“No. I will do my best to protect you from them. That is why I came here.”

  “Protect me. And risk your own life?”

  “Unlife,” Ante replied with a tiny grin.

  “But—why? We just met. Why would you give a shit about me?” Peter’s face was pinched, as if he expected a blow. As if he couldn’t quite fathom the concept of having anyone on his side.

  Ante unlaced their fingers so he could cup Peter’s face in his palms. “Because, Peter, after a century and a half, perhaps it is time I gave a shit about something.”

  Chapter Nine

  THEY had sex again. They shouldn’t have, since there were other urgent matters to contend with. But they wanted each other so badly. And if they were going to be destroyed, there were worse ways to go than after a rousing bout in bed.

  By the time they lay sprawled on the mattress, spent and sticky, only an hour remained before sunrise. Ante considered the room’s single window. It faced east, which wasn’t ideal, but it was small and grimy and looked out on a narrow air shaft. The building behind them would block most of the morning sun, and Ante could avoid whatever beams managed to get into the room through the warped shades.

  He levered himself upright. “I am going to shower, and then we should sleep. As soon as it is dark, we will leave.”

  “Where to?”

  Ante rubbed the back of his head. “I do not know. I think… north and east. The Shadows have a weaker presence in the Plains States.”

  “Nebraska, here we come. Wahoo. How will we get there?”

  “Car would be best. Do you have a credit card?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nor do I. Which means renting a car—”

  “Don’t worry.” Peter grinned cockily.

  Ante lifted his eyebrows in question.

  “I’ll sweet-talk a rental agent into letting us pay cash. Or I’ll convince someone they want to sell us their wheels really cheap.”

  Huh. Ante hadn’t thought about how Peter’s skills might assist them. They needed all the help they could get. “Good. As soon as night falls, we go and find a car. We will need something with a sizable trunk.”

  “Why?”

  “So if necessary, I have shelter during the day.”

  Peter scowled. “Shit. Yeah, fine.” Then he perked up slightly. “Maybe we can find a pickup with a camper shell, or even a little panel truck or something.”

  “As long as it is inconspicuous. All right, shower.”

  “I’d join you, but we won’t both fit. Anyway….” Peter hopped off the bed, strode to the closet, and flung it open. A medium-sized black suitcase sat on a luggage rack. While Ante observed, intrigued, Peter unzipped the bag and drew out a plastic grocery sack. “Munchies,” Peter explained.

  “Of course.” With fascination and more than a little fondness, Ante watched as Peter dumped an assortment of packaged items onto the bed. Most of them were sweets—cookies, powdered-sugar donuts, and candy bars—although the collection also included potato chips and some kind of packaged meat product that didn’t look remotely edible.

  Peter must have noticed Ante’s expression. “You’re hardly one to judge, Mr. A-Positive-For-Breakfast.” Peter shoved a donut into his mouth.

  “And that is not really food. It is… sugar and chemicals.”

  “Which is, apparently, what elves need. Huh. Wonder if that’s how the whole cookies thing started.”

  “We will find sanctuary somewhere with a kitchen, and I will show you how to make proper dishes. Janjetina. Goulash. Sarma. Or if you must have sweets, orahnjača and savijača.” He licked his lips at the distant memories.

  “I don’t know what any of that stuff is, but I’m prepared to enjoy having a vampire chef. In the meantime, though, it’s a Slim Jim for me.” He waved a long sausage-like thing.

  “Dobar tek,” said Ante and headed for the bathroom.

  Then he heard the scream.

  Ante froze, but Peter kept eating, oblivious. The sound must have been too faint for human—or elfin—ears, but it was obviously a man shrieking in pain.

  “Get dressed,” Ante barked, diving for the clothing he’d discarded on the floor.

  Peter gaped in puzzlement. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Now!”

  To his credit, Peter moved quickly. While Ante tugged on his own jeans and T-shirt and jammed his feet into shoes, Peter grabbed a similar outfit from his suitcase and put it on.

  “Anything here you cannot live without?” Ante asked, nodding toward the photo of young Peter and his mother.

