I can help with that.

Before I could say ‘yes thanks,’ or ‘f**k no,’ a bolt of lightning forked out of the sky and danced along the courtyard. It didn’t touch anyone and didn’t cause any damage, but as the light show continued all the humans drew closer to watch. Idiots.

“Don’t they know that lightning is dangerous?” Pamela stared at the humans, her mouth hanging open.

“Yes, they know. But they’re drawn to it, like they’re drawn to so much that is dangerous.”

Like you should talk. Walking into a nest of vampires.

Pamela slapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle; obviously, that had been audible to everyone. Blaz landed and the light show continued. I slid from his back, O’Shea leapt off, and Pamela scrambled down his side. I caught her partway and helped her to the ground.

“Eve, we won’t be long. Then we’ll just wait until you’re healed.”

“I don’t want to go,” she said, her eyes flicking toward Blaz almost imperceptibly.

“This isn’t a choice. You have to trust me, and in this, I trust him.” I put a hand out and touched the arch of her wing. “You are a liability when you’re hurt like this.”

She let out a shuddering sigh. “I know.”

“Alex, you look after Eve. Okay?”

He bounded over to me, his big eyes tearing up. “Sending Alex away, always away.”

I bent and gave him a hug, squeezing him hard. “I love you, Alex. And you can’t stay with me this time. It just … it just isn’t good, buddy.”

“Alex loves Rylee too. Pamie too. Evie too. Boss too.” He whispered into my arms, sniffling. Gods, I’d barely spent any time with him since we’d been in London.

“Listen, after this, we’ll go home. Back to North Dakota. No more being sent away.”

His head jerked up, eyes lighting with eagerness. “Home? Yuppy doody! Home, home, home!” He barked and then spun on the spot, chasing his tail, finally grabbing it and yelping with pain. I touched him on the head.

“Easy, you go with Eve, and then we’ll go home. We’ll all go home.” I only hoped that I was going to be able to keep this promise.

Because if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure that any of us were going to make it out of this alive.

You are right to be wary. I will be back as quickly as I can. You can call for me, if you need me.

I put a hand on his leg closest to me. “Thanks.”

A heartbeat later, he launched back into the sky, the lightning still dancing in the courtyard. The humans surrounded it, staring and pointing where it struck, where it burned the ground and scorched the stones.

Locking onto Jack, I headed toward the closest door. Pamela and O’Shea walked on either side of me. For all his animosity earlier, O’Shea seemed to be able to control himself now. Although he watched Pamela warily, there was no lashing out, no growling.

We reached the door and the handle turned, but it was locked. Before I could grab my sword, Pamela put her hand to it and the door melted. Like hot wax dripping, the whole metal door melted right down to the hinges.

I stared at her, knowing I was going to hurt her feelings, but knowing I had to. I pointed at the puddle of metal at our feet. “Much as that’s a nifty trick, and would be amazing in certain situations, it is going to be f**king hard to hide that we’ve come this way.”

She blushed. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah, learning curve.” I stepped through the doorway and over the metal. Pamela followed, and O’Shea brought up the rear. The door opened into a storage room, coated in dust, cobwebs and scurrying things. Pamela gave a squeak and jumped into me.

I spun and grabbed her by the arms, again, knowing that this was not going to seem nice. But she was going to get us killed. “Vampires. If you see a vampire or some other f**king nasty supernatural, then you can scream, pee your pants, whatever. But bugs don’t get screamed at. Got it?”

Her eyes welled up, but again she nodded, and I could feel her spine stiffening. I gave her a smile to soften my words and she smiled back, tremulous and uncertain. But she was trying.

O’Shea was the one who found the trap door leading down and out of the storage room. He dug at it, his nose pressed against the dusty carpet covering the large ringed handle.

Pamela put her hand out and I shook my head, pressing a finger to my lips. I wrapped my hands around the ring and pulled. The hinges were well oiled, and the door lifted easily. With it open, I could peer down to see where we were. Kinda.

The room below looked like it had been closed off to the public, which was perfect. I took Pamela’s hands and lowered her down first. Next went O’Shea, and I went last, dropping lightly to a crouch. The walls were covered in oil paintings, as in the walls themselves were painted and accented with gold gilt scrollwork that was fussy and overdone.

“This is beautiful,” Pamela whispered, and then slapped her hand over her mouth.

I pointed to the only door in the room. The next ten minutes, I spent trying to get closer to Jack, but only managed to get turned around. We would head toward him, and I’d think we were getting somewhere, and then we’d hit a dead end. Like a f**king maze, the Doges Palace twisted and turned, rooms, hallways and more just kept blocking my way. Shit.

