The gas-masked blood-servants fell. Semiautomatic weapon fire chattered off the stairway walls, a ricochet going wild. Rick caught a servant who fell forward and over the railing, hauling the man up by an arm. We raced down the stairs, Rick at my side, the M32 at the ready, followed by Bruiser and Eli, working together on our weapon. I just hoped that Big H hadn’t equipped all his blood-servants with masks.

The hallway branched at the bottom of the stairs. “Which way?” I asked into my mic.

“Left,” Bodat said. Behind us came the sound of running feet, the squeak of rubber, and the sliding of heavy synthetic fibers. I looked back and nodded to Eli.

There were three rooms. Bruiser held a PIR device to the door and said, “No vamps. Passive infrared shows humans. Two, both prone.”

I opened the door to show the expected humans, asleep. “I love technology,” I said.

Using the PIR device, we cleared each room. All were full of sleeping humans, zonked in the middle of daytime activities by the sleepy-time gas. “Hallway is clear,” I said.

“Go to your right now,” Bodat said. “After that we are blind. There are no more security cameras, and we have no idea of the layout.”

More humans slept in the rooms on the right. “Floor is clear,” I said. “Heading down one flight.” I dropped a second CNB and angled it down. It was the last one we had. Fortunately, the stairway ended in a foyer with three more closed doors.

Bruiser held the PIR up to each door and motioned at each one. There were two vamps in one room, four in another, and more than six in the last one. That made my stomach clench. If this didn’t work, we were in trouble. We had no backup.

Scenting my reaction to that thought, Rick snarled. He pulled two handguns, semiautomatics. “Silver,” he growled, his voice low, speaking of the ammo he carried. “Purest ever refined.”

I pointed to the room with two vamps in it and Bruiser nodded. I snapped two vials of holy water off my weapon harness, unscrewed the tops, and nodded to him. He stood to the side, out of my way, and met my eyes in warning. “We have no firsthand confirmation that holy water works on vamps,” he whispered, his words no more than breaths, “and our best experts say it’s unreliable.” He was talking about the Kid and Reach, who hadn’t been able to offer proof positive that holy water worked against vamps. The historical record was iffy at best, perhaps being a matter of the quality of the water itself, as if maybe it went bad after a time, like sour tea or old eggs. But this stuff was fresh, the preacher was outside praying over it, and I was willing to try it.

I said loudly, “So let’s try out our new secret weapon.” Sometimes fear is better than a blade, and the idea of a secret weapon might give us the advantage. Especially if it worked, and the vamps in the other rooms had no idea what was happening until it had already happened to these two.

He nodded once and pointed to the direction of the cool bodies in the room. I would have a single instant to decide if the vamps were surrendering, shooting, or fighting. And then react accordingly. That put me on defense. In a fight, the one on offense always has the advantage.

Beast leaped into the forefront of my mind. Hunt! She thought at me. Her power flooded into me, and the world went sharp and stark. Energy so intense it heated my skin and each breath felt as if it contained the power of the universe, a black star of might at my core. I knew my eyes were glowing gold.

I nodded at Bruiser. He tried the knob, expecting the door to be locked. It opened.

I had a single glimpse. Two vamps, both male, vamped out, were in midair. Leaping at me. I tossed the opened vials of baptismal water, and Bruiser slammed the door. On the other side, heavy thumps sounded—vamps hitting the door. And then the horrible screams that vamps make when they are dying. Or think they are. Beast hacked with delight. By the screams, they were heading away, probably to the nearest showers.

Bruiser caught my gaze, taking in the gold glow. He looked at Rick and the greenish-glow of the cop’s eyes. Whatever was in the men’s eyes, I ignored.

Preacher Hosenfeld would be pleased that the baptismal water from his church worked against vamps as well as some old myths suggested that water blessed by a priest would.

Bruiser held up the PIR and smiled grimly. Loudly enough to be heard clearly through the other two doors, he said, “That heated them up a bit.”

Rick chuckled, the chuffs of a cat. Beast turned to him and hacked with delight.

Bruiser looked at neither of us and moved to the next room, holding up four fingers to remind us of the numbers of vamps inside. I nodded and stepped back. Four was too many for me to handle alone. Eli dragged the heavy nozzle behind him. I had no idea where he’d gotten the fire hose, but this particular one would allow us to pump up to 210 gallons per minute through a special nozzle he’d gotten from a plant nursery—one that allowed a wide spray rather than the usual concentrated, unidirectional spray used for fighting fires. The tank it was attached to held a thousand gallons of baptismal water. And now we knew it would work against vamps.

