I know. Be careful.

  I watched him run to the pier and quickly make his way along it toward the water. My breath caught and held when he ducked between the pylons and out of sight.

  For a long torturous minute, I could hear nothing above the waves and the sounds on the pier, even with my demon hearing. I wanted to ask him what was happening, but I couldn’t risk distracting him.

  Just when I didn’t think I could stand it any longer, Charlotte and Marie started forward at the same time. They were gone before I could ask if Hamid was okay.

  As soon as the two female warriors disappeared beneath the pier, the distant sounds of fighting reached my ears. I moved a dozen or so yards closer, trying to hear what was going on while staying at a safe distance.

  I was so focused on trying to see what was happening beneath the pier that I didn’t notice the dark shape emerge from the water until it started to scuttle across the sand toward me.

  At first, I thought it was too small to be a Gargan because they were over ten feet long. But as it got closer, I could pick out the lobster-like shape and the large pincer claws that could snap a man in half. Based on its size, it had to be a young Gargan. I hoped it was a lot weaker than an adult because I was the only one between it and the hundreds of people on the pier.

  Lifting my sword, I ran to intercept the demon. It lunged at me as soon as I was within a few feet of it, but I evaded its snapping pincers. It might be fast in the water, but on land, I had the advantage.

  Staying out of its reach, I ran around the Gargan and struck out at the six legs on its left side. My blade sliced easily through the softer shell, and the demon staggered as two of its legs fell away. It made no sound as it steadied itself and came at me again.

  One of the Gargan’s long antennae whipped in my direction, and the stinging smell of ammonia reached my nose. I threw myself to the side as venom sprayed in my direction.

  I hit the sand and rolled to my feet, my blood boiling. My sword whistled through the air and removed the remaining four legs on the Gargan’s left side.

  “Try shooting that shit at me again,” I ground out as the demon fell over, wriggling on its side and exposing its soft underbelly.

  Jordan, Hamid said through the bond. There were three Gargans, but we got them. We’ll be out shortly.

  Make that four, I replied as I severed the two antennae so they couldn’t shoot more venom at me.

  Four? he echoed.

  I didn’t respond. I was too busy gutting the demon at my feet.

  I felt Hamid coming before the Gargan shuddered its last breath. Hamid stopped in front of me so suddenly that sand sprayed my legs. His lips pressed together in a thin line as he looked from me to the dead demon and back to me again.

  I took in his appearance, noting the rip in his jeans and the black blood on his clothes. I’d fared much better in my fight.

  “I ordered you to stay back,” he said angrily.

  I put my hands on my hips. “I did stay back. But what was I supposed to do when this thing came out of the water? You guys were a little busy.”

  He stared at the ocean and let out a ragged breath. “You’re right. You did what any warrior would have done.”

  I watched his handsome profile. “And?”

  Charlotte appeared beside him and looked down at the Gargan. “Good job, Jordan!”

  “Why, thank you, Charlotte,” I said in an exaggerated drawl.

  I started to walk away, but Hamid’s hand on my wrist stopped me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the pride in his eyes.

  “You did well. Not many warriors can say they have killed a Gargan, even a young one.”

  My chest warmed because Hamid didn’t bestow his praise lightly. As a warrior, his approval meant a lot to me.

  I smiled. “Thanks. I seem to be having a lot of firsts lately.”

  Marie interrupted our little moment. “How are we going to dispose of four gargans with every warrior in the city engaged elsewhere? And then there is the matter of the three half-eaten human bodies under the pier.”

  Hamid released my hand, all business again. “We’ll pull this one under the pier with the rest, and I’ll ask Orias to glamour them until we can get rid of them.”

  “And the humans?” I asked.

  “I’ll let the proper authorities know where they are, and they can spin their own story for the media,” he said, sounding like he’d done this before.

  While Hamid dragged the dead demon to the others, Charlotte, Marie, and I scoured the beach on either side of the pier to make sure there wasn’t another Gargan lurking nearby. We didn’t find anything, but that didn’t mean more wouldn’t come. Who knew what would show up here tonight?

