that even this smal break was helping her push back the agony.

She pointed down at one of the women writhing beneath her, the snakes on her right wrist coiling up her arm at the sudden movement. “Lesia is a prophet. Ironical y, the more they burn her, the clearer her visions become. Which is why I know that my beloved has crept through the attic access in the bathroom and is waiting just outside the door for your signal.” She sighed. Then she said, loud enough for her voice to carry across the room, “Cole. Mercy or revenge. Either way you think of it, your bul ets can’t kil me.”

The bathroom door swung open and Cole stepped in. He regarded Kyphas for a long time, his face so stil that none of us could figure out what emotions were moving behind his clear blue eyes.

Final y he said, “Tel Jasmine why you came and then go back to hel where you belong, Kyphas.

We’l fol ow you when the time’s right.”

He glanced at my belt, where the Rocenz hung heavier than ever. When he looked back at Kyphas some silent communication passed between them, because they both nodded and, despite her immense suffering, she seemed almost… relieved.

She nodded to me. “That lovely piece of artwork you carry in your pocket is obviously incomplete.”

I nearly put my hand against the hanky-wrapped skin, but kept it steady under the butt of my gun instead. “I noticed.”

“The rest is stil on the cowboy, Zel Culver. He’l come if you cal him. Stand by the gate, give it your blood, knock three times, and shout his ful name.”

“Thank you, Kyphas,” Vayl said. “Your promise to us is fulfil ed.” She barely acknowledged his words. Her eyes, the only bright and shining parts of her soul left unshattered, kept a steady watch on Cole. “You look fine,” she said. “I’m glad of that.” He nodded. “My friends brought me back.” His stare, ful of dark memories and nightmares, wouldn’t give her an inch. This was the Cole that stayed hidden, the man I knew least and liked best.

“I’l never forgive you for what you did. You should know that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

What she said made perfect sense. She should feel apologetic for what she’d done to Cole, even if she had paid in skin and blood. But the prickling between my shoulders told me she wasn’t talking about Marrakech. I spun around as Aaron shrieked. Miles, stil hanging at my shoulders like a badly organized backpack, hampered my movements and my line of sight. For a second al I could see were two blurs leaping through the doorway.

“Vayl!” I yel ed, relying on my Spirit Eye to guide me until the rest of my senses could come into play. “Hel spawn!”

Bergman ducked, I thought to get out of my way until I realized he was rol ing up his jeans.

Hoping whatever he’d built into his boots wasn’t another one of his unreliable prototypes, I triggered the holy water strapped to my wrist, fil ing my palm with an attack-ready syringe even as I knocked the first demon back with a barrage of gunfire that wouldn’t kil it in this world. But judging by the squeal, it hurt a lot more than beanbags. That, and the flying steel from Vayl’s shotgun as wel as Cole’s rifle, gave me a few seconds to assess our situation.

As I’d thought, we only faced two opponents, but they were a couple of the baddest fighters hel had ever puked forth. Cal ed Ichoks by those who’d encountered them and survived, these creatures could throw so much nasty into one blow it felt like you were facing five wel -trained enemies. Part of that was because they were ambidextrous, wielding their katanas equal y wel with either hand and with such speed that people were left staring at the stumps of arms and the gaping wounds from which their intestines had begun to snake out without even having felt the blows. Ichoks could also deal a potential y fatal strike with what I cal ed their spit glands. Located in a specialized pouch tucked inside the lining of their bloated, gil covered cheeks, the glands could be emptied with force, usual y into an opponent’s eyes. Blindness was the first result, after which the Ichok could finish you off at its leisure. But if something distracted it, you’d eventual y die from the poison as it worked its way through your system, paralyzing major organs along the way.

They preferred to fight in a crouch, which left a much smal er target to aim for. And, like most hel spawn, they came shielded, though their armor was easy to see, even to Unsensitized eyes like Bergman’s.

“What’s that chest plate made of?” he whispered to me as I reloaded. “It looks like…” Knowing he’d never be able to finish the sentence, I did it for him. “Skul s, Miles, those are human skul s. The top, cap part, to be exact. Hundreds of them cut to fit into neat little rows and linked together with bits of silver chain. What a great Hal oween costume that would make, huh?” He caught my bitterness and seemed about to respond, but he couldn’t look away from the armor. “Al those people,” he whispered.

