But he remembered, too, that she’d explained that the wheels it rolled on were filled with air. If the wheel was punctured, and the air got out, and then the wheel was called a flat. It was a pain in the ass, she’d said.

He thought it would be fruitful, and fun as well, to give the vampires a pain in the ass.

He changed to a unicorn, with a pale gold wash over its white hide. And lowering his head, plunged his keen-tipped horn into the tire. There was a satisfying little pop, then the hiss of escaping air. Wanting to be thorough, he pierced it a second time.

Pleased, Larkin trotted around the van, puncturing each tire until he saw the van sat on four flat wheels. Let’s see you try to get this machine to roll now, you bastards, he thought.

Then he rose up again on wings and flew south.

There was enough moonlight to guide him, and a cool wind to aid his speed. He could see the land below, the spread and roll of it. The rise of hills, the patchwork of fields.

Lights glimmered from the villages, and the larger towns.

He thought of the lively pubs, with the music playing, with the scents of beer and pretty women. The voices in conversation and the rise of laughter. One evening, when all this was done, he wanted to sit in a pub with his friends, those five who were so vital to him, and lift a pint with all those voices, all that music around them.

It was a good image to hold on to during a long flight to a nest of monsters.

Below, he saw the long, lovely sweep of river they called Shannon.

It was beautiful land, he thought, as green as home, and with the sea close. He could hear the rumble of it as he angled southwest.

The dragon would be faster, he knew, but it was the hawk he’d agreed to. He wished he could fly here again, in the dragon, with Blair on his back. She could tell him the names of what he saw below, the towns and the ruins, the rivers and lakes. Would she know the name of that waterfall he soared over, the one as high and powerful as his own FaerieFalls back home?

He remembered the feel of her legs locking around him as they rose up into the air. The way she’d laughed. He’d never known another like her, warrior and woman, with such strength and vulnerability. A ready fist and a tender heart.

He liked the way she talked, quick and confident. And the way her lips quirked up on one side, then the other when she smiled.

There was a longing in him for her, which he thought as natural as breath. But there was something tangled with it, something sharp that he didn’t recognize. It would be interesting to find out what it all meant.

He winged over the waterfall, and a dense forest that framed it. He skimmed over the quiet glimmer of lakes with starshine glinting on the water. And he aimed for the slicing beam of the lighthouse on the cliffs.

He flew down, silent as a shadow.

On the narrow strip of shale, he saw two figures. A woman, he realized, and a young boy. Alarm tightened his heart inside his chest. They would be captured wandering here near the caves in the dark. Imprisoned, then used, then killed. And he had no weapon to defend them.

He landed in the shadow of rock, and nearly changed into a man to do what he could. But the woman turned to laugh at the child, and the cold white moonlight struck her face.

He had seen her only once before, standing on the high cliffs. But he would never forget her face.

Lilith. The self-proclaimed queen of the undead.

“Please, Mama, please, I want to hunt.”

“Now, Davey, remember what I told you. We don’t hunt near our home. We’ve plenty of food inside, and since you’ve been so good…” She bent down to tap a finger to his nose, a gesture of amused affection. “You can have your pick.”

“But it’s no fun when they’re just there.”

“I know.” She sighed, ruffled his glossy gold hair. “It’s more like a chore than a thrill. But it won’t be much longer. When we move on to Geall, you can hunt every night.”

“When?”

“Soon, my precious lamb.”

“I’m tired of being here.” Voice petulant, he kicked at the shale.

Larkin could see he had the face of a little imp—round and sweet.

“I wish I had a kitty. Please, can’t I have a kitty cat? I wouldn’t eat it like last time.”

“That’s what you said about the puppy,” she reminded him with a quick, g*y laugh. “But we’ll see. But how about this? I’ll let one out for you, and it can run through the caves. You can chase it down, hunt it down. Won’t that be fun?”

When he grinned, moonlight sent the dusting of freckles on his chubby cheeks into relief. And glinted on his fangs. “Can I have two?”

“So greedy.” She kissed him, and not, Larkin saw with a sick revulsion, in the way a mother kisses a son. “That’s what I love about you, my own true love. Let’s go inside then, and you can pick out the ones you want.”

Behind the rock, Larkin changed. A sleek, dark rat darted inside the caves behind the sweep of Lilith’s long skirts.

He could smell death, and see the things that moved in the dark. Things that bowed when Lilith glided by.

There was little light—only a scatter of torches clamped to the walls here and there. But as they moved deeper there was a faint green tinge to the light he felt was unnatural. Magic, he knew, just as he knew this magic wasn’t clean and white.

She drifted through the maze of it, holding the boy’s hand as he trotted at her side. Vampires scuttled up the walls like spiders, or hung from the ceiling like bats.

He could only hope they weren’t overly interested in snacking on rat blood.

He followed the swish of Lilith’s robes, and kept to the dark corners.

The sounds of unspeakable human suffering began to echo.

“What sort do you want, my darling?” Lilith swung his arm with hers as if they were on an outing to a fair and a promised treat. “Something young and lean, or perhaps something with a little more flesh?”

“I don’t know. I want to look in their eyes first. Then I’ll know.”

“Clever boy. You make me proud.”

There were more cages than he’d imagined, and the sheer horror had him struggling to stay in form. He wanted to spring into a man, grab a sword from one of the guards, and start hacking.

He would take down a few of them, and that might be worth dying for. But he would never get any of the people out.

Blair had warned him, but he hadn’t fully believed.