He turned to face her. “You can travel it. Direct daylight won’t stop you.”

At the first word out of his mouth, she started shaking her head. “No. I’m not going to leave you.”

“You might not have a choice,” he said. “If you go, you can at least get someone to come back with protective clothing, along with a vehicle that has tinted glass.”

All the fragility and grief came to the surface in the look she gave him. “And leave you to do what?” she asked, her voice raw with exhaustion. “Climb back into that hellhole to wait for me?”

“I have more options than just the hellhole,” he said, gesturing to the nearby buildings.

As she opened her mouth to reply, a quick movement of air brushed against the bare skin of his back.

It was all the warning he got.

Instinct made him spin on his heel. Even as he did, he felt a piercing pain in his lower back. It went very deep.

Arching, he grabbed at the pain while punching out with his other hand. He had no time to see his attacker or take aim. Instead, he struck out blindly. As his questing fingers curled around something short and hard that protruded from his lower back, he landed a glancing blow on something solid.

A gasped curse sounded in his ear. He yanked out the protrusion and glanced down at it. It was a knife. He’d been stabbed.

His attacker struck out again. This time, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye as a black blur, he had just enough time to leap back. Fire bloomed along the surface of his abdomen. He had been cut again, but this time it was a surface wound and the damage was minimal.

Another fighter might have continued to dance back so that he could parry while taking a minimum amount of damage. In another fight, he might have done the same.

But not this fight. He lunged toward his attacker, as hard and as fast as he possibly could. He connected in a body slam, sending them both to the ground.

Visual impressions came to him in almost instantaneous snapshots. His attacker wore all black from head to toe. The black hood and outfit were sun-protective clothing, and physically, she was shorter and slighter of build than he. But she was every bit as fast, and in his current weakened state, she was quite a bit stronger.

Justine had come to locate her errant assistant.

His existence narrowed until he had just one objective – grabbing hold of her and not letting go.

It was a vicious scramble. She flipped them both bodily, until he slammed into the pavement underneath their combined weights. He fought to get the chance to use the knife she had lost when she had stabbed him in the kidney, but he didn’t dare loosen his hold long enough to accomplish a strike.

She feinted with her other knife, and he checked it with one shoulder. The blade bit deep, slicing through muscle to scrape the bone. He headbutted her and heard cartilage crunch.

The entire struggle, he knew, would have been nothing more than a confusing blur to Melly.

Telepathically, he shouted at her, We can’t risk her getting hold of you, or she’ll use you against me again. RUN!

Twelve

M

elly knew Julian was right, so she whirled and ran. Leaving him was one of the hardest things she had ever done.

If Justine slipped out of Julian’s hold and came after her, the Vampyre could move so much faster, she could catch Melly in a matter of moments. Melly tucked in her chin and sprinted as hard as she could.

Her delicate ballet shoes had never been meant for the kind of treatment she had put them through, and they offered almost no protection now. Stones and uneven pavement bruised the soles of her feet. She forced herself to ignore the pain.

Meanwhile the sky continued to lighten with brilliant, deadly streaks of sunshine. She had thought nothing could ever be as bad as her nightmarish run through the tunnels, chased by ferals, but she was wrong. With every second that passed, she expected to feel Justine’s hands slam down onto her shoulders.

What was happening between Julian and Justine? The attack had occurred so fast, but Melly was almost positive she had seen Justine stab Julian at least once. Please gods, don’t let her kill him.

Still surrounded by silent buildings, she came to a T-section, turned right and kept running.

Then another intersection. Right again. Keep track of your turns, Melly.

Ahead, a rocky hillside rose up, strewn with bits of trash, signaling the end of the warehouses. As she reached the end of the buildings, she paused only long enough to glance both ways.

When she saw what looked like the shoulder of a real road to her left, she bolted toward it.

Her breathing came hard now, and she was forced to strike a balance between pacing herself while still running as fast as she possibly could. When she reached the road, she looked around. Small houses dotted the unkempt landscape. Several of the houses had boarded-up windows.

Three blocks away, a glaring blue neon light shone at the front of a shabby one-story building.

The illuminated letters read:

ROADHOUSE OPE.

No N.

Even though dawn was breaking, at least a dozen motorcycles were parked underneath the sign.

Motorcycles. Not a single car was anywhere to be seen. Damn it.

She raced toward the building, slammed through the front door and didn’t come to a stop until she was several feet into the main room of a bar.

Judas Priest rocked over the speakers. Bikers dotted the room. Some slouched at the bar, while a few played pool. Several were deep into some kind of card game that involved a pile of cash sitting in the middle of a table.

Most of the bikers were human, but there were a few ghouls as well. As she glanced around, she saw beards and black leather jackets everywhere.

Heads lifted at her precipitous entrance. As they all turned to face her, silence fell over the room. The bartender reached under the bar, and the song cut off.

“Well, damn,” somebody said. “That’s unusual.”

She could only guess what she looked like. She was wearing at least three days’ worth of grime and blood. Her trouser outfit, originally a stylish cream color, had turned gray and was covered with streaks of brownish red. The bruises on her arms and throat had bloomed into full Technicolor, her cuts and scratches were covered in dark scabs, and while she had finger combed her hair, her attempt at keeping it tidy had only served to make each individual curl spiral out in every direction.

Chairs scraped as everyone in the room stood. Eyes wide, they began to advance on her.