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  “Ebon, no!” I managed to yell, before the security man on my back squashed me too flat for speech. I drew my legs up underneath me and heaved, twisting with all the strength I could muster. He was only a normal person; compared to Van’s dhampiric strength, he was a clinging toddler. I shook him off easily, surging to my feet. The room seemed full of people, colors swimming together in my blurred sight. Even my Bloodline sense felt confused, fuzzy. “Ebon!”

  I caught a flash of white-blond hair, and an instant later Ebon’s shoulder pressed against mine. “Thee a’right?” he said, the country accent incongruous with the blood streaked over his chin and the desire for murder in his eyes.

  “Jesus Christ,” someone said, his voice shaking. Squinting against the light, I saw a hospital orderly staring at us in terror, holding a radio. “What are you?”

  “No!” I grabbed at Ebon’s sleeve as he lunged forward. “They’re ordinary people; we can’t hurt them!”

  “Emergency, intruders in room 117, call the police,” the orderly gabbled into his radio. Another white-uniformed figure lay sprawled at his feet. A nurse was struggling with Sarah’s limp body, trying to untie the bonds holding her to the bed. There was too much going on. The Bloodline filled my head with a roar like the ocean. I was drowning underneath it, the tides of my blood rising to sweep me away.

  “Surrender or I will use force!” The security guard I’d knocked off my back was up again, all six feet six of him. His face was contorted with fear, but he still squared into a fighting stance. Next to me, I felt Ebon’s muscles tense. “Hands up! Against the wall!”

  Running feet echoed down the corridor. I felt a strange surge of recognition, as if whoever was coming was someone familiar, someone connected to me.

  A plain, dumpy, middle-aged woman in a pristine white nurse’s uniform appeared in the doorway. She took in the whole scene at a glance. Not a trace of surprise showed in her face.

  “Oh my,” the woman said in a rich, rueful voice that shot fire through my veins. “Now this is certainly going to tax my powers of improvisation.”

  “M-matron?” stammered the nurse who’d been untying Sarah.

  “Well.” Lilith smiled, exposing sharp-edged teeth. “Not exactly.”

  Chapter 17

  Lilith cocked an eyebrow at the confused security guard. “I don’t suppose I can convince you that these are approved visitors?”

  He gaped at her.

  Lilith sighed regretfully. “I didn’t think so. In that case …” She drew back her hand, pointing her fingers—and, still smiling, thrust it straight through the security guard’s chest.

  The humans never had a chance. Even as the guard started to crumple, Lilith was moving in a blur of superspeed. Two sharp cracks rang out, and then Lilith was back where she had started, still wearing that small, pleased smile. The security guard’s body hit the ground, immediately followed by the orderly and the nurse; limp, necks broken.

  “We’ll have to do this the other way.” Lilith licked delicately at the blood covering her fingers. She stepped over the bodies, her gaze sweeping over both Sarah and myself. “Are you quite all right, my darlings?”

  Ebon interposed his own body between the woman and myself. His hands were raised defensively, though his movements were stiff, the wounds in his shoulders still only half closed. “You.”

  “Me,” Lilith agreed. She shimmered for an instant, mist rippling down her form from head to toe. When it cleared, she stood six inches taller: a straight, elegant figure with a narrow chin and razor-sharp cheekbones, her dark hair in a geometrically precise bob. She exuded an effortless chic so compelling that I wanted to do nothing more than sit at her feet and stare up at her.

  Her black, slanted eyes watched Ebon warily. “Xanthe darling.” Her voice was like chocolate over caramel; it even made me like the sound of my first name. “You must have a lot of questions.”

  “Uh—” I was sure that I had, but at the moment my mind was completely blank. She was like every head girl, every clique leader and trendsetter and sports team captain that I’d ever wanted to impress, all crammed into one package. And all I could think was that I was short and squat and had a stupid haircut.

  Oh God, she was looking at me. What had the question been again? “Yes?” I squeaked, panicked.

  “As soon as we get out of here, we’ll have a lovely, long chat, I promise.” My blood sang in my veins as she smiled at me. She liked me! She wanted to talk to me! “But first I need you to help me with a little something.”