  “Yeah… um, just a sec.” After shoving his wallet into a pocket, Peter put on a leather jacket. He slid the picture into the inner pocket and filled the outer ones with junk food.

  Meanwhile, Ante peered through the window, jumping slightly when another scream sounded. The desk clerk was holding out longer than Ante would have predicted, especially since Ante had been able to bribe him cheaply. Perhaps he’d sensed the Shadows’ ill intentions and wanted to protect his customer. If so, good for him.

  The window had been painted shut long ago, and Ante had to use his enhanced strength to open it. He pointed. “Fire escape. Hurry.”

  “What the fuck, Ante?”

  “They’re here.”

  “The Shadows? Where? How do you know?” Peter looked around frantically, as if expecting vampires to leap from the corners of the small room.

  Ante wanted to shake him into obeying, but he kept his voice even. “They are in the lobby, torturing the clerk into revealing your location.” Another scream, hoarser than before.

  “How can you tell?”

  “I hear him,” Ante ground out. “Come on!”

  Although Peter looked doubtful, he obeyed. Ante followed closely behind and slid the window shut. Maybe that would slow their pursuers for a moment or two as they tried to figure out where Peter and Ante had gone. Dammit! Had Ante somehow led them here? No time to worry about that now.

  “Climb!” he ordered.

  The fire escape was rusted and rickety. Ante didn’t worry about what a fall would do to him—he might be unsure of sixty-five stories, but he knew only three would do him little harm. Peter, on the other hand, was probably not so durable.

  They made it to the roof without mishap—and without being discovered. Holding a finger to his lips to signal silence, Ante took Peter’s arm and dragged him to the middle of the roof. He made a stay put gesture and, hoping Peter would comply, crept to the building’s edge. When he peered down over the front entrance, he saw three figures pacing restlessly. He couldn’t identify them from this angle, but they must have been Shadows. He’d assumed they would be there, which was why he’d taken Peter up rather than down. If they’d descended, they’d have been trapped in a courtyard, their only escape being through the Conway itself or via a narrow driveway that led to the building’s front.

  But now they needed to get off the roof before they were discovered. And dawn was already scratching at his shoulders. Shit.

  Ante hurried back to where Peter waited. “What the fuck is going on?” Peter whispered.

  “They’re down there.” Ante pointed.

  “But—”

  “Shh. They have good hearing.”

  Peter glowered and crossed his arms, but he fell silent. Ante looked around, frantic for ideas. Perhaps he could jump down and distract the Shadows long enough for Peter to escape. But that wouldn’t work. No matter how preoccupied they might be with Ante landing in their midst, they wouldn’t miss Peter trying to scurry away. And if Peter remained on the roof, they’d just come up after him.

  Cars zoomed on the nearby freeway as if mocking their entrapment.

  Ante suddenly noticed the building that hunched next door, its roof nearly scraping the underside of the freeway. It was one floor shorter than the Conway, and only the narrow driveway separated the structures. After a long, assessing look, Ante decided he could probably manage to leap the gap. But Peter couldn’t.

  “Now would be an excellent time to inform me if you can also grow wings.”

  Peter blinked at him. “Can elves do that?”

  “No.” Ante squeezed his eyes closed for just a moment, wishing there was something a vampire could pray to. Then he turned away. “Climb on my back,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

  “Huh?”

  “Piggyback, yes?”

  Although Peter opened his mouth—undoubtedly to ask something else—he quickly closed it, shrugged, and climbed aboard.

  “Hold on tight,” said Ante. Then he ran.

  Even with an elf clutched to his back, a vampire could move very quickly. The roof wasn’t big enough for Ante to reach full speed, but he was racing fast by the time he got to the edge, where the wall was only shin-high.

  He jumped.

  Peter did not scream, but he did swear into Ante’s ear. And he clutched Ante’s neck so tightly that it was fortunate Ante didn’t need to breathe. They flew across the gap, and although the experience frightened him, it also exhilarated him. Now Ante understood why humans paid money to bungee jump off the top of the Stratosphere.

