“We’re too late, darling,” Clay said as Elena approached. “They finished without us.”

She glanced at me. “Bad guy dead?”

I nodded. “Bad guy dead.”

“Damn,” she muttered. “Well, that’s good, of course…”

“But not much fun.”

She grinned. “I’ll survive. So what happened?”

“His dead lover tore open a portal into the ghost world and we all jumped through. Well, Lucas fell in, I jumped in after him, and Edward jumped in after her. We came back, which is good. He didn’t come back, which is also good…except that it means that in punishment for his crimes he gets exactly what he wanted all along—eternal life with the woman he loves.”

“Uh-huh. I think I’d better get the uncondensed version after we get back to the hotel. Oh, wait, you guys must be starving. First stop: food.”

“What time is it?” Lucas asked, tapping his watch and frowning at it.

“Mine stopped, too,” I said. “I don’t think they survived that return trip.”

“It’s just past four A.M.,” Elena said.

“You might have some difficulty locating a restaurant,” Lucas said.

“Don’t worry,” Clay said. “We’ll find food. We always do.”

We stood at the take-out counter of a twenty-four-hour Cuban restaurant. Neither Elena nor Clay had ever eaten Cuban, so they were soliciting opinions and advice from Lucas. After placing the order, we took our coffees into the dining area to wait. After a few minutes, I realized we were getting a lot of attention. The restaurant had only eight other patrons, but every eye had slid our way a couple of times and, by the time my coffee was half-finished, I swear every busboy and cook had peeked out from the kitchen. Now, I’ll admit, Elena and Clay made an eye-catching couple, but this seemed a tad excessive. The next time someone looked our way, I followed his gaze to Lucas’s shirt.

“Uh, Lucas?” I said.

When I had his attention, I tapped my fingers against my left breast. He arched one eyebrow, lips curving in a slow grin. I rolled my eyes and discreetly pointed at his shirt. His gaze slid down to the bloody bullet hole.

“Ah,” he said. “Perhaps I should wait outside…in the alley or someplace suitably dark.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said. “Elena? Can I borrow your cell? I should call Cassandra, let her know we’re okay, in case she’s noticed we’ve been missing for eighteen hours.”

“Not likely,” Clay muttered. “Ten bucks says she hasn’t noticed you’ve left the hotel room yet.”

“That, I believe, is a wager I just might win,” Lucas said. “In fact, I’ll raise it to twenty and postulate that she’s not only noticed, but started looking for us.”

Clay shook his head. “Hate to take advantage of youthful optimism, but, sure, you’re on. Twenty bucks it is.”

It turned out that we didn’t need Elena’s cell phone after all. Lucas’s was still working—though I really hoped no onehad called while we’d been in the ghost world, or they’d have racked up a hell of a long-distance charge.

Cassandra wasn’t at the hotel. She was out, with Aaron, looking for us, and had been since early the previous afternoon.

“How’d you know that?” I whispered to Lucas when Jaime told me the news.

He only gave a small smile and waved for me to continue talking to Jaime, who’d just returned to the hotel an hour ago, too exhausted from her nights of haunting to continue the search. I told her I’d track down Cassandra via Aaron’s cell.

“Better call Benicio first,” she said. “He’s going nuts. I swear, the city’s crawling with supernaturals tonight looking for you two. I heard he called in every Cortez security force in the country. We notified him as soon as we realized you guys were missing.” She paused. “Hope that was okay.”

“It was. Thanks. Will we see you later? Or are you taking off already?”

“Taking off?”

“Back on tour. Now that everything is over—”

“Over? What about Edward?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Let me back up.”

I told her what she didn’t know. Then she told me what I didn’t know. When Elena and Clay came out of the restaurant, Lucas and I were huddled together, talking quietly as we tried to absorb the news.

“What’s up?” Elena said.

“We have a problem,” I said.

“What?”

“Bad guy not dead.”

Standoff

LAST TIME I’D SEEN EDWARD, HE’D BEEN RUNNING FOR the portal, so we assumed he’d jumped through right after us. He hadn’t made it. Less than an hour after we disappeared, Edward phoned John in New Orleans asking to be put in contact with Cassandra. John had the good sense to hand over Aaron’s number, rather than try negotiating with Edward himself. When Edward finally got in touch with Cassandra, he demanded that she, as the vampire delegate to the council, negotiate on his behalf with the Cortez Cabal.

This made no sense to me. If Edward knew Natasha was waiting on the other side, why would he want to bargain his way out of a death sentence? Turned out he didn’t. As Cassandra explained, Edward knew he’d be executed for his crimes, and he accepted that…so long as his punishment ended there. In a Cabal court, there is a sentence worse than execution: execution plus an afterlife curse, which sends your soul into limbo. For a vampire, the threat held little power, since most assumed they didn’t have an afterlife. Can’t curse a soul that doesn’t exist. But now Edward knew better. Natasha still lived, in some form, in some place, and he wanted to be with her. Maybe this was why Natasha had been trying to contact Jaime, to somehow negotiate with us or pass along a message to Edward, telling him to stop and accept execution before he went too far. But now he had gone too far. In killing Lucas, he’d ensured that his death would come with every curse Benicio could dream up. His only hope was to negotiate an ironclad settlement before Benicio knew his beloved youngest son was gone.