“Here’s where you get to show off everything you’ve learned in class,” Diego said, from the other side of the open rear door. He sounded breathless, and his rifle had slumped to his side again. “Look up, chica. Move fast.”

Using the car door as a shield, she angled out her head and checked the rooflines of the neighboring buildings.

Nearby, a muzzle of a rocket launcher aimed at the SUV, the figure of the shooter hunched over it.

She didn’t give herself time to think.

Snapping up the SCAR, she shot. The figure holding the rocket launcher jerked and disappeared.

If that was a Vampyre, he was going to reappear in a few moments and try again. “We can’t stay here,” she told Diego. “How badly are you hit?”

“You know, I’ve seen better days,” said Diego. “Go for. The doorway. Fifteen yards. Back. Take. Cover inside.”

She didn’t move. Instead, she watched the rooftop for the rocket launcher to reappear. “You don’t sound so good.”

The tip of the launcher reappeared. Her heart kicked. She sighted down the SCAR and sprayed it. To her immense surprise, it exploded. A ball of fiery light lit up the night, and she swore.

Diego laughed and went into a spasm of harsh coughing. She could hear his breathing hitching from where she crouched. Daring to peer around the edge of the door, she saw that the immediate area around their SUV was deserted.

Near the garbage truck blocking them at the rear, a vicious, whirlwind fight was taking place. She couldn’t track all that happened—they all moved too fast—but she could tell there were several figures involved.

Even as she watched, two of the figures dissolved into dust. Oh, God.

But the fight continued, so she knew Xavier had to be alive.

“Come on, Diego,” she said. “We’re going to get to that doorway together.”

“Sorry. No can do.” His voice was noticeably weaker. “I want you to tell Xavier . . . I want you to tell him . . .”

Furious, horrified tears filled her eyes, and she swiped them back. She couldn’t afford to cry. She needed to see.

Down the alley, opposite the fight, two figures crept around the edge of the garbage truck. She took careful aim and pulled off a shot, and one of them blew into a cloud of dust. As the other darted back to cover, she leaped up and scooted around the edge of the rear door to Diego.

He sat on the ground, his back propped against the running board of the car. As she knelt beside him, he lifted his head to look at her. Propping the SCAR beside him, she ran her fingers over his chest. He’d had time to put on a vest, just like she and Xavier had. Where had he been hit?

He took one of her hands and laid it against his shoulder, and she saw it then—dark blood seeping around the border of the vest, near his underarm. He wheezed, “Freak shot. Just my fucking luck. Bastard went in sideways. Lung.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one end of the garbage truck behind the SUV lift into the air. With a gigantic screech of metal, it sailed toward the fighting Vampyres, who scattered. The truck slammed into the edge of the building.

Holy shit, someone just picked up that truck and threw it.

It was a troll, massive and stone-colored. It stomped toward one Vampyre—belatedly she recognized Xavier—who leaped, not away, but toward it.

Dear God, did he have no fear whatsoever? With impossible-looking grace and speed, he landed on the troll’s massive shoulder, put his Glock to its eye and shot it. As it began to topple, he leaped away.

She turned her attention back to Diego, who had watched the encounter too. He looked up at her with a crooked smile and said telepathically, He’s a little like Armageddon, isn’t he? Tell him . . . I’m sorry. I was supposed to get him into the city . . . With Justine in Evenfall, I thought she was going to try something there, a coup against Julian . . .

She stared. “You’re working with Justine? Since when?”

When she came to stay with Melisande. She made me an offer . . . His head sagged. I thought she wanted Xavier out of the way . . . Wouldn’t have done it if I’d known . . .

“For God’s sake, why?”

In the semidark, she couldn’t see his infinitesimal shrug. She would never have known about it, if she hadn’t felt him move underneath her fingertips.

Thousand bucks monthly stipend, chica. No matter how much you save, it isn’t enough to retire on.

The wry voice in her head went silent, and his eyes closed.

Tears spilled out the corners of her eyes. She whispered, “You stupid, greedy son of a bitch.”

A hand came down on her shoulder. An involuntary cry broke out of her. She flinched and twisted to one side, as she brought up her Glock. . . .

Taking hold of her wrist, Xavier jerked her hand away. Even though he pointed the muzzle of the Glock toward the side of the building, she managed not to pull the trigger. Pulling her arm free, she clicked on the safety and tucked the gun in the waist of her jeans, at the small of her back.

Coming down on one knee beside her, Xavier gave Diego a long, grim look. Xavier was covered in blood, his vest pocked with marks. He’d been shot at multiple times. Maybe knifed. She was so desperately glad to see him, she lunged forward to throw her arms around his neck and grip him tight.

Slipping an arm around her waist, he eased back until he connected with the wall of the nearby building and slid to a sitting position.

“What are you doing?” she said between her teeth. “You can’t sit. We’ve got to keep moving, in case they come back and attack us again.”

“They’re not going to. They did what they came to do.”

“What do you mean?” Loosening her hold around his neck, she pulled back to search his face.

He opened his free hand to show her an empty syringe.

She had been scared so much over the last few days, but the sight of what he held in his broad palm outdid all of it, sending a pure bolt of terror through her.

“More than one of them tagged me,” he told her. “I don’t know how many doses I took.”

She heard Raoul’s voice in her head, as if he had just spoken the words to her all over again.

There’s more than one way to kill a Vampyre.

Brodifacoum. A highly lethal anticoagulant poison.

They bleed to death. I’ve seen it, and it’s a grim way to die.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she said.