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around; it was Jimmy. For an instant joy bloomed. He hadn’t left me behind this time. He’d come back for me. Then he stepped inside, and the lamplight fell across his face.
    Someone had beaten the crap out of him.

CHAPTER 5
    Summer let out a little cry. I threw out an arm and said, “Wait.”
    For us to still be able to see his injuries meant a Nephilim had made them—those took longer to heal than any wound made by a human—and not long ago. Whatever had hurt Jimmy could very well be right behind him.
    I moved forward, yanked him in, glanced into the corridor—empty—then locked the door. A thud had me spinning around.
    Jimmy had gone to his knees. Summer caught him before his face kissed carpet. She began to fuss over him, gentle touches, soothing murmurs. He laid his head in her lap; the bruises flared dark purple against his olive-toned skin, but even as I cataloged them, they began to fade.
    “Back off,” I ordered Summer “He needs to talk.”
    She ignored me, whispering into his hair, petting him like a child.
    I shoved his leg with my foot. He didn’t open his eyes. Passed out. Fantastic.
    Reaching down, I patted him myself—once, hard on the cheek.
    “Don’t,” Summer ordered in a voice I’d never heardfrom her before—low, deadly, that of the demon killer she’d become and not the fairy she pretended to be.
    I might have been scared, if I wasn’t already terrified. Something that could kick Sanducci’s ass like this was something we really needed to be prepared for.
    “He can’t take a nap,” I snapped. “I need to know how many, of what and how soon they’re going to get here.”
    “They’re all dead, or he wouldn’t be back.”
    “What are they?”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    “I think it does. Why didn’t he wake me? Why didn’t they call me too?”
    “He didn’t get a call. He just went hunting.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “He does that sometimes. When he’s . . .” She lifted one bare, perfect, white shoulder. “Upset.”
    “Upset,” I repeated, and something shifted in my chest. For an instant I felt like crying; then I remembered I didn’t cry.
    “When he feels out of control.” Summer threaded her fingers through Jimmy’s shaggy black hair. “Like when he was a child and—” She looked up. “You know.”
    I did. When we were kids, on the street, we’d been prey and not predator. Things were different now.
    Unless you were staked to the ground being tortured by Nephilim. Or being raped by someone you trusted.
    “This is your fault,” Summer said. I didn’t argue.
    Once I’d known Jimmy better than anyone on this earth. Sure, there were things he hadn’t shared—he was a dhampir, a demon killer, a bastard; I’d had tofind all that out for myself. I’d thought I was the only one—besides Ruthie—who knew about his past. Guess not.
    Jimmy moved, groaned; his eyes fluttered, then opened and stared directly into mine. For an instant, his lips curved, and the expression in his eyes was one I remembered. He loved me. But memory returned, and the smile died along with the love.
    His gaze slid away. He peered at Summer. “What are you doing here?”
    “I knew you’d need me.”
    Fairies supposedly have the sight, though I hadn’t observed any evidence of that myself. If Summer was so damn psychic, why was she a DK and not a seer? Maybe she wasn’t that good at it.
    Summer had told me I’d meet my mother one day, and that I wouldn’t like it. So far that hadn’t happened, and I wasn’t holding my breath. My mother had dumped me, probably because I’d done something weird. No one had ever mentioned my father.
    “What the hell, Jimmy?” I demanded. “You just take off? You could have gotten killed, and I’d have no idea what happened.”
    “I wasn’t going to get killed.”
    “How did you know where to find any Nephilim?”
    He snorted, then winced and lifted a bloody hand to his nose, which was crooked. He twitched it back into place, and the thing