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knit together with a sickening slurch. “They’re everywhere, Elizabeth.”
    Usually he called me Lizzy; sometimes, to my everlasting annoyance, he called me baby. But apparently not anymore.
    “The way this works,” I said, “is that your seer has a vision, contacts you and tells you where to go, what to kill.”
    Jimmy sat up, shrugging off Summer’s helping hands. “I know how it works.”
    “Then explain what you just did.”
    “I sense vampires. It’s what I do. What I am.”
    “So you went out and staked a nest by yourself?”
    “Yes,” he said simply.
    “Why do you think that’s okay? We get our orders from—” I stopped. I’d never been quite sure where those orders came from. Ruthie said God, and who was I to argue? I did know that the orders came; we obeyed. We didn’t just go hunting. Or at least I didn’t.
    I glanced at Summer. “You ever go out on your own?”
    “Sure,” she said.
    “And how do you know what’s a Nephilim and what’s a human with an overdeveloped asshole gene?”
    “Experience,” she answered. “I can sense them too.”
    In theory, I understood what she meant. When evil came near there was a certain buzzing in the air. But still—
    “What if you’re wrong? What if you cut the head off of a . . .” I paused, uncertain where to go with that.
    “A serial killer?” she supplied. “A child molester? A gang-banging, drive-by-shooting, drug-dealing prick?” Summer flipped her palms upward. “Bummer.”
    I blinked. “Bummer?”
    “You know as well as I do that most of the psychotic killers in this world are just Nephilim begging to be dusted.”
    “Most?”
    “All. They’re all Nephilim.”
    Somehow I doubted that.
    “You don’t think the world is a better place without them, be they half demons or not a demon at all?” Summer asked.
    “I didn’t say that.” But I’d been a cop. I’d believed in what I’d done, loved it, thrived on it. That I’d had to give it up didn’t make me believe in it any less.
    “We let the law handle the human bad guys.”
    “Because they’ve done such a great job so far,” Summer muttered.
    “They’re doing the best that they can.”
    “We can do better.”
    “Everyone thinks that.”
    “But we actually can.”
    Jimmy got to his feet, lips tightening in pain even though most of the bruises and cuts had disappeared. “Let it go,” he said. “Hunters hunt. We can’t help ourselves. Evil is evil, and it has to be stopped.”
    I knew when I was beaten. I could tell them not to go out and fight the Nephilim, but they were going to do it anyway, and who was I to change the way things were, the way they’d always been? The federation had been around a lot longer than I had. Than we all had.
    I narrowed my gaze on the fairy. Except for her.
    Jimmy took a step toward the bathroom and stumbled. Both Summer and I lunged forward, each grabbing an arm; then we froze and glared at each other.
    “You can fly away now,” I said.
    “Eat shit and die,” she returned.
    “Um, you mind?” Jimmy tugged on his arms. “You make me feel like you’re going to split me down the middle like a wishbone.”
    I started; so did Jimmy. We’d both made use of that practice to kill when we were vamps. The spray of blood was like a Las Vegas fountain.
    Do it again , whispered the demon.
    Jimmy licked his lips. I knew what he was thinking. Same thing I was. Or same thing my demon was.
    He shifted his arm. I let him go. Summer didn’t, so I grabbed him again and he sighed. “You can go back to your room, Elizabeth. Get some sleep. I’ll be fine.”
    As if I could sleep—
    “What about her?” I asked. My voice sounded childish, petulant, which worked out because that was how I felt. I wanted to kick Summer, and Jimmy, in the shins. “Is she going back to her room?”
    Jimmy didn’t answer. Instead he limped into the bathroom, and he took Summer along.
    Which, I guess, was answer enough.
    At least his damn Yankee shirt was