LITMIR.BIZ

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not going to kill you!” Ziggy rushed to clarify. “He just wants you back home.”

      “Ziggy, he has to consume the souls of every vampire he’s sired before he can become a god.” Nate did sound angry now. “I don’t know what line he’s been feeding you—”

      “No, listen! It was a mistranslation. He doesn’t need you. He needs someone else. He’s got it taken care of, and he’s going to let us live.” He swallowed. Why did it sound so implausible now? “He wants you back because he misses you.”

      “And you believe that? I raised you better than that.” Nate turned, as if he was going to leave.

      Ziggy looked up, signaled to the tops of the buildings on either side. They waited up there, hungry and mindless. “Oh, yeah. You did a good job raising me. Why, exactly, am I a vampire now?”

      When Nate turned back, they made their move.

      Jacob’s human soldiers were disgusting, filthy, stinking and strong. A steady diet of vamp blood did that to a human. Made them dangerous, addicted and loyal. Twenty of them dropped from the rooftops, landing on their feet, ready to fight rather than howling in pain with broken legs. They formed a circle around the two vampires, blocking off Nate’s escape.

      Please don’t let them hurt him, he pleaded to no one in particular. I’d have to kill them and he would know I can’t really force him to go back.

      “Ziggy,” Nate began, and there was panic in his voice.

      Good. It gave him strength. “I’m not a kid anymore, Nate. And you’re coming with me.”

      

       Turn left off Cherry Street. Do you see it?

      I scanned the street frantically for the sight of the van. It was parked in the shadows, across from a building I knew too well. I see it.

      “I see it,” Bill said, pointing ahead. “Why are you slowing down? It’s right there!”

      “I know it’s right there,” I snapped. I pressed the gas pedal, suddenly aware that I had slowed.

      Club Cite was a squat brick building with a peeling coat of black paint. All the goth kids and wannabe vampires hung out there. I knew, because it was the place I’d first met Dahlia. And the place Nathan had first met Ziggy.

      “How could he have not known this was going to be a trap?” I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief.

       Carrie! I need help!

      I pulled the car up to the curb and hurtled out before it was fully in Park. I heard Bill yell out behind me, but I cut him off, barking, “Stay in the car until I call for you!”

      I rounded the building, to the alley where Nathan and Ziggy stood, surrounded by…junkies?

      The people closing in on them were not vampires. I could tell by the smell of their blood. As disgusting as it sounds, humans smell like food, and they were definitely food. But when one grabbed Nathan and he spun, landing a punch squarely to the thing’s jaw, nothing happened. Well, a close approximation to nothing. Its head snapped back the way anyone’s would when taking a punch. But these…people, for lack of a better term, looked half-starved. Their dirty skin showed through ragged clothes, their eyes were sunken, skin tight across the sharp bones of their skulls. They looked like famine victims. Nathan is strong, even by vampire standards. The one he hit should have ended in a shower of exploded skull and bits of brain.

      The surprise on his face mirrored my own when the skeletal man shook off the pain, wiped the blood from his nose, and repaid the blow with a right hook that came so fast and hard I heard the bones of Nathan’s face crack.

      I rushed forward, a stake drawn. Even if they weren’t vampires, a stake to the heart will kill most things. Ziggy caught sight of me and held his hands out in front of himself, as if from the distance he stood he could stop me. “Don’t!”

      I ignored him, my stake sinking into the back of the creature that had hit Nathan. The man screamed and fell forward. His body stiffened up, the wounded muscles contracting to lock the stake in place. I had to plant a foot in the small of his back and use both hands to jerk the weapon free, releasing a tremendous arc of blood.

      Going in, my intent had been to save Nathan. I don’t know if I thought it would be enough to cause a distraction, or if I thought killing one would scare the others off, but neither plan panned out. As I stepped back from the dying creature, two more attacked me. I killed the first easily, jamming the stake in her throat as she charged me. The second grabbed my shoulders from behind, holding me in a punishing grip. My flesh turned to pulp under the squeezing fingers, my bones audibly cracked. I couldn’t fight. I could barely breathe from the pain. I watched as the others caught Nathan and dragged him, struggling, to the other open end of the alley, and Ziggy followed.

      “Bill!” I screamed, taking a deep breath to gear up for another when the creature holding me let go, dropping me to the pavement with a blow to the back of the head. I managed to keep my face from smashing into the ground, but I couldn’t get up. The world spun, and in the white-outs of light from the pain exploding in my skull I saw the taillights of a car at the other end of the alley.

      They didn’t want to kill Nathan. They wanted to take him.

      Behind me, I heard the squeal of tires, and the sound sent pain like jagged glass through my brain. I focused on Bill’s voice shouting, “Get up, we’re going to lose them!” and managed to climb to my feet and to the car. My door wasn’t completely closed yet when Bill hit the gas. The tires squealed and the car jolted after the vehicle in front of us.

      “We don’t have enough…” I cradled my head in my hands and searched for the words between the flashbulbs of pain popping behind my eyelids. “We can’t go after him alone. They’re going to the Soul Eater.”

      “I hate to tell you, but we are alone. I don’t know anybody around here, and your crowd is apparently not too friendly.” He dropped his speed and changed lanes, putting at least four cars between us and the car carrying Nathan.

      “What are you doing? You’re going to lose him!” I leaned forward, gripping the dashboard as if the pressure from my hands could make the car go faster.

      Bill glanced at me sideways, an annoyed kind of look. “I’m not going to lose them. I know how to follow people without being obvious. Believe me, they’ll think we lost them, and they’ll be wrong.”

      I settled back reluctantly, keeping my eyes on the car as it zoomed ahead of us. “I don’t know what I’m worried about. If they get away, I can always get directions from Nathan.”

      “Yeah, that’s a handy trick,” he said offhandedly as he barely squeaked through a yellow light. “Do you know where we’re headed?”

      “We’re going south.” I shrugged. “Pretty soon we’ll run out of city, so keep an eye on them. Wherever they’re going has to be within a few more miles.”

      But it turned out I was wrong. They skipped all the major numbered streets and just kept heading south on Division Avenue, until there were no more streetlights and the buildings gave way to swamps and trees. Soon, we were the only cars on the road. There was no way they didn’t know we were following them.

      “What’s the plan, Stan?” Bill asked, jerking the wheel to make a hard turn onto a dirt road. The car ahead of us roared and shot farther from us.

      “We have to get Nathan before they get him to the Soul Eater.” I closed my eyes. “I just wish I knew how to do that.”

      “Well, I could run them off the road,” Bill suggested, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “It’s dangerous. But it’s not like they’re going to stop to get gas out here and we could just grab him then.”

      I nodded, remembering something Nathan had told me when I’d first become a vampire, that a car crash could kill me if the damage done

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