I pulled two more vials, just in case. Eli braced himself, met Bruiser’s eyes, and nodded. Bruiser tried the door. This one was locked, which was going to make our job harder, but we had planned for vamps with brains and good security personnel.

The former Ranger quickly placed charges of plastic explosives at the sites of the hinges and the lock. While he worked, we all backed into the relative safety of the stairwell. I had to hand it to him: the guy was fast, unwinding the det cord behind himself as fast as he could shuffle. I didn’t know what we would be facing, so I screwed the tops back on the vial and pulled a blade and an ash stake. The last two vamps had been normal vamps. The old methods of vamp fighting should work.

Protected by the wall, he looked at us until he had our attention and counted down silently, mouth moving: One, two, three. He hit a switch. The door blew. The world went into slow motion, the kind where I could see everything in harsh layers of action, overlapping and intense.

Bruiser hit the holy water switch. I could see his fingers move. He was too late. A fraction of a fraction of a second too late.

Two vamps moved at us so fast, there would have been a pop of air had any of us been able to hear it. Vamped out. Deadly, I thought, even as their bodies catapulted over the spray of water. One landed on me. Her claws dug into my shoulder, catching on the plastic armor. The claws of her other hand swiped at my face. Normal vamps. Her legs swept up to wrap around me.

In my peripheral vision, I saw holy water shooting out of the nozzle like a hundred tiny jets. And Rick, with his mouth on a vamp’s neck. A spray of blood flew into the air from his jaws.

Beast-fast, I stabbed up with an ash stake, hitting my attacker in the abdomen. She fell, the wood taking her in the central artery leading down to her legs. Immobilizing her. Her blood cascaded over my right leg. I dropped her, holding the stake in place as she fell.

The holy water hit the next two vamps in midair. They screamed and did ninety-degree turns, bouncing off the walls. They raced away, screaming in agony. I looked at Rick. He was rising from under the vamp that landed on him. The vamp had an ash stake in his heart and only half of his throat left, the bones of the spinal column visible. But he was still alive, gasping. I figured he’d heal. Sooner or later.

Rick’s eyes were glowing green. He had fangs on his upper and lower jaw. Eli and Bruiser were backing slowly away from him. Rick spat and snarled, his human skin and flesh stretching like a cat’s. Gently, slowly, I lifted my arm and my hand to him. And took up an earpiece. My ears were covered by the helmet, but I could hear tinny sounds of music from it. I lifted the piece toward Rick.

He jerked his head away but kept his eyes on me. I stopped all movement and waited, barely daring to breathe. Rick’s face relaxed just a hair as the music became audible to him too. Then his mouth closed. I placed the earpiece in his ear. His eyes lost some of the glow and darkened toward his usually Frenchy-black eyes. He took the other earpiece and put it in. He chuffed out a breath. “Thanks,” he said. The word was slurred as his mouth tried to return to human. “Don’ wanna get stuck partway.” Which might happen if Rick ever changed to his big-cat, thanks to the tattoos on his shoulder.

“Pain bad?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’ll stay back here for the other door,” he said, “and cover my ears. Don’t get yourself killed.”

“Not my plan,” I said.

“You two finished playing nice-nice? Good.” Eli said, his own words a snarl, nearly as good as a big-cat’s. “Six vamps inside,” he said, “clustered at the back of the room, probably trying to get out the locked escape hatch. They’re gonna be pissed when they realize the hatch won’t open and they’re trapped. And it won’t be long before we have wet, pissed vamps, fresh outta the shower and wanting revenge. On three, people.”

In the moments we had been standing there, Eli had used the last of his C4 on the third door. He didn’t bother to count silently, and I drew a silver stake and my fourteen-inch-long vamp-killer as he counted down. “One, two, three.”

The door blew. And nothing happened. No vamps flew at us. Nothing happened. At all.

I raced past Eli and Bruiser, passing through the baptismal water, feeling it splatter on my hair and across my neck and back. Leaped through the splintered door, into the room. Landed, weapons out to either side, my body bladed, left foot forward, balanced. Ready for anything. I stopped. Water swirled into the room and around my feet.

Clustered in the back of the room were six vamps. Big H was in the middle, standing with his arms out at the sides, his fingers seeming to claw at the wall. Two vamps were on either side; one was crouched at his feet. All of them were vamped out, snarling, their bodies oddly twisted, but not like the spidey vamps. Like regular old vamps. None of them moved.

And I had no idea what to do.

I just stood there. Weapons ready. Breathing like a bellows. Inside me, Beast snarled, puzzled. Behind me, Eli turned off the water. Silence fell.

The guys moved into the room, forming a semicircle behind me.