  They landed with a thunk on the neighboring roof. Ante couldn’t keep his footing and rolled, dislodging Peter, but he was soon back upright.

  “Jesus Christ,” whispered Peter, goggling up at him. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “You will have time for better blasphemies later. We need to go.”

  “Um… where?”

  Ante pointed at the freeway. The itch in his shoulders was growing stronger. He could almost catch a hint of brightness at the eastern horizon. He grabbed Peter’s hand, hauled him up, and dragged him across the roof. But while Ante was deciding whether he could manage the leap with Peter on his back, Peter began to giggle.

  “What?” demanded Ante. Maybe Peter was hysterical from fear and shock.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “On a roof in downtown Las Vegas.”

  “Yeah, but do you know what this building is?”

  Ante did not. “I do not see how it is relevant.”

  “It’s a church. One of those fundamentalist ones that preaches how gay people are going to Hell. I wonder what they’d make of a gay vampire on their roof?” He laughed again.

  Ante was grateful that the traffic noise was probably enough to mask their voices. He shook his head at Peter. “I need you on my back again.”

  “You’re gonna fly us over the freeway?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re making me feel like Lois Lane. Do you have tights? And a cape?”

  Peter was beautiful and fascinating, but he also required large doses of patience. Ante grabbed Peter’s shoulders. “In a very few minutes, the sun will rise.”

  “Oh shit! I’m sorry.” Even as he apologized, Peter was latching on to Ante’s back.

  This time Ante got as close as possible to the freeway, crouched low, and put all his strength into a vertical jump.

  He missed, and they fell back to the roof, Peter oofing as the air was knocked out of him.

  But when Ante stood, Peter climbed on again without complaint. And this time when Ante leaped, he managed to grasp the railing of the overpass. The wound in his belly was not fully healed, and hanging while bearing Peter’s weight hurt. But grunting with the effort, Ante was able to lift them high enough for Peter to scramble over the railing. Ante followed.

  That left them on the narrow shoulder with cars zipping past. Somebody honked. But with traffic light at this hour, Ante and Peter rushed across the entire freeway with only minor pauses. Peter followed Ante’s lead, running on the shoulder for a block or so until they reached an on-ramp. After descending a bit, they jumped over the railing and landed in a glass-strewn triangle a few feet down.

  And then they ran.

  Ante led them north and west, past small businesses and a desperate-looking housing development. They’d run five or six blocks when his back began to burn.

  “You’re smoking!” shouted Peter breathlessly, a few steps behind. “Ante!”

  “Two more blocks. Old warehouse. Meet me.” And Ante sped away, hating to leave Peter behind but knowing any delay would reduce him to a pile of ash.

  By the time he reached the warehouse, agony allowed him to see nothing but a vague red haze. He crashed through a flimsy wooden door, rolled on the concrete floor, and waited for final death with one last thought.

  I hope I have bought Peter more time.

  Chapter Ten

  “YOU’RE not dead.”

  Ante heard the voice first, clear and comforting through the agony. Then, over the stink of musty air and scorched flesh, he smelled springtime and sugar, and he pried open his eyes.

  Peter loomed over him, upside down. It took Ante a moment to realize his head was pillowed in Peter’s lap.

  “I am already dead.” His voice sounded like metal wheels on gravel.

  “Yeah, but you’re not deader. It’s kinda hard to tell when you don’t have a pulse and you don’t breathe.”

  “You would know if I were finished.” It was difficult to talk, yet the discussion distracted him from the pain. “I would be dust.”

  “Great. Just great. Very comforting.”

  “And easy. No corpse to get rid of.”

  Peter was lightly stroking Ante’s face. It felt nice, a pleasant stimulation to counter the inferno of his skin and nerves. It had been a very long time since anyone had given him comfort. But Peter’s face was drawn with worry.

  “You are safe for now,” Ante reassured him. “The Shadows cannot walk in daylight either.”

  “Great. But what the fuck am I supposed to do about you? I’m guessing a 9-1-1 call is out of the question.”