  “Jane!” Ebon shouted. I glared at him. How could he be so rude as to interrupt her when she was speaking? “Jane, no, don’t—”

  “I just need you to help me kill this man,” Lilith said, raising one long, elegant hand to wave languidly at Ebon.

  This seemed eminently reasonable. After all, he was evasive and weird and had a dumb accent. One of the silver spikes that Van had pounded through him earlier was lying next to my foot; dreamily, I reached down and picked it up. All I had to do was stick it straight through his chest, and all my problems would be over.

  “Jane, no.” Ebon backed away as I straightened. His eyes flicked from me to Lilith and back again. “Jane, wake up!”

  “What’s going on?” Sarah’s voice sounded wobbly as she struggled back to consciousness. She pushed herself upright with an obvious effort, rubbing at deep red marks ringing her wrists and ankles where her bonds had cut into her flesh. I could feel the blood moving through the veins under her skin, as strong and sweet as if it beat in my own. I felt the jolt that went through her as she saw Lilith. “What’s happening?”

  “Wait a sec,” I said to her reassuringly over my shoulder. Ebon was backed into the corner; he tried to duck past me, but I caught him with a hand round his throat. “I just have to kill this man, and then I’ll explain everything.”

  “Huh?” Her confusion beat through my heart, fogging Lilith’s brilliant light. “I thought—isn’t that your friend?”

  “Fight it, Jane!” The man’s hands clawed at my own, but I was easily stronger than him. “You know me, remember?”

  “Wait!” Sarah pitched herself off the bed, stumbling forward to grab my sleeve. “You said he was a good guy.”

  “Hush, Sarah darling,” commanded Lilith, impatience biting in her voice. “Xanthe, now.”

  I stared at the man I held pinned against the wall. Did I know him? I could feel his throat vibrating under my palm—he was humming something, desperately, his eyes locked on mine, willing me to remember.

  Iron Maiden. He was humming an Iron Maiden song.

  My living room, colored notes flashing up on the TV screen, his long, elegant hands flying over the buttons, his blue eyes alight with glee.

  When it came to a choice between the exotic vampire sire I’d seen kill three people, or the dork I’d watched rocking out on a miniature plastic guitar, there was no contest.

  I flipped the spike around, pressing it into his hand as I released him. “Ebon, go!” Lilith blurred, but he was even faster. There was an instant of confused motion, then they were both stationary again, but at opposite ends of the room. There was a tear in the collar of Ebon’s coat; Lilith’s perfect bob was slightly mussed. They stared at each other, perfectly motionless.

  “No, stop!” Sarah’s hand clutched at me as I cast around frantically, looking for something to use to help Ebon. “Make them stop it!”

  “Lie low!” I pushed her back onto the bed. The place where the second spike had been was covered by Van’s massive, prone form; I knelt to try to roll him out of the way. He stirred under my hands, groaning, and his eyes fluttered open.

  “Watch out!” I ducked at Sarah’s shout, covering Van. Something flew past my head and crashed into the wall: Ebon, springing instantly to his feet. Four long, parallel cuts from Lilith’s fingernails gashed his cheek and nose, barely missing his eyes and covering his face in a mask of blood.

  “How pathetic,” Lilith said. She sounded as languid as ever
, but there was blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. An angry light filled her dark eyes. “This is what I’ve been running from all these years? If I’d known you were this slow, I’d have turned and squashed you long ago.”

  Ebon shook his head, bright drops of his blood scattering over the white bed linens. His lips drew back in a snarl.

  “What are you holding back for?” Lilith spread her arms in invitation, though her eyes never left Ebon’s. Down the Bloodline, I felt her muscles tense in anticipation. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  Help us, I mouthed at Van as I grabbed the silver spike from underneath him. In three. One—two—

  Van’s eyes widened as he looked past me to Lilith. “No, wai—” he started, but I was already hurling myself forward. I caught Lilith completely off guard; before she could get out of the way, I’d crashed into her knees, knocking us both to the floor. I felt her leg start to dissolve under my hand, as if she was trying to turn into mist to get away. I slammed the spike randomly into her abdomen, and she went solid again.