“If you don’t want to become one of them, you need to give me a little more room,” I told him.

He backed off, moving to stand next to Aaron, who’d tipped an armchair over in the corner and hustled Jack and Astral behind it.

Beside me Vayl had also reloaded and gone another round, blowing his Ichok back into the wal .

But even before that his most effective weapon had already swung into ful motion. In fact, the second the demons had entered the room I felt Vayl’s power working at my hands, which were cold enough that I worried they wouldn’t squeeze the trigger in time. And in my nose, which had begun to run. Even in my breath, which poofed out gray and frost-laden. I realized this might be the biggest storm Vayl had ever cal ed.

I glanced at Miles and Aaron. “You might want to bundle up.”

Already their teeth were beginning to chatter. Stil , Bergman kept struggling with his boot. I couldn’t see the hilt of a knife, so what the hel ? “Did Vayl have to be a Wraith?” he complained. “I hear lethryls are a lot warmer.”

“They also require a lot more blood to heat up the place, which usual y means a couple of ful -

time suppliers working the entourage angle. Do you want to be some lethryl’s bitch?”

“Point taken.” He gave up on the boot. “I’m freezing. And my VEB is stuck. Feel free to start without me.”

Wondering what a VEB was and if I should’ve taken out insurance against being disintegrated by one, I emptied my clip into Cole’s Ichok. Its armor had kept its chest from turning to dog food, although blood trickled down its arms and legs in a steady stream, and our combined rounds had thrown it to its knees. But stil it was roaring and spitting, warning us that soon we’d be wishing for more powerful weapons.

I reached for the sword Raoul had lent me. As I pul ed it, I realized my Spirit Guide was not waiting patiently for us to finish with the long-range fighting so he could wade in with his own weapon. He was standing just outside the door, ful y engaged with a third Ichok who stood at least a head tal er than the two we were holding off. His blade arched and slashed so quickly it was just a blur, but so were the Ichok’s weapons, and I swal owed a spurt of fear as I saw that his uniform was ripped in several places where blood had darkened it to black.

Then, like the warning had been ripped from the middle of her chest, Kyphas cried, “Watch out, Cole!” and I had to turn back to our fight.

He’d had to throw himself to the floor to avoid a spit-patch of poison that now dripped from the wal behind him. Worse yet, the blows from our bul ets had begun to ping off the skul s of the Ichoks, as if the armor had learned how to deflect them in the time we’d been shooting.

Cole’s hel spawn had risen and begun to twirl its double katanas like saw blades, and al he had was a now-ineffective sniper rifle and a sheathed sword that he’d never be able to compete with in a fair fight.

By now my blade was in hand as I stood beside him. “Draw steel,” I ordered, although I didn’t hold out much hope for our survival.

Next to us Vayl had centered the cold of the grave he’d never entered on the hel spawn whose realm was ful of the burning dead. In one massive cloud of air that looked like a perfect coil, Vayl surrounded the Ichok with tiny, razor-sharp shards of sleet. And then he drove them into it. The boom of sound that accompanied the strike shook the floor, making us al stagger backward as Vayl’s opponent shattered into a mil ion pieces.

Cole and I pressed our advantage, swinging our blades at our unbalanced adversary as he leaned toward the wal . Unfortunately he recovered quickly, and soon we were both on the defensive, fighting for our lives against blades that seemed to be everywhere at once. Of course, this was giving Vayl a chance to move around behind the creature, but given the speed of this attack nothing was going to save us in time.

I glanced over my shoulder at Raoul. Nope, he couldn’t wade in beside us, because his hands were ful as wel .

Then I saw Dave and Cassandra running down the hal . Dave had drawn his knife. The sheen of its blade matched the edge of steel in his eyes, making me glad I was fighting on his side. Suddenly I felt sorry for the Ichok who was about to die. But only a little.

I turned back to my own fate. Cole, back on his feet and fighting more fiercely than I’d ever seen him, raised his sword just in time to parry a blow meant to separate my arm from my shoulder. And then Bergman yel ed from behind us, “Okay, I’m ready, guys! Duck!” Cole and I traded a single look. And dropped to the floor like we’d just heard the whistle of a bomb zeroing in on our coordinates.

