“This Dux Bellorum,” Tyler said, his voice low, weary. He still smelled ill, the tranquilizer lingering in his system. “Am I going to have to keep worrying about him?”

“Probably,” I said, leaning my head on Ben’s shoulder. “But knowledge seems to be the best defense. He won’t be able to sneak up on you again.”

All of us were running on next to no sleep, frayed nerves, and spent adrenaline, and we fell into silence. Even the room behind me had become especially quiet, as if Flemming had fallen asleep.

But when I looked in on him, he was gone.

At my shocked gasp, the others turned.

“Where’d he go?” Ben said.

Tyler went on the move, pacing this room and into the next, examining it, sheltering behind the doorway before glancing into the third room.

“He couldn’t have gotten away without making any noise,” the soldier said.

“Then where is he?” I asked. I took a slow breath, smelling. We should be able to track him, even with the diesel stink of the place. But all I sensed was a horrible, unnatural chill …

“Kitty,” Cormac said, pointing out to the street.

Tonight, Mercedes wore green, a lacey camisole that set off her creamy skin and blood-colored hair, and loose silken slacks that fluttered in the breeze coming off the river. She was such a contrast to the surroundings, managing to remain haughty, imperial.

Standing across the wide street between warehouses, she held Dr. Flemming braced beside her. He was dead weight, seeming to hang on her arm like a sack of potatoes. The effort didn’t strain her at all.

She waited until she knew we were all looking, then tilted her head to give Flemming one of her charming, winning stage smiles. “You are a miserable failure,” she said, and dropped him. He fell in a heap.

I would have sworn that she turned and casually strolled away, high heels clicking on the asphalt. But when I ran after her, shouting, she was already gone. She’d turned a corner, transformed into a shadow, or simply vanished.

The others’ footsteps pounded behind me, catching up. I stopped at Flemming’s body, turned him over on his back.

He blinked at me and grasped weakly with still-handcuffed hands. His mouth worked, but he had no air left. A ragged, three-inch gash tore into his neck, opening a major artery. Scarlet lipstick smeared the skin around it. She hadn’t drained him completely. But she hadn’t left him enough to survive on. Bastard had finally dug himself in too deep. He had just enough life left to look me in the eyes as he died. He seemed … confused.

“Kitty.” Ben touched me.

“I was so angry at him,” I said weakly.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “Maybe we can take Caleb up on his offer to go for a run somewhere.”

Somewhere far away from this concrete pit. Someplace with trees, grass, wide open spaces, wind in my fur.

The sound of an engine echoed, and Caleb’s car pulled around, headlights off. He left the engine running, got out, and looked around. “Well. This is a mess. Not to mention the pile of unconscious mercenaries we found by the main road—that’s where all the guards went. Ned’s doing, no doubt.” Bemused, he hitched his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction.

I hardly had the energy to be relieved at the news. “We should go looking for her,” I said. We had to stop her. Somehow. I couldn’t seem to find the energy to stand.

Ben’s hand squeezed on my shoulder, and he pointed behind us, to the corner of the building we’d found Flemming in. A different corner, a different shadow than the one Mercedes had disappeared into. This time, Ned emerged. The chill of his being was almost indistinguishable from the nighttime chill in the air.

“Look who we found,” Ned said, stepping into the open, illuminated by a streetlight. He seemed to have chosen the spot, as if walking into the circle of a spotlight on stage. Marid and Antony followed him. Between them, gripping his shoulders, they dragged Jan. They wouldn’t let him get his feet under him, and he scrabbled ungracefully to keep his balance. Marid had a grip on the captive vampire’s hair and wrenched his head back.

Ned considered the scene around us. “Oh, you’ve all been busy, haven’t you? Sergeant Tyler, I presume?”

The soldier, standing nearby, raised his brows in a question.

“You got him,” I said stupidly, nodding at Jan.

“Yes, we did.” He beamed.

“What about Mercedes? She was right here. Did you see her? She killed Flemming.” I pointed at the body, as if they hadn’t seen it.

Marid shook his head. “Only Jan and his hangers-on. Mercenaries, a handful of lesser vampires. Are you sure it was her?”

I growled. Ben’s hand closed on my arm, a gentle warning.

“If it was her, she’s gone now,” Ned said. “And you know what they say about a bird in the hand.” He leered at Jan, who flinched back, but Marid and Antony held him fast and seemed happy to do so.

“But—” Mercedes was the mastermind. The direct lead to Roman. If he was the general, she was the master sergeant.

This was exactly how she’d planned it, I realized. Mercedes sacrificed Jan. Like a herd of deer leaving a weaker member behind for the wolves, she’d let him get taken, a distraction, while she made her escape. And the vampires thought they were so much better than us. I could almost feel sorry for the merely decades-old vampires who kept taking metaphorical bullets for these old bastards.

Grinning, Ned stepped behind Jan with the air of an executioner.

Jan started yelling. “The bitch is right, it’s Mercedes you want! It’s all her, I’m just … just a foot soldier. She can lead you to Roman!”

“Even if that’s true, you think I’m going to just let you go? Really?”

“I can help you!”

With Marid and Antony bracing his arms, Ned curled his arm around the vampire’s head, a mockery of an embrace, and wrenched until the bone cracked.

Jan kept arguing, as if the injury hadn’t happened. “You need me! This is a mistake! I have a thousand years of experience at your command! Edward, listen to me!”

“I never have before, why should I start now? Because you ask?”

Ned was still wrenching, twisting Jan’s head, until the vampire’s face looked along his shoulder, then over it. Vertebrae crunched again. His voice finally strangled to gasping silence as his windpipe kinked shut. His head faced backward now, and Ned kept on, as if muscling open a water main. The skin furrowed, stretched, tore. Ned dug in his fingernails to help it along. The tendons on his hands stood out. Impossibly, Jan still twitched, struggling.