  “Ebon, hurry!” I yelled as Lilith twisted in my grip. I risked a glance at him, trying to see what was holding him up. He was just—standing there, the spike hanging from his hand as he stared at me. Under the blood, his face was twisted with indecision. “Ebon!”

  In one movement, he was next to me, his own weight bearing down on Lilith’s chest, his face only inches from mine. Lilith redoubled her efforts, but between us we pinned her to the ground. As Ebon raised the stake over her heart, his pale, guilt-stricken eyes met mine. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered—not to Lilith, but to me.

  He drove the stake down.

  “No!” I was thrown off Lilith as Van slammed between Ebon and myself, knocking us both aside. The stake skittered across the floor; with a shout of triumph, Lilith tore the other spike out of her side and erupted into silver mist. I looked up just in time to see her streak toward the window, curling out into the night air. In seconds, she was gone.

  Ebon sprang to his feet, sheer murder in his face, but was met with an uppercut from Van that was powerful enough to send him staggering. The vampire hunter sprang for him, and I caught the glint of another stake in his hand. Desperately, I snatched at his leg. I managed to throw him off balance enough that he missed his swipe and planted the stake in Ebon’s side rather than his heart.

  “Van!” I clung with grim determination to his boot as he tried to shake me off. “Cut it out!”

  Ebon staggered back, ripping the stake out of his flesh. With a last wild, stricken glance at me, he whirled, his body coming apart into dense gray vapor. The stake clattered to the ground. He poured out the same way Lilith had gone, instantly vanishing into the dark.

  Van stopped trying to kick me, but I was so pissed off that I sank my teeth into his leg anyway. I instantly regretted it, both for the disgusting taste and for the fact that he booted me hard in the head. I let him go and rolled to my feet. “You idiot,” I screamed at him, spitting blood. “You let her get away!”

  “I know,” he snapped, not looking any happier than I felt. He limped over to the bed, where Sarah had collapsed unconscious again. She moaned and stirred groggily at his touch. “You have to come with me,” he told her. He picked up Brains’s jar and shoved it into a pocket. “They’ll be back, and the normal authorities can’t handle them. I’m here to protect you—I’ll get you to safety.”

  “Backpack,” she mumbled. She looked shell-shocked, barely aware of what was going on. “Can’t go without my backpack....”

  Van slung the indicated bag over his shoulder. “I’ve got it. Come on now, we’ve got to hurry.” He lifted her up, cradling her in his arms. “And you have to come too,” he added sourly, glaring in my direction.

  “What sort of a vampire hunter are you?” I demanded as he shouldered the window open.

  “A real one,” he said, clambering over the sill. Sarah let out a muffled protest as he clipped her head against the window frame. “One that doesn’t let any human get hurt.”

  “She was a vampire!”

  “Yes,” he said grimly. “Your sire. And you’re effectively her sire.” He jerked his chin down to indicate Sarah. “And she is human.”

  “Yes! So what?” I yelled. “What does that matter?”

  “It matters, because”—he took a deep breath—“when you kill a vampire, its descendants die too.” He looked me in the eye, his face set. “All of them.”

  Chapter 18

  Your call cannot be connected at the moment.” The pleasant, automated voice echoed tinnily in the close confines of the van. “Please try again later.”

  “I am trying again later,” I yelled at Ebon’s iPhone in frustration. “I’ve been trying for hours! Mum, Dad, where are you?”

  The only response was a shrill, continuous beep as the call automatically ended. I jabbed at the screen with my feet until I managed to hit the right button to shut the phone up. I was lucky that Ebon had picked a handset that could be operated with only my toes.

  Of course, I wasn’t very lucky, considering that my entire family was mysteriously missing and unreachable, while I myself was bound, hand and foot, in the back of a van being driven God-knew-where by a guy who hated my very nature.