The Ichok, seeing its prey do the don’t-slice-me dance, leaned over us with a leer on its butt-ugly face and roared. I saw its throat work and realized, “Cole. It’s going to spit on us. Cover your eyes!” And then I forgot my own advice, because Bergman whooped like a cheerleader whose team has just won the playoffs. “It’s gonna work, guys! Watch this!” We al turned to where Bergman stood, holding his boot in front of him like it was his very first twelve-gauge, the toe tucked under his arm for support, the empty leg pointed toward our foe. Only it wasn’t quite empty, as we could tel from the blue spiral of smoke curling out of it. My guess?

Bergman had just lit a fuse.

He said, “So long, mo-fo,” growly, like he was just recovering from a bout of laryngitis. And then the back blew off the boot, smashing into the wal behind him, shattering a mirror that had been hanging there. He glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. Maybe I have the power-boost too—”

He never finished his sentence, because out of the opening his leg had so recently fil ed shot a series of cannonbal s so smal they looked like marbles. Except they hit like vats of acid, leaving smoking holes that ate at the skin, growing larger with each second, making the Ichok scream and writhe with pain.

“Bed,” Cole panted.

I nodded, and without another word we charged. I fended off the Ichok’s weak attempts at defense as Cole drove it toward the narrowing gap between worlds, a door closing quickly behind Kyphas and the other sufferers like it was a living thing that knew we wanted to use it to our advantage.

Who knows? came the random thought, maybe it is. Maybe all the doors are. And that’s when I knew, as surely as I knew my dad would never stop bitching at me because that was the only way he could tel me he loved me. I’d stood at the threshold of such a door at each moment of my death, my soul about to shatter into thousands of diamond-like shards that would travel the universe, settling into my family, my friends, and other destinations I could only imagine. I’d communed with the creature that provided pathways into worlds beyond worlds. Felt her fire caress the gemlike skin of my being. And promised her, one day, that I’d return so she could fly me home. So now she was always near, letting me know the trail was clear, no matter which turn I chose to take.

With this thought fresh in my mind I snapped, “Open up,” at Kyphas’s door. “Or I swear I’l put a hole in you so big cement trucks wil be able to drive through it.” The door hesitated. Then slowly reversed course as Cole continued harrying the Ichok toward the bed, slamming it with slicing blows that left it looking like the victim of an old-time British Navy whipping. I slammed my heel into its knee, cracking it so soundly that my ears rang. It screamed and fel into the pit just as Cole swung his sword, cleanly decapitating the hel spawn just before it hurtled out of reach.

We turned to help Raoul, Dave, and Cassandra just in time to see Raoul shove his sword deep into the Ichok’s side while Dave’s lightning knife strike left the creature’s right arm limp and hanging.

“He’s going to spit!” Cassandra cried, but neither one of the men was in any position to prevent the strike. So she stepped in and dumped her enormous, beaded bag over its head just as it let go.

We could heard it scream as its venom hit fal ing tubes of lipstick, a paperback book, and a bright green cosmetics bag, not to mention a smal er purse ful of necessities and at least one ful bottle of Febreze. Some of its spit also dripped down onto its neck, where it began to eat into its skin like a plague of carnivorous beetles.

Dave caught a pair of handcuffs as they fel from the bag and locked them around the handles.

“Oh, baby,” murmured Cole. “I gotta know the story behind those puppies.”

“Shut up,” I said as I cranked my elbow into his ribs. “For al you know Cassandra’s a deputy sheriff.”

“Ha!” Cole’s laugh was cut short by another elbow. This one to his gut. One guess who threw it.

Now Dave and Raoul hefted the Ichok between them, shuffled it to the portal, and, after a three-count that al owed them to swing the creature into a nicely rhythmic arc, threw it into the pit. I don’t know if they aimed or it was just dumb luck, but the demon hit an empty stake about halfway down and impaled itself on it. The last thing I heard before the door closed was its screams.

Cole leaned over the abyss and yel ed to Kyphas, “Looks like your prophets were wrong, demon. In fact, you can just tel them they can kiss my ass!” Her smile, ghastly as it was, stil seemed to approve. “Even they can be blind sometimes,” she said. “It al depends on how they look at things.” She emphasized the word so clearly that I knew she was trying to send him a message. And then she threw her head back and screamed. I looked to see if one of the hydras had taken a fresh bite out of her arm, but she’d covered herself up again.