Inside yet another dead end room, I stood staring at the wall, knowing that if I could get through it Jack wasn’t that much further away.

I narrowed my eyes and used my second sight, hoping there would be a hidden door. There wasn’t, but other things became very apparent.

Like the warnings scrawled in blood on the paintings in the wall.

Dying is a blessing.

Death is a curse.

May your bowels be filled with blood and mercy.

Nice. Real classy.

But better than that … I lifted my hand and traced the bloody arrow pointing toward the door. Rather obvious and it was one of two things: a marker system for new vamps needing directions or a f**king trap.

I was going with a trap, for five hundred, Mr. Trebek. If I was right, and it was a trap, it would lead us where we had to go. We just had to ready for the trap to spring. Yup, no problemo.

Pamela grabbed my hand and frowned at me. I pointed at my eyes, then at the wall. We’d been practicing using her second sight, but she struggled with it.

Her eyes widened and she pointed. Apparently she got it this time around. We followed the arrows out into the hallway, down a set of narrow stairs and onto the main floor.

Where all the humans were hanging out, taking pictures and staring at the walls like the tourists they were.

Crap.

The arrows led straight across the main entrance. We were going to have to bolt for it if O’Shea wasn’t going to get noticed. I snorted softly to myself and glanced over at him. Yeah, who was going to miss a five-hundred-pound jet-black wolf running across the palace entrance?

His slowly silvering eyes flicked up to me, as if he knew what I was thinking.

I’d wanted to avoid the humans as much as possible, they were just cannon fodder, and had a tendency to get killed when supernaturals rumbled.

“Pamela,” I whispered. “Can you block off the entrances to the main room, so people can’t go in and out?”

She nodded, stepped out, and lifted her hands. A tingle of energy trickled along my skin and I watched as the humans were slowly corralled into one doorway or another. Then Pamela darkened the blocks so they weren’t clear, but murky and shadowed. So they couldn’t be seen through.

“Brilliant. Good job.”

She grinned up at me and I grinned back. Score one for the witch.

We jogged down the final flight of steps and started across the main entranceway. A roar of defiance shocked the shit out of me. I spun, and in the main doorway leading into the palace stalked a f**king, I’ll-be-damned Gryphon.

A lion with wings, he was easily as big as O’Shea, maybe even bigger. Hard to tell with the wings. Shit, he must be some sort watch dog for the vampires. Tawny hide rippled over thick, powerful muscles, his darker mane waved in the breeze as he walked, and his wings were the color of honey. Stunning, he was a truly incredible creature. But he was still going to try and kill us, of that I had no doubt. Which left me no choice.

“I thought you blocked all the entranceways,” I said as I pulled my swords free.

“I did, he must have broken through,” Pamela said.

That meant one of two things. Either he was another Immune like me, or he had some sort of magic of his own. I was hoping he wasn’t Immune.

Pamela snapped a hand forward and the Gryphon ran through what she tossed at it. Immune, it was then.

“Leave this one to us,” I said as I stepped sideways, cutting down through the Gryphon’s wings with my sword. Feathers and blood spurted out, and the Gryphon roared. But before he could spin and tackle me, O’Shea was on his back, his jaws sinking in around the Gryphon’s neck.

The huge cat reached up and yanked O’Shea off his back, tossing him to the floor, leaving his back exposed to me. I ran forward and sliced downward and lengthwise as I passed the Gryphon’s side, cutting though his ribs and opening up his guts. Viscera spilled out onto the tiled floor and the Gryphon slumped, his last breaths slipping out of him in a matter of seconds. Fast, so fast and a trickle of remorse skittered through me. Gryphon’s were rare, kind of the endangered species of the supernatural world, and we’d cut him down in a matter of minutes.

Jaw clenched, I went to one knee and put a hand on the tawny hide, felt the heat from his body fading already. Son of a bitch, of all the things the vampires could have used for a guard animal, why did it have to be a Gryphon? And one that obviously had no real fighting skills for us to take him out as fast as we had. Just one more reason to go after the Child Empress. This death shouldn’t have happened either, didn’t need to have happened.

I stared around us. The whole set up had seemed too easy. O’Shea’s eyes caught mine. Yeah, too damn easy, indeed. Like they were testing us, to see if we were worth bothering with. My hunch that this, and the arrows, were a trap increased—like a tightening noose around my neck. Not a good sign.