The hallway was empty but for five scratched and bleeding vampires—Nicu and four others.

“Is she okay?” Nicu asked.

If he’d developed a thing for Veronica, I was going to be totally freaked-out.

“She’s fine,” I told him. “She’s being cared for.”

“Will you erase her memory of these events?”

I looked over at Scout, who nodded. “She’s not the type we’d trust in the community. She might use the information against us. One of the other Adepts will work their magic, and she’ll have no memory of what transpired. It won’t hurt her,” she added, at the obvious heartbreak in Nicu’s eyes.

Did love at first sight really operate that quickly?

“Then that’s the way it must be,” he said, resigned.

“And your coven?” I asked him. “Are you okay?”

“We have survived the night,” Nicu said, “so we are now a coven in our own right.”

Oh, awesome, I thought. We’d actually helped the vampires establish themselves. I really hoped that didn’t bite us in the butt later.

“Good night, Adepts.” Nicu placed his hand over his heart, and then the entire group of them—all at once—bowed to us.

Detroit worked her magic on the stairwell doors, and we popped back into the tunnels again. If the rats were back, there wasn’t any sign of them.

“You think that means they’re gone?” Scout asked.

“I think that means they don’t shed slime all the time,” Jason said. “At least, that’s my guess.”

“And even if they were here,” Scout said, “the Reapers could have cleaned up after them. Who knows?”

When we reached the sanctuary, we peeked around the alcove and into the final corridor. The doors were closed, the lights off.

But there was a trail of slime that led from the corridor into the sanctuary.

“And they’re back,” Michael muttered.

“Honestly,” Detroit said, “I’m a little glad to see the slime. I was beginning to worry that I’d imagined it all.”

“No such luck,” Scout and I simultaneously said. Scout glanced over at Detroit. “The trip wires,” she said. “Got anything for that?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” After searching her pants pockets, Detroit popped another black pill into the hallway, letting the magic smoke illuminate the trip wires. Then she unzipped a long pocket along her knee and pulled out a child’s spinning top.

“Quick invention,” she said, “but I think it will work.” She crouched down and put the top on the floor, then gave it a twirl. It wobbled, but began to spin, whirring as it gathered speed and moved down the hallway toward the double doors.

And as it spun, it began to spindle both the magic smoke and the trip wires the smoke had revealed. In a few seconds, the hallway was clean, the top glowing with newly bundled magic.

“Seriously, I think that’s the coolest thing you’ve done so far.” Scout’s tone was reverent.

“Glad you like it,” Detroit said. She walked down and collected the top, then held it out to Scout. “I thought you could have it. You can unspindle the trip wires. Make them your own.”

With her eyes gleaming like it was Christmas morning, Scout accepted the gift.

“All right,” Jason said. “Now that the coast is relatively clear, let’s get this show on the road.” He stopped in front of the double doors and glanced back. “Everybody ready?”

When we nodded, he pushed them open. One by one, we tiptoed inside.

“Lily,” he whispered. “Lights.”

I pulled the power and sent it upward. Long rows of fluorescent lights above us stuttered to life.

We were in a hallway—the kind you might see in a hospital. Wide corridor, pale green walls, doors on the right and left . . . and a long trail of slime leading back toward other rooms.

“Stay here,” Jason said, then began to move forward, peeking through the rooms on the right-hand side of the corridor. When he reached the second door, he stopped.

“What is it?” Scout whispered.

He beckoned us forward, then walked inside. We followed him . . . and gaped.

Temperance had thought the sanctuary was a clinic. But this didn’t look like any clinic I’d ever seen. The center of the room was lined with counters topped by pieces of medical equipment. And the walls were covered by whiteboards. Some with lines and lines of formulas, others with writing—theories about vampires and immortality and magic.

And how to keep it forever.

We stopped and stared at the last board.

Photographs had been stuck there with magnets—photos of Reaper works in progress. The rats, from tiny nubbins to full-grown creatures. For a second, I felt a little sorry for them.

“We were right,” I said. “They were doing experiments, and vampires were their model.”

Hands on her hips, Scout gazed at the pictures. “What were they trying to do? Build some kind of forever-magic superbeings?”

“Maybe,” Jason said. “Or maybe just figure out if there was a source for the immortality.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the slime,” I suggested. “Maybe the slime served some kind of purpose. Like, I don’t know, some kind of immortality elixir or something.”

“That is totally rank,” Scout said, her face screwed into a look of disgust. “But I wouldn’t put it past them.”