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don’t know...”
    “No one’s gonna force you into this, Krissy,” I said. “If you don’t want to do it, no problem, you can go your merry way. But I think you’re special. With no training at all, you managed to shake off a vampire enthrallment. You had the gun at my head and you hesitated . I don’t know if you understand how amazing that is. I think you were meant to join this fight.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “We’re at war,” I said. “And if the Table loses, that’ll be it for humanity as anything other than a particularly intelligent species of livestock. The vampires will turn cities into farms, places to raise human children for slaughter. I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen, and I think you can help.”
    “I’m not ready to fight a war.” Krissy was staring into her coffee, watching the steam rise from the black liquid.
    “No one ever is,” I said. “So you train. You get ready. Let me tell you something that my old teacher once told me: When you come face to face with a nightmare, you have three choices. Most people ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist. That’s really the only path to a normal life after something like this: blissful ignorance. Other people can’t quite forget it, so they spend the rest of their lives afraid to peek around corners or look under beds, because they know that there are monsters out there. Or, you can do what every Knight of the Round Table has done. You can choose to fight. That’s what I did—twice, now.” I looked at her seriously. “It’s a big decision, I know, but you need to make it now. What do you want to do?”
    I was surprised, but there was no hesitation this time. Krissy looked up and said, “I want to fight.”

Chapter 5
    I threw all of my belongings into a bag. It took less time than you’d expect—I didn’t have much: a few nineties rock band T-shirts, some jeans, a bunch of underwear and socks, and a whole lot of knives.
    Have you ever felt the urge to click your heels and vomit at the same time? That was what I felt like. May would be here soon, and I’d be going back to the Table. I was excited, but it was a nervous excitement, and my stomach churned like it was on a ship out at sea. The Table had nearly gotten me killed already, and I was giving it another crack at the piñata.
    It’s not like you have a choice, I told myself. The vamps already know where you are—it won’t be safe until you can win this war. If you want to live you have to go on the offensive.
    Krissy was sitting on my couch, nervously kicking around pieces of what had once been my coffee table. Her head was down, her hair shielding her face, but she looked up when I came in.
    “I can’t believe you don’t have a TV,” she said. “Everybody has a TV.”
    “I don’t trust those things. They turn people into zombies.”
    Krissy’s eyes widened. “Really?”
    I held a serious expression for a moment, but then I grinned. “No, not really. Not literally, anyway. Come on, we gotta get going.”
    I pulled on my jacket. It was black leather with silver studs at the seams and had once been owned by a Sex Pistols-obsessed elf prince from Madrid. The jacket was enchanted with defensive spells, making it sturdier than a lot of body armor on the market. If I fell off a motorcycle wearing my jacket I’d get up without a scratch. It wasn’t bulletproof, but it would slow down just about anything with teeth, claws, or blades.
    Krissy stood up and stretched. Even in my baggy shirt, it was a good look for her. The flannel clung to her body in interesting ways and I had to force myself to look away. She caught me staring, though, and smiled shyly. Pointing to her forehead, where I’d hit her with the gun, she said, “Between this and this,” holding up her left hand, where I’d cut it with the silver switchblade, “people are gonna think I got myself, like, an abusive boyfriend.”
    I opened my mouth. Fortunately, I was saved the