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Ales, then tilted her head back and smiled up at Marcus Don’t tell me: now I really look like an alien

He srin And you’re hot when you’re green

A will appreciate your collective beauty, Seth drawled, once we find hilanced around

The baseh with various-sized boxes of the crap people who used their basee holes had been knocked through two of the walls Beyond lay passageways dug from the dirt and shored up with buttresses that looked less than stable

Ami pointed to one of the tunnels There He’s down there

Seth slid one of his katanas from its sheath and took the lead, Ami just behind him Marcus drew both of his short swords and followed theroundhog burrows, branched off on either side Within them, Marcus could see unkeround by the dozen, sleeping as though dead

Seth keptforward until Ami touched his back

There She pointed into one of the dirt caves

Marcus stared

A -sized, four-poster bed had been plunked down in the center of the rooolden monstrosity Étienne would say screaold silk material, water stained and streaked with dirt and blood, draped the ceiling and walls in clumsy curtains An actual throne, as heavy and horrifically tacky as the bed, rested in one corner, the only other furniture present At its base lay the bloody, broken corpse of a young woman A fresh kill

Marcus returned his attention to the bed

The , A else present, tangled around a thin figure sprawled on his stonized him as the vamp who had wielded the tranquilizer pistol Three vampires slept curled on their sides at the foot of the bed like pets Over a dozen others slu, crude weapons in hand

If any one of them awoke and sounded an alarm, the others would rise to attack, and their brethren would pour down the tunnel

New plan, Seth said and touched their shoulders

The next thing Marcus knew, they stood beside Sarah and Roland on the front porch

Squinting against the sudden afternoon brightness, A around her neck

Return to the trees where we arrived and prepare to silence and restrain the va, Seth instructed, then vanished

Marcus sheathed his weapons, picked up Aot there a millisecond before he did

Can you still hear me, honey? Marcus asked Ami, as he set her down

Yes

Back away a safe distance and only fire your weapons if you have to

Careful not to make a sound, Ami backed away and drew her other Glock She didn’t bother to attach the silencers Even the best silencer couldn’t quiet the report enough to keep a vahbors went, she didn’t think gunfire would be what stuck in their minds after today

In the shade just inside the trees, Seth appeared, bent over with one hand on the back of the va, who lay in the sa him, Seth leapt away and raced for the bundle

As the vampire roused with a snarl and flipped over, Roland’s boot connected with the side of his head

Aainst her ribs as Marcus swooped in and grabbed the va a single sound fro

Seth swept past in a breeze Hurry The others awake

Ary shouts erupted inside the house

Get out of here, Seth urged as he placed it on the grass a few yards away Now

Sarah darted in and picked up the struggling va feet, which kicked hard enough to kill a h the trees

Aed her legs around his waist She wrapped her arrips As Marcus hurried after Sarah and Roland,so quickly the forest around the

Through the foliage, she saw Seth’s forh the back of his coat

Aht of him as trees closed in around the trees Ami couldn’t even see at this speed The blue sky above theht as thunder ruolden flaony swelled in a macabre chorus

Ami buried her face in Marcus’s neck War with it more cries