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Custer, an observation that probably wouldn’t have gone down well if I’d been dumb enough to make it. But before I could say anything, a vamp reached through the shelving and the captain’s insubstantial middle and grabbed me around the throat.
    Beauregard unsheathed his sword and I had half a second to wonder what he thought he was going to do before it came down in a flashing arc that took off the vamp’s arm at the elbow. He yelled and so did I, in my case because I’d been sprayed with a warm sheet of blood and because the severed arm was still tight around my throat, fingers digging for my windpipe. Vamp bodies don’t die unless both head and heart are destroyed, so the arm was trying to complete the last order it had been given and choke me to death. Beauregard tried to pry it off, but his hand went right through me.
    â€œI sure am sorry, ma’am,” he said, while my vision threatened to go dark for the second time that night. “But I used most of my energy on that blow.” He shook his head sadly. “Time has caused us to sadly diminish.” He looked like he expected me to say something, but it’s a little hard to sympathize when you can’t draw a breath and fireworks are going off behind your eyelids.
    The vamp made another lunge at me, but Portia managed to trip him with her parasol. “Get him!” she cried, and the battalion, which had been merely observing the scene until now, moved as one churning, massive river of gray. It was one of those moments when your eyes cross as the brain tells them they can’t be seeing what they say they are. Several thousand troops converged on the same point, falling into it like water disappearing down a drain. Only the drain in question wasn’t designed for that kind of thing and sure as hell didn’t like it. The vamp started ricocheting off shelving units, his one arm flapping as if he could somehow beat off the invasion, while his skin turned a mottled shade of purple.
    By the time I managed to pry the fingers around my neck loose and throw the arm on the floor, he had stopped moving, frozen like a statue at the end of the aisle. I tried to keep an eye on him but was distracted by the severed arm, which was trying to scrabble across the floor and grab me. I wasn’t real clear on what was happening, but my best guess was that each ghost was freezing a tiny bit of the vamp, turning him into a big, ugly Popsicle. I had just begun to wonder what would happen when all those spirits tried to escape from his now unyielding flesh when the explosion came. I’d grabbed a wine bottle and started hitting the arm, so I missed the big event. All I know is that I ended up covered in icy bits of vampire flesh that hit me like tiny hailstones.
    Portia drifted over, avoiding the repulsive floor by simply not touching it. She twirled her lacy parasol and beamed at me. “We must go, Cassie. That took a lot out of the boys and they need to rest. But we want you to know that we had a lovely time!” She took Beauregard’s arm and curtsied while he made another bow; then they vanished along with the crowd that flowed out of the vamp’s remains.
    I sat in the middle of a patch of melting goo, too stunned for action, and rubbed my neck. My face stung from where the storm of vamp parts had hit me, but my throat was more of an issue. I couldn’t seem to swallow, and it had me worried. I might have sat there quite a while, watching vamp bits melt and fall off the shelving, but Tomas appeared at the end of the aisle.
    â€œHurry!” He grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me into the main part of the room. I yelped in pain — he’ d taken hold of the same wrist the vamp had almost twisted off — and in surprise at seeing him alive. I’d pretty much written us both off, but now it occurred to me to wonder who had been fighting with the vamps if Portia’s group had been with me. His hand