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Santana was no longer alone By the scent patterns I counted five hu of stress and fear, probably barely alive from blood loss, and maybe two other vamps, but the scents were hard to read beneath the chlorine and the stink of Santana burning His being on fire ht et along with I breathed steadily and discerned the va their scent positions as best I was able, I held two fingers curled down near ers, before pointing in two different directions

Elito be stuck in this position--the position of deciding who lived and who died Or, rather, who remained undead and who found true-death I held out a hand, palesture said, Your choice I hoped it indicated that if the va participants, yes

I patted the left side of my chest to indicate a heartbeat and pointed where I smelled humans Eli nodded and flipped down his ocular I eased out of the foliage to give him better room and visual access He flipped back and forth between the low-light and the infrared oculars and used his entire hand to point out where the hu harder on Beast’s night vision, I spotted so close to the far end of the pool, silvery andThe vision resolved into hu but still alive Barely Insideht be so close to death they couldn’t be saved This was going to bein SWAT and ht just finish off the humans if they heard sirens or s vamp HQ for backup It was a risk to do neither, butUndecided, I held upif the vaht show on infrared, but they always showed on low-light Eli pointed to lounge-type garden furniture beneath the gallery An un form reclined on each one, which I could see now that he pointed theth of the courtyard apart I nodded Then he pointed up and inside the part of the house farthest fro hot up there, showing in infrared on his PIR device

Like maybe a vamp on fire Yeah

Two on the lower floor near the pool, one or two upstairs Why couldn’t they all be in one place, easy to herd up and dispatch? I pointed to the vaes and ht,facedown It raised up and Eli took it--him or her--froht stabbing up into the vae In a hu stroke that would sever theit healthy It was said to be so painful that a human taken down couldn’t even draw breath to scream but would bleed out and die on the spot Silently

Didn’t happen quite that ith the vamp The death as an instant ululation that echoed off the house walls and into the night The other vah, toward Eli from twenty feet away If the vamp had used his vamp speed, I never would have had a chance--there would have been a pop of displaced air and Eli dead on the ground But the vamp was in predatoron Beast, I leaped too, judging the vamp’s speed and direction even as I shoved off with my back foot We hit in hting

The next es of va at us with talons and fangs The sound of blows landing And the overwhelun as Eli eazine into the va, not even the screa, mostly in two parts, but still alive, soround, a silver stake in her heart but still clawing at the lawn, trying to reach me I kicked her over and raoodsilver, and vamp blood filled the air Finally the staked vamp lay still, weirdly not yet true-dead, but close She looked like she had been in intihter that I couldn’t hear

The face of the vamp at my feet resolved into so also I knew them Lorraine and Cieran, formally of Clan Desmarais, or maybe of Mearkanis I didn’t remember and it really didn’t matter, because both clans had lost in the vamp war last year and the vamps who had survived had been seconded to Clan Pellissier In Pellissier they were the lowest of the low, as all vamps from defeated clans were But more important, they had once served as scions to Adrianna She had turned them; they were her children It was no accident that they were here with Santana It had to have been planned froh whether Santana had found theht hiht never know Not now Because no as I leaving the for the nearest door, raun I fell into place at his left The door to the long, narrow hallway that separated the front half of the house fro point, which my Beast didn’t like at all But I knew Eli could survive a frontal attack by using thean attack from behind

But the place was e with a soft hum It smelled a lot like the Rousseau Clan Home, of old vamp blood and mold, but there was also an overlay of Clorox In the last few hours, someone had been there to clean Beneath the smell of cleansers were the fresher smell of human blood and the stink of scorched vamp Joseph Santana, aka Joses Bar-Judas, aka the Son of Darkness, was there And so was a feer any doubt Inside, I cursed

My hearing was returning and sirens sounded in the distance, still hbors, upset over a little weapons fire in the ht"