Someone lives and someone dies.

"No!" Kylie screamed, and bolted forward, taking a flying leap into the dark hole.

Chapter Twenty-six

The darkness surrounded Kylie the second her foot left solid earth, and she tumbled down the pit. She heard screams, tortured screams, coming from below. Or were they just inside her head? It was hard to tell. Then she was struck by a cold so intense that it almost stole her breath. She instantly knew the sounds were coming from hell. Was Holiday right? Had she spent too much time with pure evil and now she was paying the price?

And because of her, so was Perry?

Suddenly, painful little sparks hit her body from beneath her, jolts of what felt like electricity. It took two or three strikes before she realized what it meant.

Perry. Perry was shifting.

Then she slammed against ... something half-soft, half-prickly.

With a lot of feathers.

She bounced off it, flipped over, and screamed as she continued her descent, falling faster now into oblivion and going headfirst.

Huge, leathery-feeling handcuffs latched on to her right arm and yanked her upward. Her arm felt pulled out of its socket. She muttered a curse at the sharp pain.

"I got you..." Perry's voice reverberated through the hole.

It was meant to reassure her, but it didn't. What if he lost his grip on her arm? What if whatever it was that waited for them below suddenly decided to come up for a visit?

"Kylie!"

She jerked her head up to the entrance to the large sinkhole. Bright light spilled in from the opening, making it hard to see. Then she saw a body falling.

No, not just a body. It was Ellie.

"Shit!" Perry screamed, flapping his large bird wings as fast as he could. "I can't catch her. I can't."

An eerie sense of calm settled over Kylie. She reached out with her free hand just as gravity brought Ellie's body past them and latched on to the vampire's forearm. Kylie's hold was weak, though, and her palm started to slip. She tried to tighten her grip, lost it, and finally caught the girl by her wrist.

Ellie screamed and started to fight. Her eyes glowed a bright red in the darkness.

"It's me," Kylie said.

"Everyone, hang on!" Perry's voice bounced off the earthen walls of the pit.

Ellie struggled again, and Kylie pulled her closer. "I've got you."

And she did. Kylie put every ounce of thought and strength into not letting go of Ellie's wrist.

The sound of air whooshing and huge bird wings flapping filled the darkness, and in a few seconds, Perry lifted all three of them out of the hole. Once they were back in the light, he flew them about a hundred feet up the path before he descended and dropped them carefully on the solid earth.

He landed beside them, talons hitting the earth with a thud. As Kylie suspected, he'd shifted into a prehistoric-looking bird with dark gray feathers. He was about the size of a small plane. Then the rumble beneath the ground started again.

"Run!" he ordered.

He didn't have to tell them twice. Kylie and Ellie took off, flying through the woods, dodging trees, ducking under limbs, and leaping over thick bunches of thornbushes.

Kylie kept glancing up to make sure Perry was okay. He was still following them, gliding easily over the tips of the trees, making sure they were safe.

Once they were out of the trees, Kylie dropped to the ground and gasped for air, her pulse racing. She could hear her blood gushing in her veins. Ellie dropped down beside her, breathing not quite as hard, but still a little shaky.

Perry landed beside them and transformed himself back into human form.

"What the freaking hell were you doing?" he screamed at Kylie, his eyes blood red with fury.

She swallowed another gulp of air. "Trying to save you."

"I didn't need saving!" He flapped his arms up and down almost as if he'd forgotten he was no longer a bird. He turned his anger on Ellie. "And you? What the hell is your excuse?"

She coughed and then said, "I ... figured if I came back alive and you two didn't, the rest of your group would probably kill me. I didn't have a choice but to go in after you."

Suddenly Burnett, eyes in full protective mode and his fangs exposed, flashed onto the scene. "What happened?" he asked, his voice little more than a deep growl. "It sounded like an explosion."

"Earthquake, maybe," Perry said. "The ground just sank below us."

"But that's-" Burnett shook his head. "Is everyone okay?"

They all nodded. Burnett's gaze locked on Kylie. "You're bleeding. Go to the office and let Holiday check you all out." Kylie looked down at her arm. Ellie's nails must have scratched her when she caught her.

Burnett continued, "I'll check to see how bad the, uh, earthquake is." He turned to go.

"Wait!" Kylie called out, and Burnett returned in a blur of motion.

"What?" he asked, impatience clear in his voice.

"It wasn't an earthquake," she said. With clarity, she recalled seeing the eagle coming straight at her in full-scale attack mode. Now she understood his intention had been to make her run, but it didn't change the fact that it had been evil. She'd seen the darkness in his eyes. "The eagle was there."

And so was Jane Doe, although Kylie saw no reason to mention that.

At least not yet.

Burnett let loose another growl. "Go to the office. I'll see if I can get to the bottom of this."