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location.”
    Hades glanced back at her. “Maybe they should hide. Lock themselves in their cold cellars.”
    Kat shook her head. “They’ll be found. Dark Dwellers can smell fear and panic a mile away. It’s like an aphrodisiac.”
    “Just what are we dealing with here?” the marshal asked, looking from Kat back to Hades, his wrinkled brow furrowed even more.

    “You know the rumors you’ve heard about the bloodsucking cannibals running around near the Vanquished City?” Hades asked.
    The marshal nodded.
    “They’re not rumors, my friend. Those creatures are real, and they are on their way here.”
    The marshal smirked. “Don’t pull my leg, son, I’m not laughing.”
    “When the Dwellers get here, marshal, they will do more than pull your leg,” Kat remarked.
    “They will yank it off, and eat it for a midnight snack. So I suggest you ring that town bell, and get every single person here, and put them somewhere where we can at least have some chance at saving their lives.”
    The marshal stared at Kat as though contemplating her words. He then turned back to Hades and frowned. “The best place to make a stand is at the church house in the village square.”
    Hades breathed a sigh of relief. He had thought for a moment that the lawman would balk at their plea for help. But he knew the man was smart. It was a wise choice to listen to two people outfitted in black leather and carrying ample weapons.
    Nodding, Hades said, “Get your people together. We’ll check out the best places to make our stand.”
    Without a word, the marshal went back into his house. Hades had no doubt that the man was mentally checking off every place in his home at which he had a weapon stored.
    After coming back down the steps, Hades matched his stride with Kat’s as they walked toward the village square, passing family homes, smoke rising from their chimneys, and shops, closed for the night, along the way. There was an ominous silence in the air, broken only by the crunch of their boots on the graveled road.
    Kat was unnaturally quiet as they marched, but he could see her wincing more openly. The vampyres must be very close.
    She glanced up at him and caught his gaze. “We have maybe a half hour,” she remarked as if reading his mind.
    “Are they on foot, do you think?”
    “I imagine a few are, but we have to assume they have some sort of transport. Thankfully we took ‘Ugly’ from them. So they can’t surprise us from the air this time.”
    Hades smiled, remembering the mutant flying lizard they had stolen from Baruch and his goons.
    The poor creature had been the Dwellers’ mode of transportation to do their village raids, particularly to Leucothea’s village of Atlantis. Kat had established a strange telekinetic connection with the beast, and it had helped them escape death from the Vanquished City. Now it was flying free with Damian and Darquiel, wherever they had vanished to.
    By the time they reached the square, the alarm bell was sounding from the church tower. Within minutes people started streaming out of the tavern and various other shops that had people’s residences over top. All eyes eventually trained onto Hades and Kat as they stood in the center of the square, calculating the best spots to have gunmen posted.
    Mary was one of those people. Her family ran the local bakery, and they lived in a three-bedroom loft over the store.
    Locking eyes with Hades, Mary rushed to his side. “What’s going on?”
    “Get these people into the church, Mary. And then barricade the doors.”
    She grabbed on to his arm. “Why? What’s happening?”
    “Just do as I say,” Hades pleaded with her. In another time, she would’ve been a good woman to have. Maybe, when he had finally given up on ever seeing Kat again, he would’ve taken her as a wife, and they could have raised a family. Looking down at her comely face and expressive brown eyes, he honestly wished things could’ve been different for her, for him