  Orias had done an impressive job of spelling the onlookers. Not only did they forget what they’d witnessed, they all had the sudden urge to go home, which made our job easier.

  After Orias hid the bodies under a powerful glamour, we piled into the SUV and let Mason know we’d handled the situation at the pier. He sounded harassed as he filled us in on the mounting violence all over the city.

  “I can’t keep up with the calls,” he said, frustrated. “It’s like the city is under siege.”

  “Do what you can,” Hamid told him calmly. “What do you have for us?”

  Mason listed off half a dozen incidents, and we took the closest, which was at Douglas Park. We were too late to save the middle-aged couple who had been out walking their dog, but we took care of the two vampires that had killed them. Once again, Orias used a glamour to hide the vampire bodies, while Hamid let the authorities know about the two human bodies in the park.

  The body count continued to pile up as the night went on. Our team killed eleven vampires in the subway tunnels, plus another eight in other locations. We took out Incubi, Ranc demons, Gulaks, and two separate Lamprey infestations.

  “It’s like the demons are no longer afraid of humans learning of their existence,” I said after Orias had spelled a family to forget the two Gulaks that had tried to take a teenage girl right from her home.

  “We have observed that certain demons – the aggressive ones – will respond to the presence of a stronger demon,” Maria said. “An archdemon would definitely trigger their aggressive tendencies.”

  I climbed into the SUV. “Why haven’t we seen this in other cities where Alaron has been?”

  “He could have shielded himself to avoid detection,” Charlotte said as she sat beside me in the back. “I think he is deliberately riling up the demons here.”

  I thought she was right. The question was why? The obvious reason was to keep us all occupied and out of his way. He had to have something big planned, and that prospect scared me more than any demon we’d face out here.

  Throughout the night, Mason kept us apprised of the other teams’ statuses, and I tensed each time he mentioned a warrior getting hurt. A heavy silence fell over our group as we learned a member of Jon’s team had been killed by vampires.

  An hour later, we lost a warrior from the San Diego team. Mason didn’t know the details, but that didn’t make us feel the loss any less. After that news, Hamid wouldn’t leave my side, and I was surprised he didn’t order me back to the house. I was tired and filthy, but I wanted to be with him. I’d go insane not knowing where he was or what kind of danger he was facing.

  Just after four in the morning, our team responded to a false alarm out near the San Bernardino National Forest. We were walking back to the road where our SUV was parked when Mason told us the calls were dropping off at last. I was irritated about coming all the way out here for nothing, but relieved we could finally be seeing an end to this crazy night.

  “I can’t wait to get a shower,” I said wistfully when Hamid told us we were returning to the command center. “And then I plan to stay in bed until noon.”

  “You’ll need your sleep because we’ll be spending the next few days cleaning up from tonight,” Charlotte said from behind us.

  I groaned inwardly at the unpleasant job ahead of us. I had no problem doing the killing, but I hated the cleanup.

  Then I had an even more horrifying realization. Every job we’d done tonight had to be written up in a detailed report. The thought of spending hours doing field reports made my steps falter.

  Hamid immediately reached out to steady me. “You okay?”

  “I’m great. And I’ll be even better if you tell me I won’t have to write up any of the reports for tonight.”

  Everyone but Orias laughed. He was too busy walking ahead of us, muttering to himself. No matter how much time I spent with warlocks, I still found their behavior weird at times.

  Orias stopped abruptly and held up his hands, motioning for us to stop, too. Everyone went still. It was then that I noticed how quiet the woods were.

  My skin prickled, and it took me a few seconds to register the sensation. Magic.

  The warlock shouted something in Navajo. At first, nothing happened. Then the darkness around us began to dispel as a purplish shimmer filled the air. Farther away, I thought I saw indistinct shapes moving through the trees, but I couldn’t focus on them.

  Do you see that? I asked Hamid.

