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here.”
    The operator was calling from the phone on the bed, her tinny voice sounding very far away. What is your emergency? Hello, this is 911. What is your emergency?
    “Vampires!” Tana shouted, throwing down her boots and tossing the tire iron after them.
    Aidan helped Gavriel up, wrenching him to his feet. He was wrapped like some modern mummy, shining strips of duct tape holding together garbage bags and blankets, lurching toward the window. Tana had no idea if it was enough to keep him from being burned, but it would have to do. Already, she was trembling with the urge to abandon all plans and just escape, slither out onto the lawn, and run—
    “Aidan, you go out the window first,” Tana said, cutting off her own train of thought, shoving down her fear. “Someone’s got to be down there to take Gavriel’s feet.”
    Aidan nodded and swung his leg over the sill. He looked back at her for a moment, as though trying to decide. Then he jumped, landing badly on the roof of the Crown Vic.
    Behind Tana there was the sound of splintering wood, as though something very large hit the door. “No,” she said softly. “Oh no. No.”
    “Leave me,” said Gavriel.
    Something struck the door again and the dresser fell over, crashing against the bed. Forcing herself not to turn, she pushed the wrapped body against the window.
    “Shut up or I might,” she told him. “Now sit, swing your legs over, and drop.”
    He shifted his body, and Tana braced herself to act as a counterweight and to keep him from falling before he was in position. Aidan stood under the window, catching his feet. Taking a deep breath and hoping the duct tape and blanket shroud would hold, she let him go.
    Aidan eased Gavriel onto the top of the trunk.
    The door of the room cracked open behind her.
    Keep going , she told herself. Don’t look back . But she looked anyway.
    Two creatures stood framed by the doorway—one male and the other female. Their faces were puffy and pink, bloated from all the blood they’d consumed. Their mouths and sharp teeth were ruddy, their eyes sunken, clothes stiff and stained dark. They weren’t the slick vampires from television; they were nightmares and they were coming at her, wading through the coats, flinching from waning pools of light.
    Tana scrambled for the windowsill, her body shaking, her hands trembling so ferociously that she almost couldn’t get a grip on the wood frame. Going up on her knees, she threw herself forward, missing the car entirely and falling onto the lawn.
    Fingers clamped down on her calf, pulling her back. She kicked hard, dragging herself forward with her arms. Teeth scraped against the back of her knee just as she pulled free and toppled out of thewindow. Behind her, there was a high, keening cry of pain. She hit the dirt, falling onto her back, the air knocked out of her. Dazedly, she turned to one side, looking out at a lawn sparkling with shattered glass, as though someone had tossed handfuls of diamonds in the air after a heist.
    “Jesus!” Aidan shouted, hands in his hair. “You should have seen how that thing’s arm got scorched. He nearly got you.”
    She staggered to her feet. The fresh scrape on the back of her leg burned and she started to shake all over again. “I think he did get me.”
    “What?” Aidan took a step toward her and Tana shook her head.
    “Not now,” she said. The car was right there. They were almost free. “Help me with the trunk!”
    Rolled up in the blanket, Gavriel looked like a body that a pair of murderers were planning to dump somewhere. He was lying on his side, body bent so that his back was turned to the sun. Together, Aidan and Tana heaved him up and off the car. But as they tried to carry Gavriel, Tana stumbled and pulled the wrong way. The bags ripped, the cloth falling open. She slipped, tumbling onto the grass. For a moment, she saw his side and hand blackening in the sun, light seeming to eat away the flesh. Before she could think to