“Come on, Catalina,” I called out. “Just a little farther now. Go inside and wait for us. Bria will be there in a second.”

She’d quit trying to open the tin of salve, and she was just standing there, swaying from side to side. Her hazel eyes were a bit unfocused, but she finally sighed and shuffled forward into the building with all the lifeless enthusiasm of a zombie. She stopped a few feet away and leaned against the interior wall.

I turned to Bria. “You need to go inside. Follow this hallway all the way to the end. It opens up into a courtyard. You can cut across there and into the building directly across from this one. Go straight through that building, and you’ll come out on the street where Xavier will be waiting.”

Bria nodded, then frowned. “How do you know all that?”

“Because I’ve been here before.”

She opened her mouth, but after a moment, she swallowed down her many questions and asked the only one that mattered. “What about you?”

“I’ll meet you there. I’m going to go down to the end of the alley and then jog around the block to make sure that none of Benson’s vamps comes up on you from behind. We only have one chance to get out of here, and this is it.”

Bria nodded again. She bit her lip, looked up and down the alley to make sure that we were still alone, then reached out and hugged me tight with one arm.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “For everything. I just . . . I wanted to nail that bastard so damn bad.”

Even though a dozen shallow cuts dotted my hand, I reached up and smoothed down her hair, leaving streaks of blood behind in her tangled golden locks. “I know.”

Bria shuddered in a breath. I hugged her even tighter, but when she dropped her arm and pulled back, her face was as calm and composed as mine.

“See you on the other side—”

The screech-screech-screech of tires cut her off. A black SUV stopped at the end of the alley. The doors opened, and vamps started pouring out, all with guns, all racing in our direction. They’d finally found us, and they were out for blood—ours.

Bria’s mouth flattened into a determined line, and she raised her gun to fire at them. But I grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and shoved her through the open door and into the building. Bria staggered forward, almost plowing into Catalina. While she struggled to right herself, I grabbed the duffel bag full of guns, ammo, and other supplies and tossed it inside too. Bria whipped around, but I reached through the opening, grabbed the door, and pulled it shut. Then I wrapped my hand around the knob and let loose with a burst of Ice magic. The intense silver light of my power pulsed for a moment, searing my eyes, before it faded away. By the time I blinked again, three inches of my elemental Ice coated the knob, the door, and a good chunk of the surrounding walls. A crude but effective lock. Nobody would be getting through that right now without an axe or some serious elemental Fire power.

“Gin!” I heard Bria’s muffled yell through the door. “What are you doing?”

She rattled the knob on her side, but she couldn’t get through the thick layer of Ice I’d caked on it.

“Go!” I shouted back to her. “Just go!”

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

The vamps raised their guns and started firing. I cursed, then grabbed hold of my Stone magic, using it to harden my skin. But instead of running away, I palmed one of the knives hidden up my sleeves and sprinted toward the gunmen. I still needed to buy Bria some time to get Catalina through the building and over to the street so Xavier could pick them up, and I couldn’t think of a better way to do that than by killing a whole passel of Benson’s men.

The vamps’ mouths gaped open, revealing their fangs. Apparently, my charge had surprised them, but they recovered quickly enough to empty their guns at me.

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

Crack!

Bullets pinged off the walls, the trash cans, the Dumpsters, and even me, and the burn of gunpowder filled the air, overpowering the pungent scent of the garbage. But I kept running, and the vamps quickly ran out of bullets.

Aw, I just hated that for them.

Two of them cursed and stopped to reload, but it was too late, because I was already there. I grabbed the first man I reached, pulling him close and slicing my knife across his stomach one, two, three times, before shoving him away. He went down screaming.

I moved to the left side of the alley. This vamp was quicker than his friend, and he landed a quick one-two combo to my chest. But his blows didn’t hurt all that much, thanks to the protective shells of my silverstone vest and my Stone magic, and I buried my knife in his throat before he could strike again. He died with a bloody wheeze.

A third man stepped up and grabbed my hand, trying to bend my wrist back to get me to drop my knife. So I slammed my Stone-hardened head into his, making his nose crunch like a potato chip. He let go of my hand and staggered back, but I reached out, latched onto his tie, and yanked him toward me, even as I shoved my knife into his heart. He yelped once like a wounded animal.

