Big fat faker.

Vampires were never fragile.

I darted past Kieran and jumped, grabbing hold of one of the maple tree branches. I threw myself forward, as if I were a gymnast. My old gym teacher would have wept with pride. And shock. I swung, ankles tight together to make a battering ram out of my legs. I hit the vampire with the bottom of my boots, the force sending shocks of pain up to my knees. He fell back and Hunter was on him, stake at the ready. He kicked up, hitting her in the arm. The stake in her hand dropped. She grunted in pain, suddenly the one on the ground. He reared back, fangs out.

I let go of the branch and clamped onto him like a barnacle on a ship. He grunted. I held on tighter. He reached back, seizing me by the throat. I choked, using one hand to claw at him. Hunter squirmed to the side, slid out from under him while he was busy trying to strangle me, and then jabbed him with a stake. He went to ash, and I sprawled in the dusty grass, coughing painfully. If Hunter was any less skilled, she’d have hit me with the stake as well. But her grip was perfect, the arm tensed to rock, stopping the forward momentum and pulling back at just the right second.

“Thanks,” I croaked.

She helped me up. “No problem.”

We rushed to Kieran’s side just as he managed to twist his arm at the proper angle. Hypnos powder burst out of the cylinder strapped under his sleeve. “Drop!” he yelled to the vampire as he tilted his head back sharply, holding his breath. Hunter and I yanked the collars of our sweaters up to cover our nose and mouth. The vampire went down like a rock, lying paralyzed at the feet of three hunters.

Kieran frowned at Hunter. “You’re hurt.”

She pushed her hair off her back, grimacing at the blood. “It’s my nose, no big deal.”

“He broke your nose?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m fine. I put it back.”

“Where’s Chloe?” Kieran asked.

“Inside doing a full sweep,” Hunter answered. “I caught the other one climbing out your dining room window. Your mom’s still in the kitchen.”

He jerked a hand through his hair. “That’s something, at least.”

He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling for a bodyguard detail for her. You guys might get busted for sneaking off campus.”

“Bound to happen sooner or later,” I said.

After he’d hung up, he crouched over the vampire. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

“Kill Kieran.” He sounded drunk, fighting the sticky web of Hypnos and his own rage.

“Yeah.” Kieran wiped blood off his face. “I got that part.”

“Who sent you?” Hunter demanded.

“Don’t know.”

I scowled down at him. “You’re making vampires look bad, you undead asshat.” I glanced up at the others, as Chloe joined us. “Can I kick him? Just once?”

“House is clear,” Chloe confirmed.

“Are you sure?” Kieran asked.

She nodded. “Full sweep. I’m sure.”

“Thanks.”

Hunter crouched next to Kieran and blew another dose of Hypnos into the vampire’s face. She flung herself backward, holding her breath until the powder had settled. “Who sent you?” She asked again.

“Kill Kieran.”

She pressed the tip of a stake over his heart just hard enough that his eyes rolled, the whites practically glowing around pale blue irises. “Who sent you?”

“Don’t know,” he ground out. “Kill Kieran.”

She sat back on her heels, scowling. “No use. They must have figured he might get dosed and didn’t give him any info we could use.”

“Now what?” Chloe wondered. “Do we stake him?”

Hunter shook her head firmly. “You know how I feel about killing unarmed, defenseless prisoners. I’m not an executioner.”

“You killed that other vampire.”

“Yeah, because he was killing Lucy.”

“Well, we have to do something,” Chloe insisted.

The vampire just lay there glaring at us. He might not be able to move, but he could see and hear just fine. I pulled my MP3 player out of my pocket, cranked the volume as loud as it would go, then shoved the pink skull earbuds into his ears.

The others just blinked at me.

“Um,” Chloe said. “What are you doing?”

“He has vampire hearing. This is the only way we can plan without him knowing what we’re saying,” I told them. “So? Next step?”

“We need to let him go,” Hunter insisted, wiping blood from her face and hair with a bandanna she fished out of her pocket.

“He tried to kill me,” Kieran reminded her grimly. “He might have killed my mother.”

She met his eyes unflinchingly. “We can fight about that later. Right now, we let him go, and we track him back to his hole.”

He nodded once, grumbling. “Yeah, okay.”

“Chloe and I will follow him and email you GPS coordinates as we go. You two get to Solange as soon as you can, after the League guards get here. But we have to move fast. If they get here first, they’ll take him into custody and there goes our chance.”

Kieran hauled the vampire to his feet, gripping his shirt with his fist.

I yanked the earbuds out, saving my MP3 player before it got trampled. “Go home, asshat,” I snapped. “To whoever put you up to this.”

He hissed ineffectually and then shambled off, a slave to the Hypnos. Hunter and Chloe trailed him. They were barely out of sight when a car pulled up from the opposite direction. Kieran hurried to right his motorcycle.