Finally, Jackal wrenched open a peeling metal door, the rusty screech reverberating through the water and making fish flee in terror. Through the gap, I saw a flooded stairwell ascending into darkness.

We trailed Jackal through the door and followed the stairway until it broke free of the water, continuing its spiraled path up the side of the wall. Jackal watched, grinning, as I emerged, dripping wet from the river, water streaming from my hair and coat to puddle on the landing.

“What?” I asked softly, my voice echoing weirdly in the flooded stairwell. Kanin emerged at my back, making no noise at all even in the water. Jackal’s grin widened, and he shook his head.

“Oh, nothing. You’ve never drowned a cat before, have you, sister?”

“Where are we?” asked Kanin before I could reply. His voice carried a faint undertone that warned us to stay on target. That we were in Sarren’s territory now, and he was waiting for us. The raider king raked his hair back and looked up the stairs.

“Third floor, back stairwell,” he muttered. “No one ever uses it because some of the higher floors collapsed and the stairs are blocked on this side. But there’s a second stairwell we can reach from the ninth floor, and that one goes all the way to the top.” Jackal crossed his arms, smirking. “I figure everyone will be expecting us to use the elevator, and the minions might surprise me and cut the cables when we’re near the top. And trust me when I say that falling from the top floor of this tower is not a pleasant experience.”

He looked at me when he said this, narrowing his eyes. I thought again of our fight on the top floor, him staking me through the gut, the intense pain that had followed. Dangling from a broken window high above Chicago, desperately clinging to the ledge as my strength slowly gave out.

Looking up, seeing Jackal standing above me, ready to end it—and Jebbadiah Crosse slamming into him from behind, hurling them both into open space.

“I always wondered how you survived,” I told him, and his smirk widened. “You’re like a rat that’s impossible to kill— no matter what you do, it always comes back.”

“One of my best qualities, sister.” Jackal lowered his arms.

“You’ll appreciate it one day, trust me. Now…” He gazed up the steps again, a dangerous glint coming into his eyes.

“What do you say we find Sarren and beat the ever-loving shit out of him?”

That I could get behind. My enemy was close, and I had never wanted someone’s death as badly as I wanted Sarren’s.

“Let’s go,” I told Jackal.

We started up the stairs, Jackal in front, Kanin silently bringing up the rear. Around us, the stairwell creaked and groaned, the sounds echoing through the tight corridor and making my skin crawl. I did not like small, enclosed spaces with no way out, especially when it seemed the ancient, crumbling stairs could collapse at any moment. I concentrated on taking one step at a time and focused my anger and rage into a burning determination. Because if I concentrated on my hate, I could almost forget the fact that Sarren still terrified me, he had an entire raider army under his control, and that facing him again would be the hardest fight of my life. That he was still stronger than me, and even with Kanin’s and Jackal’s help, we might not be able to beat him. Especially since he knew we were coming.

None of that mattered. I didn’t know how he planned to spread his awful virus, but I did know he was fully capable of destroying everything without a second thought. And I wouldn’t let that happen. No matter what it took, no matter what nasty surprises he had waiting, we had to kill Sarren, tonight.

The stairs wove around the walls of the building, spiraling ever higher, before they ended in a blockade of stone, metal beams and twisted pipes. Jackal stopped us on the final landing and nodded to a peeling metal door set into the concrete.

“The other stairwell is through here. We’ll have to cross the floor to get to it, but once we do, it’s a straight shot to the top floor and Sarren.”

I nodded back, but then I caught something that made me freeze. Filtering through the door, slipping underneath the crack, was an unmistakable scent.

The other two vampires paused, as well. “Blood,” Kanin mused, his gaze dark and grim. “A lot of it. Something is waiting for us beyond this door. It appears your humans are expecting us, after all.”

“Yep.” Jackal sighed. “The minions aren’t completely stupid all the time. And they know that blood is an excellent way to mask your presence from a vampire. We won’t be able to pinpoint exactly where they are. If the whole army is waiting for us, it could get messy.” He glanced at me, fangs shining in the darkened corridor. “Ready for this, little sister? No turning back now.”

I drew my katana, the soft rasp shivering through the stairwell, and smiled grimly. “Ready,” I whispered. Jackal grinned and pulled open the door with a rusty screech.

A cold breeze ruffled my hair, hissing into the stairwell.

The room beyond the frame was huge, with a low ceiling and shattered windows surrounding us. Low sections of wall created a labyrinth of cubicles and narrow aisles, perfect for hiding behind or staging an ambush. Rubble, fallen beams and rotting desks were scattered throughout the floor, silent and still, and the room seemed to hold its breath.

It was also completely saturated in gore. Blood streaked the walls and ceiling, splattered in arching ribbons across the cubicle walls. Some of it wasn’t human; I could pick out the subtle hints of animal blood in the room—dogs and cats and rodents, musky and somehow tainted. But the rest of it was definitely human, and the Hunger roared up with a vengeance.

“Well,” Jackal remarked, gazing around the carnage-strewn space, “that doesn’t scream ‘trap’ at all. Is this the best Sarren could come up with? I’m rather disappointed.” Raising his head, he bellowed into the room: “Hey, minions! Daddy’s home, and he’s not happy! But because I’m such a nice guy, I’m going to give you a choice. You can make it easy for yourself and blow your brains out right now, or I can slowly twist your head around until it pops right off your neck. Your move!”

For a moment, there was silence. Nothing stirred beyond the door, though if I listened hard enough, I thought I could hear the acceleration of several heartbeats, the scent of fear rising up with the blood.

Then something small, green and oval came arching through the air toward us, thrown by an arm behind an overturned desk, and Jackal grinned.

“Wrong answer,” he muttered.

Lunging past me, he grabbed the object before it could hit the ground and, blindingly fast, hurled it back into the room.

There was a muffled, “Shit!” from behind the desk.

And then something exploded in a cloud of smoke and fire, flinging a pair of bodies into the open, mangled and torn.

Jackal roared, the sound eager and animalistic, as a few dozen raiders leaped up from behind desks and half walls and sent a hail of gunfire into the room.

I lunged behind a desk as bullets sprayed the floor and put a line of holes in the walls behind me. Gripping my katana, I peeked around the corner, trying to pin down where the attacks were coming from. I didn’t see Kanin, but Jackal charged a cubicle with a roar, fangs bared. Several bullets hit him, tearing through his coat and out his back, but the vampire didn’t slow down. Leaping over the desk, he grabbed one raider by the collar, yanked him off his feet, and slammed his head against the surface. Blood exploded from the raider’s nose and mouth, and Jackal hurled him away to go after another.