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"Secret" This frouards leaped atit back and forth in a Z pattern, the steel bladesound as it parted the air in front of uard, who fell in three neat slabs at my feet

With the wet,the platfor crowd seehtened voices, and someone threw up If I hadn’t been so iht have been sick too I wanted to turn uard still planned to prove his loyalty to hisit was the vampire who had nearly thrownto try killing me for purely personal reasons too

He bellowed atsure I was focused on the six-foot-seven bulk of hi it on, Baldy," I said, andthe blade in ave him pause Our eyes locked, and I was sure we both kne this would end, but where we disagreed was on which of us would be dead

He charged at , sliding to a halt against a closed convenience stand Next to hi ade hed nothing, and hurled it at e it, but his ailanced offme down to one knee Had he been farther back he could have hit et the properthe hit did was give me a fe bruises It also made him believe he had the upper hand, now that I was back on the floor

He chuckled and opened his ot the chance I rolled forward so I was less than two feet fro him neatly in half, where he and his insides slopped to the floor next to his fora that we had an audience, most of ere now in a panic-induced state of shock My arm hurt like a bitch, and if Charlie had let me kill him back at the hotel, this wholeto be hell to pay from the Tribunal later, but at theon my mind

I turned to Charlie, as standing still in the way only a vaht avoid being seen Fear painted his face, and he didn’tclever to say to me as I stalked towards him with slow, deliberate steps The front of my dress was splattered with blood the last vaed across the tile floor, e a loud, eerie squeal that ate away at the silence that had fallen over the crowd

I stopped about four feet from Charlie, the sword at my side My vision was clear, ht it," I said, and even toIt was too calht ave out under him He collapsed onto his knees and looked up at ave me a brief pause because it almost made me want to take pity on hih like the voice of an often-overlooked angel on my shoulder "You don’t have to do this" I don’t knohere he’d gotten the gun, but its sested it came from an ankle holster Out of the corner of my eye I could see he had it trained on me, and in spite of the shake in his voice, his hands were perfectly steady

Heto use the sword for defense when he’d kicked it to me

"You don’t understand" I raised the blade so it was even with Charlie’s eyes "He has to die"

"No one else has to die" The cop in hiirl from our date, just a threat that needed to be neutralized Funny, because that’s exactly what Charlie was to h shock for someone, and first one screahs of noise to the othereighty silence of the standoff between Tyler, myself and Charlie Tyler loaded a bullet into the chaainst Charlie’s forehead

"Don’t be a hero, Tyler" The voice , but it was calm and male

Holden had arrived, and with hi the panic-stricken crowd they were only extras in awaivers on the over each and every one of those poor human suckers

My focus was still all for Charlie, but I could see his terror was slipping away The arrival of the vampires seeht thisto walk away, I was about to show hi over his gun, and judging by the detective’s dazed expression, he wasn’t going to re My vampire, whose face was a little bruised, , because when he looked at the pile of body parts behind me, all I saw in his countenance was satisfaction

He was proud of me

"Don’t you have a job to do?" He looked past me to Charlie