  Oh. Peter was worried about him. “I will heal.”

  “Heal. Jesus, Ante, your clothes burned right off and most of you is… blackened. Like Cajun food. People should not look like Cajun food.”

  “I am not people.”

  Peter snorted. “No, right now you’re a torched marshmallow ready to be smashed into a s’more. How can I help?”

  “Time.” That was almost disingenuous. Yes, time would heal him, but with injuries this severe, healing would take weeks. Unless he fed, of course.

  “We don’t have time. We need to get the hell out of Dodge as soon as it’s dark.”

  “You go.”

  Peter’s expression hardened. “You think I’m just going to abandon you after you Supermanned me out of there? I’m not that kind of elf, dude. Now, since there’s no ambulance service for the supernatural, what the fuck do I have to do to uncrisp you?”

  “Blood.”

  “Oh. Duh.” Peter stuck his wrist in front of Ante’s mouth. “Bite me.”

  “Not yours.”

  “You didn’t seem that picky yesterday.”

  “Precisely. Cannot take more.” Besides, in his current condition, Ante feared he might not stop until Peter was a dead, dry husk.

  Peter kept running his fingertips across Ante’s cheek, whisper-soft and nearly hypnotizing. “There must be a butcher somewhere around here,” he said to himself.

  “Human.”

  “Shit. You are a high-maintenance date. But I’ll figure something out.” He licked his lips in concentration. “I’m going to run errands. Blood, clothing, junk food, car. Yep, ordinary, everyday errands. Will you be safe here while I’m gone?”

  “No windows.”

  “But what if someone finds you here?”

  Ante managed a smile at Peter’s concern. “Nobody will. This place is abandoned. I use it for refuge sometimes.”

  Although his brows remained drawn, Peter nodded. “Let me see if I can make you a little comfier.”

  He found a short stack of flattened cardboard and gingerly shifted Ante onto it. Comfort was relative when every nerve ending screamed, but the pallet was considerably softer than the concrete. Peter discovered a half-rotted canvas tarp, which he folded and placed under Ante’s head. But when he made as if to drape his jacket over Ante as a blanket, Ante said no.

  “Why?”

  “It will hurt.” And when Peter looked stricken, Ante tried another smile. “Go. I am not so fragile.”

  Peter knelt and set the coat beside him. “Too hot for this anyway.” Then he shocked Ante with a butterfly-light kiss to his temple. “Be back soon.”

  Ante couldn’t adequately judge the time. At least his worries about Peter somewhat distracted him from his own body. He hated the weakness even more than the pain, and he hated knowing there was nothing he could do to protect Peter if the Shadows sent human employees after him. But then he remembered how nice it had felt as Peter held on when Ante jumped them out of danger. Ante might have avoided being a murderous monster for a long time, but it had also been forever since he’d done anything good.

  “Some hero,” he scoffed quietly before falling into a doze.

  The mingled scents of blood and fried dough woke him. Peter sat cross-legged beside him, munching on a donut and grinning. “Finished my errands. How are you doing?”

  Ante smiled back. “Very well.”

  The blood was cold and packaged in plastic—not especially appetizing under ordinary circumstances, but it would do. He even managed a laugh when Peter stuck a straw into one of the packets before propping up Ante’s head and holding the bag so he could drink. Ante ignored the tiny bits of powdered sugar that dropped on him.

  By the time he’d emptied four bags, Ante had a full stomach and felt marginally improved. Even better, the maddening tickle under his skin told him healing was underway. He lounged on his cardboard and watched Peter eat.

  “Where did you get the blood?” Ante finally asked.

  “Blood bank.”

  “How?”

  “I made a withdrawal.”

  If Ante still had eyebrows, he would have raised them.

  Peter shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of something orange and crunchy. “I convinced the nice lady that I’m a forensics student who needed blood to create a realistic crime scene reenactment.”

  “She believed that?”

  “You know me. I can be very persuasive. Anyway, I wasn’t sure how much you needed, so I got you an even dozen. The rest is in that cooler.” He gestured, but Ante didn’t bother to turn his head.