“I could smell the grave on him, he was that fresh. He was too hungry to go for the throat, so he got me here. That was the mistake, for both of them. The pain woke me up. It’s unspeakable.”

She said nothing for a moment. It threw her off her stride, the way he laid his fingers on that scar now, as if to ease an old wound. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched her to comfort.

“Anyway. I got a hand on my cross, and I jabbed it right into that bastard’s eye, the one holding me down. Christ, did he scream. The other one’s so busy trying to eat, he doesn’t worry about anything else. He was an easy kill. They were both easy after that.”

“You were just a girl.”

“No. I was a demon hunter, and I was stupid.” She looked Larkin in the eye now, so he would see that comfort, sympathy couldn’t stand in front of sense and strategy. “If he’d gone for the throat, I’d be dead. Yeah, probably, I’d be dead and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I know what I felt when I saw that thing coming for me. In the good black suit his mother had picked out for him to be buried in. I know what those people inside those caves feel, at least I know a part of it. If they can’t be saved, death’s kinder than what’s waiting for them.”

He closed his hand over her wrist, completely covering the scar, surprising her with the gentleness of the touch. “Did you love the boy?”

“Yeah. Well, the way you do when you’re that age.” She’d almost forgotten that, nearly forgotten how sad she’d been, even through the pain. “All I could do for him was take him out, and take out the one who’d killed him.”

“It cost you more than this.” Larkin lifted her hand, brushed his lips over the scar. “More than the pain and the burn.”

She’d nearly forgotten, too, she realized, what it was like to have someone understand. “Maybe it did, but it taught me something important. You can’t save everyone.”

“That’s a sad lesson. Don’t you think, even when you know you can’t, you should try anyway?”

“That’s amateur talk. This isn’t a game or a contest. Somebody beats you in this, you die.”

“Well, Cian’s not here to dispute the matter, but would you want to live forever?”

She let out a short laugh. “Hell, no.”

T here were others along that lonely stretch of cliff and sea. But not as many as Blair had expected. The views were amazing, but she supposed there were others, equally dramatic, and more easily accessible.

They parked, and took what weapons and tools they could most easily conceal. Someone might spot her sword in its back sheath under the long leather coat, Blair decided. But they’d have to be looking. And then, what were they going to do about it?

She studied the lay of the land, the road, the other cars parked along it. A middle-aged couple had climbed to some of the tabletop rocks at the base of the cliff, where it now met the road. Looking out to sea—and completely oblivious to the nightmare that lived below.

“Okay, so it’s over the seawall and down. Gonna get wet,” she concluded, looking down at the narrow strip of shale, then the teeth of the rocks where the water swirled and plumed. She glanced back at the others. “Can you handle this?”

As an answer, Larkin rolled over the wall. She started to shout at him to wait, to wait one damn minute, but he was already heading down the jagged drop that faced the sea.

He didn’t change into a lizard, she observed, but he could sure as hell climb like one. She had to give him A’s for balls and agility.

“Okay, Moira. Take it slow. If you slip, your cousin should break your fall.” As Moira went over, Blair looked at Glenna.

“Never did any rock climbing,” Glenna muttered. “Never could figure out the damn point until now. So, I guess there’s always a first time.”

“You’ll be fine.” But Blair watched Moira’s progress, and was relieved she was proving nearly as agile as her cousin. “The drop’s not that bad from here. It won’t kill you.”

She didn’t add that bones would be broken. She didn’t have to. Hoyt and Glenna went over together, and Blair followed.

There were some reasonably good handholds, she discovered—as long as you weren’t worried about your manicure. She concentrated on getting the job done, ignored the cold spray as she worked her way down.

Hands gripped her waist, lifted her down the last couple of feet. “Thanks,” she told Larkin, “but I’ve got it.”

“A bit awkward with the sword.” He glanced up to the road, grinned. “Fun though.”

“Let’s keep the party moving. They probably have guards. Maybe some human servants—though it has to be tough keeping humans on tap if there’s as many vampires in there as you said.”

“I didn’t see anyone alive outside of cages,” Glenna told her, “not when we looked before.”

“This time it’s live and in person, so if they’ve got any, that’s who they’ll send out. Hoyt you’d better take point, since you know the area.”

“It’s different, you see it’s different than it was.” Some of what he was feeling leaked into his voice, the emotion and the sorrow. “Nature and man have done it. That road above us, and the wall, the tower with the light.”

Looking up, over, he saw his cliffs, the ledge that had saved his life when he’d fought with what Cian had become. Once, he thought, he’d stood up there and called the lightning as easily as a man calls his hound.

It had changed, he couldn’t deny it. But still, in the heart of it, it was his place. He made his way through the rocks, over them, through the spray. “There should be a cave here. And there’s nothing but…”

He laid his hands on the earth and rock. “This is not real. This is false.”

“Maybe you’re a little turned around,” Blair began.

“Wait.” Glenna made her way over to him, put her hands next to his. “A barrier.”

“Conjured,” Hoyt agreed, “to look and feel like the land, but it isn’t the land. This isn’t earth and rock. It’s illusion.”

“Can you break it down?” Larkin thumped a fist against the rock, testing.

“Hold on.” Frowning, Blair slicked back her damp hair. “She’s got enough mojo for this, or has someone in there with enough, we don’t know what else she has. This is smart.” Blair tested the wall herself. “Really smart. Nobody gets in unless she wants them in. Nobody gets out unless she wants them out.”