I stood there, eyes flicking back and forth, body tense, blood dripping off the end of my knife, but there were no more attackers to cut down, and the only sound was my harsh, raspy breaths—

Screech-screech-screech.

Three more SUVs pulled up at the end of the alley, and more vamps spewed out of the vehicles, close to a dozen this time, which was more than I could easily handle. Besides, I still needed to get to Bria and Catalina, so I turned and ran toward the far end of the alley.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

More bullets zipped in my direction, but I was booking it, and the vamps had to step over their dead buddies to take aim at me. I focused on the exit up ahead and forced myself to sprint even faster. Bria and Catalina should almost be to Xavier by now. I needed to get there too, so I put on an extra burst of speed and hurtled out of the alley—

Once again, I heard the screech of tires, but I didn’t see the vehicle until it was too late.

I whirled around to find a black SUV bearing down on me. The driver hit the gas, making the vehicle jump the curb and careen up onto the sidewalk where I was standing. I had just enough time to reach for my Stone magic, trying to harden my skin even more, before the SUV slammed into me.

I rolled up and over the hood, cracking the windshield with my head just like the vamp I’d plowed into with my car at the bridge. The brutal impact made me lose my grip on my magic for one precious second. But that was all it took for me to fly off the side of the car and hit the pavement.

Lights out.

19

I wasn’t sure how long I was unconscious. Probably only a few seconds, since I woke up sprawled across the pavement, my arms trapped underneath my chest as though I’d tried to break the flying fall with my hands.

Every single bone in my body ached, and I could feel more blood trickling out of all my many cuts and scrapes, but I was still in one piece. I must have managed to grab hold of enough of my Stone magic to protect myself before I hit the asphalt and blacked out—

Squeak-squeak-squeak.

Squeak-squeak-squeak.

Footsteps sounded on the pavement. I blinked and found myself staring at a pair of white sneakers. He shifted to one side, and his pant leg rode up, revealing one of his socks, mint-green with a white argyle pattern. I craned my neck up, then wished that I hadn’t, as that small motion spread the aches in my bones out to all the other nerve endings in my body. I felt like an egg that someone had dropped on the sidewalk, cracked and oozing everywhere.

Beauregard Benson towered over me. The vamp’s blue eyes flicked over my body, his gaze cold but curious at the same time.

“Amazing that her brains aren’t leaking all over the street, along with the rest of her,” he said. “But that’s Stone magic for you. I’ll be interested to see her reaction in the lab.”

“The lab, sir? Don’t you want to finish her off here?”

I blinked again. That was Silvio’s bland tone. He might have wanted me to kill Benson, but no doubt, he’d be all too happy to hand his boss a gun so Benson could shoot me now.

“And waste this rare research opportunity? Absolutely not,” Benson purred. “I have something far more interesting in mind for her. Give her a sedative, and get her in the car.”

Silvio crouched down beside me, a syringe in his hand. He gave me an almost apologetic look, but he followed his boss’s orders and leaned forward. The needle pricked my arm.

Lights out again.

•

The world didn’t go completely black this time. But a fog enveloped my mind that made it hard for me to do more than just slowly blink, much less fight back. And every time I opened my eyes, something different was happening.

Blink.

Two of the vamps rolled me over onto my back, and Silvio patted me down, slipping off the spider rune ring on my right index finger. He also removed all of my knives, including the extra ones in my vest, then went over and retrieved the weapon I’d been holding when I’d been roadkilled by the SUV.

Blink.

The two vamps scooped me up off the pavement and shoved me into the back of an SUV. My arms and legs flopped every which way, as though they were made out of gelatin instead of flesh and bone. Silvio slid in next to me, carefully propping me up, straightening my legs, and folding my hands in my lap, making me comfortable. He even took the time to buckle my seat belt. I snickered at the irony of that, although the sound was barely louder than a croak.

Blink.