  Yes. He moved closer to me, and I could feel tension radiating off him. No matter what happens, don’t leave my side unless I tell you to run.

  What are they?

  Not human, was his less than comforting reply.

  Orias threw up his hands and began chanting so fast the words sounded like gibberish. The purple light changed until it was bright green, and it grew brighter until I could make out the forms a little better. They were shaped like people, and they formed a wide circle around us.

  My heart rate spiked, and my knuckles whitened around the hilt of my sword. It’s a trap.

  Hamid’s voice was calm in my mind. They’re hidden behind a glamour.

  What is Orias doing?

  I think he’s trying to erect a shield around us.

  My mind spun from the possibilities of what could be out there. After what we’d seen tonight, it could be anything.

  The thrill of pending battle filled me, along with a healthy dose of fear as I remembered the two people we’d lost tonight. Their deaths were a stark reminder that none of us was invincible, not even the big warrior beside me.

  The woods were eerily quiet, except for Orias’s chanting. Charlotte and Marie were so still behind us that I wondered if they were even there anymore. I didn’t dare turn my head to look for them, afraid to take my eyes from the faceless beings standing outside the ring of light.

  Orias jerked as if he’d been shot, and the green light dimmed. I sucked in a breath when I saw a few of the shapes move toward us. This was it.

  The warlock straightened and resumed chanting, and the light brightened again.

  I let out my breath.

  He motioned with one hand for us to follow him, and we began a slow trek to the road that couldn’t have been more than thirty yards ahead of us. I could see the glint of moonlight on the SUV through the trees. If he could maintain his shield a little longer, we might actually survive this.

  The thought had no sooner entered my mind when the glamour obscuring the beings surrounding us disappeared. The bottom fell out of my stomach when I saw what was out there.

  Vampires. Dozens of them, maybe fifty. Unless they were new vampires, we didn’t have a prayer of fighting them all.

  And they knew it. Malicious smiles spread across their faces, baring their long fangs to us. A few bolder ones took steps in our direction and hissed in pain when they came up against Orias’s shield. I’d never been so happy to have the warlock on our side.

  Hamid’s free hand slipped inside his coat.

  Hamid, no, I said urgently. You can’t.

  He wasn’t supposed to use the angel blade on anyone but Alaron. It was our only weapon against him, and we couldn’t tip our hand. But I also knew he would do anything to protect me.

  His hand stopped moving, and a wave of primal rage and fear surged across the bond. I will not let you die.

  A light flared from somewhere behind the line of vampires. Orias gasped and fell to his knees. “It’s him,” he choked out as if he were struggling to breathe. “Too…strong.”

  In an instant, I was surrounded by vampires. I heard Hamid’s voice in my head, calling my name as I struck out at them. I wounded several vampires before I was subdued and my sword was wrenched from my hand.

  Jordan, Hamid shouted in my mind, his voice full of impotent rage.

  I’m here. I struggled in my captor’s hold, trying to see Hamid. Where are you?

  I’m on the ground. There’s some kind of spell binding me. I can’t move.

  I looked down and spotted his feet through the mass of legs. I see you.

  The relief at knowing he was close by was pushed aside when magic wrapped around me. It encased me from head to toe until I feared it would smother me. I couldn’t move, and I tried not to panic as my lungs became starved for oxygen.

  I can’t breathe.

  I know, he said calmly, sounding weaker than he had a minute ago. You’re going to pass out soon, but your Mori will keep you alive.

  What about you?

  I’ll be here with you.

  The male vampire holding me from behind pressed his nose against the side of my throat and inhaled deeply. “Mmmm, young Mohiri.”

  “She’s not for you,” growled a female vampire.

  Their voices sounded far away as darkness filled my vision.

  Hamid? I called frantically, but there was no answer.

  I love you, I said before my world went dark.

  Chapter 19

  A sharp pain in my side pulled me back to consciousness. Swallowing a moan, I forced my heavy eyelids open. I had to blink a few times for things to come into focus, and I wished I hadn’t when I saw the vampire standing over me, his foot poised to kick me again.