  When we’d finally escaped the hospital last night, we’d found Dad’s car right where we’d left it, but my family had been nowhere in sight. There hadn’t been time to work out where they’d gone, not with the alarms going off in the hospital and more police cars arriving; Van had shoved Sarah into the passenger seat of his white van, thrown me in the back, and taken off with his foot flat on the floor. I’d tried calling Dad on Ebon’s iPhone, but only got the voice mail message. No one had answered at home either, nor on any of the family mobiles. I’d still been trying to reach someone, anyone, when the sun had come up and laid me out like a brick to the back of the head.

  And I awakened to find myself wrapped in approximately two metric tons of silver-plated steel chains. I was going to slaughter Van when I finally got free.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I said to Brains, who was sulking at the bottom of its jar. Van had wrapped silver chains around that too and hung it from a ring set in the wall of the van. “Can you give me a hand?”

  Brains pointedly swished its fins, looking about as sardonic as a fish could.

  “Why couldn’t Mum have done her experiment on a useful animal, like a monkey?” I swore as the van bounced over another pothole, and I lost my grip on the iPhone. It skittered across the floor and disappeared amid the piles of boxes on the other side. I strained against my chains, trying without success to stretch a leg out to reach it. Something about the silver stopped me from misting; it made my skin feel tight and tingly, a bit like licking a battery. There was no way I could wiggle out of them either. Van obviously knew how to restrain a vampire.

  My eyes widened, and I would have face-palmed if I could. Van knew how to restrain an ordinary vampire. I braced my feet against the floor of the van, pulling against the chains with all my weight. Nothing. Closing my eyes, I tried to visualize superstrength flowing into my muscles, then flung myself forward again. Metal screeched in protest as the bolts securing the chains to the van started to pull free. I gathered myself for another attempt, blood pounding in my chest—

  The van grumbled to a halt. I heard the front doors open, followed by booted footsteps tramping round to the back. I quickly slumped back to hide the weakened bolts and let my head loll down to my chest, pretending to be asleep.

  The back door grated open. “Don’t bother, vampire,” Van growled as he climbed in. “I know what time someone as young as you arises.” Then, in a much gentler tone that definitely wasn’t aimed at me: “Are you sure you want to stay back here? I could get some pillows to make the front seat more comfortable—”

  “No, I need to lie down.” Sarah’s voice sounded faint with exhaustion. “Please.”

  “I’ll arrange things for you.” Van’s boot prodded me. I smelled leather
and sweat as he leaned over me to check my bindings. “Hm. And find some more chains.”

  “You are such a dead man.” Giving up my attempt at subterfuge, I opened my eyes. Sarah was sitting on the back of the van, her bare feet dangling. Her crumpled, blood-splattered pajamas swamped her waifish body. With her wide almond eyes and overall tragic air, she closely resembled Bambi after his mother was shot.

  Poor kid. It was hard to believe that this frail little girl was the Superluminal of online fame, creator of awesomely clever vids featuring the hottest TV vampires. She looked more like she should still be playing with Barbies. Why couldn’t Superluminal have turned out to be a kickass action heroine with her own combat boots?

  “Hi, Sarah,” I said, trying to sound as calm and in control as I could given that I was swamped under ten tons of metal. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay.” I offered her a friendly smile. She dropped her gaze, avoiding my eyes. Oops. Possibly I shouldn’t have shown her my teeth. Giving up on the futile attempt at reassurance, I turned my attention on Van. “Hey, listen, you’ve got to let me go. I can’t reach any of my family on the phone—they could be in trouble. I’ve got to get back there.”

  “I’ve been driving half the night. We’re miles away.” Van was busy shifting aside some of the boxes that lined the sides of the van, strapping them into new positions. “Though I’m not about to tell you exactly where, given that Elder Hakon could be listening in.”

  What with all Ebon’s lies, I’d almost forgotten about Lilith’s initial claim that Hakon was my great-grandsire. “So I really am descended from Hakon’s Bloodline? Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” Van sounded personally insulted, as if I’d questioned his ability to read. “I could taste it.”

  “Huh. So Lilith was telling the truth about that.” I was starting to wonder if everything Ebon had said was flat-out lies. “If she’s descended from Hakon, I guess that means she isn’t really an ancient, evil vampire-goddess either. Don’t suppose you could taste who she really is, could you?”