The SUV stopped in the circular driveway that fronted Benson’s mansion. The vamps undid my seat belt, grabbed hold of my arms, and dragged me out of the vehicle, up a set of stairs, and into the building. Benson strode along in front of us, his sneakers squeak-squeak-squeaking like they had the hiccups. My own boots skidded along the floor, the toes catching on the rugs and smearing blood, dirt, and bits of garbage all over the fine fabrics and glossy hardwood that peeped out between them. Silvio brought up the rear, moving as silently as a ghost.

Blink.

The vamps dragged me down a set of steps and into a large basement, one filled with people.

Most of them were probably in their late teens and early twenties, but their dull, glazed eyes, slack, wrinkled features, and thin, almost emaciated bodies made them seem much, much older, as though they’d already used up most of the life inside them and were waiting for the rest to be slowly extinguished.

These were the faces of addicts.

People sprawled across couches, curled up on futons, and lay facedown on pillows that had been strewn across the floor, their knobby knees and bony elbows making them look like toy sticks that a child had scattered everywhere in a tantrum. Their clothes ranged from typical street rags and tattered T-shirts layered one on top of another to khakis and cargo pants to high-end silk business suits. Plastic bags full of tin cans, expensive backpacks bulging with books, and silverstone briefcases stuffed with paperwork lay at the feet of their respective owners. Bums, college kids, office workers. All brought here by their need for something to drown out the voices in their heads, give them a thrilling high, or take away the dull monotony of their lives. All laid low by that need, circling the drain toward that final, utter oblivion.

Drugs were truly a terrible equalizer.

Incense burned in thick bunches in the corners, while fat sachet bags of potpourri dangled from the ceiling like mirror balls between several swirling ceiling fans. But the heavy perfumes, swirls of sweet smoke, and constant rush of air couldn’t hide the foul, bitter stench of the blood, vomit, and urine that had soaked into the couches, futons, and pillows. And absolutely nothing could drown out the sound of the cinder-block walls, as the stone alternately screamed, shrieked, and spewed out nonsensical dark dreams, darker demons, and other desperate, dangerous desires.

Blink.

It was the wail of the stone walls that finally penetrated my own sedative-induced fog, and I focused on that desperate, mournful noise, letting it pull me up out of the tunnel vision I’d been trapped in. Slowly, my mind cleared. I tried to summon up the energy to wrench free of the men holding on to me, or at least get my arms and legs to move of their own accord. But no matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn’t get anything to work, not even my tongue, which was as thick and dry as a wad of cotton stuffed into the bottom of my mouth.

I also reached for my magic, for all that Ice and Stone power flowing through my veins. But just like my limbs, my magic lay numb and heavy inside me, as though it were a two-ton boulder I was trying to lift. Sweat beaded on my temples from heaving, straining, pushing, and clawing at my power, but whatever drug Silvio had given me kept me from getting a grip on my magic, much less creating an Ice knife with it.

The people stirred as Benson moved through the basement, lifting their heads up out of the cold cradles of their spindly arms, their gazes suddenly sharp, alert, and completely focused on him. One man stretched out a skeletal hand and clutched at the vampire kingpin’s pant leg as he passed, a helpless, pleading note in his incoherent cries. Benson stopped, pulled out his pen and pad, and made a few notes about the man’s condition. Then he patted the man on the head like a dog and walked on.

Benson snapped his fingers, and the vamps dragged me through the drug den, with Silvio still following along behind us. A mirror covered most of the back wall, giving me a glimpse of my own reflection—dirty, beaten, bloody.

But not broken. Never that.

Benson opened a door set into the wall next to the mirror, and the vamps dragged me through it. I was expecting another drug den, but where the basement had the thinnest veneer of opulence, this area had the clinical, sterile, in-your-face feel of a doctor’s office. A faint tang of alcohol hung in the air, mixed with some lemony cleaner. Everything was white, from the tile floor and ceiling to several industrial-size refrigerators along the back wall. Even the cinder blocks had been painted white, although dull stains marred the slick finish in spots. A long metal table hugged another wall, the top bristling with mortars, pestles, beakers, burners, and wooden racks full of small glass vials filled with brightly colored powders.