  “About time you woke up,” he said sullenly, looking disappointed he didn’t have to deliver another blow.

  I didn’t speak as I cleared the last of the cobwebs from my head and took stock of the situation. Twenty feet above me was a ceiling of uneven rock, which meant we were in a cave of some kind. The cold ache in my body told me I was lying on the floor of the cave, and when I moved my legs, the clink of a heavy chain alerted me I wasn’t going anywhere. A shackle wrapped around my left foot, and a chain connected it to a thick bolt in the floor. My boots were gone, along with my coat.

  I whipped my head to the left and then to the right, releasing a breath when I saw Hamid lying on his side, facing away from me. Hamid? I called to him.

  He didn’t respond. Rolling over, I got to my knees and crawled to him.

  “Stay where you are,” barked the vampire.

  I ignored him and kept crawling. Because of the bond, I knew Hamid was alive, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t badly hurt.

  Pain shot through my ankle and up my calf as the vampire yanked hard on the chain, making the shackle bite into my leg.

  I fell onto my bruised side and snarled at him. “Touch me again and I’ll rip your balls off and shove them down your fucking throat.”

  The vampire took a hasty step back as a deep, grating laugh echoed off the cave walls. The sound made my stomach lurch, and I didn’t need to look to know who the laugh belonged to.

  “She’s got fire, that one,” Alaron boomed in a voice laced with amusement. “It’s too bad I won’t have any use for her when I’m done here.”

  Swallowing my fear, I sat up and got my first real look at my surroundings. The cave was large – maybe forty feet in diameter – and it was lit by torches. Through the wide entrance, I could barely make out a dark rocky landscape, but I had no problem seeing the ocean of stars in the night sky.

  My mind worked furiously to figure out where we were. Definitely not Los Angeles. I shivered, and my Mori immediately sent warmth through me. Based on the temperature and the fact that we were in a cave, my guess was somewhere in the desert.

  I forced myself to look at the archdemon, who stood in the center of the cave, and I could only stare at his grotesque face. The flesh was rotting and split open across his forehead and cheekbones, and there was no skin at all on the bottom jaw, allowing me to see the bone and decomposing muscle. At the corner of his eye, something moved, and I nearly gagged when I saw it was maggots.

  Alaron’s mouth formed a twisted semblance of a smile. “Not my best look, I know. These human bodies are so frail.” He waved a hand at the body hidden beneath his robe. “Millions of years of evolution, and this is all they could come up with.”

  I didn’t respond, sensing my participation in the conversation was not required. All I wanted was for him to turn his attention elsewhere so I could go to Hamid.

  A female vampire walked over to Alaron, carrying a wooden bucket. He took it from her, and the contents sloshed. My nostrils flared at the coppery smell of fresh human blood that made my stomach turn.

  Alaron knelt and dipped his fingers in the blood. He began to draw a symbol on the floor as if I wasn’t there.

  I shot the vampire near me another look that promised a messy death, and then I crawled to my mate. Hamid? I called, getting no reply.

  His eyes were closed, but his breathing was deep and even. I rolled him gently onto his back and checked him for injuries. Finding none, I sat and cradled his head on my lap as I tried to think of how we were going to get out of this alive.

  I studied the heavy iron shackle around my ankle. My first thought was that Hamid could break our chains when he woke up, but then I felt something I’d been too preoccupied to notice until now. There was a faint uncomfortable tingle in my foot that could only mean one thing – magic. Alaron would not have gone through all the trouble of capturing us only to make it easy for us to escape.

  I would never give up as long as there was a drop of hope, but I had to admit our situation looked bleak. I counted ten vampires in the cave with us, and I suspected there were more outside. Hamid and I were shackled with no weapons, and his coat was gone, too. That meant the angel blade – the one weapon that might have saved us – was lost to us. And we had no warlocks to help us this time. I saw no sign of Orias, Charlotte, or Marie, and I didn’t want to think of what had most likely happened to them.