Ravenous

forearm was thick with muscle, but still had the soft skin of youth. The human's face was joyous, his soft lips parted.

'Is this your first time?' she asked gently.

'He is untouched and willing, my queen,' said Pierce, as if the human had no voice of his own.

Omara braced the youth's arm on the edge of the table and touched the crook of the inner elbow, looking for veins. She bent her head and bit, her venom sending the young man into shudders of ecstasy. Alessandro knew Omara would not kill the human, she would not mark him as a servant, but she would ruin his appetite for anything an ordinary woman could do. Even a casual bite could shatter a life if the human fell prey to the addictive high.

That brought back the conversation about the token. According to the legend of the Chosen, only a human untouched by a vampire's bite could Choose a mate. The act took free will untouched by the power of the vampire's venom. He watched Omara feeding. The legend was nonsense. Only an addict could love a creature like that. Like him.

Scenting the blood, Alessandro felt his own appetite stir. His skin flushed hot, his groin tightening. The sucking, lapping sounds of the meal made his palms slick with sweat. He rose, making a polite bow Omara did not see.

'Excuse me,' he murmured to no one in particular, and headed toward the back of the lounge.

Beside the washrooms there was a back door that led to a dead-end alley. The storm drain was plugged with weeds, leaving a trough of water down the center of the narrow space. Alessandro stood against the wall, breathing in cold, clean air. For all he owed Omara, for all he needed from her, he was glad to escape for even a minute.

To human eyes the alley would be pitch-black, clouds blotting out the moon and stars. He could see a rat scuttling along as if fleeing for its life, burrowing into a crevice in the bricks across the way.

Alessandro frowned. The reasons to solve the vampire murders were mounting. The case threatened his freedom, Omara's safety, and now, indirectly, Holly's—not to mention the lives of the human victims. Yet for all Omara claimed to know it was an old enemy at work, Alessandro felt he still had no solid information. The queen's adversaries were too many to count.

He sniffed the air. Odd. There was something building, a pressure that throbbed in his sinuses. There was a faint sound like tearing cloth. Alessandro wheeled toward it.

The wall at the end of the alley, just before it reached the street, was bathed in a sickly green glow the approximate shade of bile. At first he thought it was a reflection, but the light flared, turning the alleyway a pearly rainbow of pinks and grays that deepened to a bloody orange. The light was coming from inside the old brick wall of the radio station next door.

Alessandro pulled his boot knife and began running toward the light, his heels loud on the pavement. He was in a blind alley, and he didn't want to be trapped with whatever that light portended—but he had to know what it was. Now there was a heavy smell of magic in the air, a pungent, charred stink like burning toast.

The bricks of the wall shimmered, putting off a fierce heat. Once, Alessandro had watched a movie screen when film caught and burned in the projector. There was a similar hole melting the wall. Irregular edges flared orange, light pouring from the hole's center. It was small, but appeared to grow with each moment that passed, filling the air with a faint ripping sound. Powdery ash dropped, vanishing before it reached the ground.

He passed the hole, stopping only when he had nearly reached the safety of the street. By then he had figured out what he was seeing: This was a portal; the barrier between the demon realm and earth was burning away.

Shock ran through him, a dismay so sharp he had to fight nausea. A portal meant someone—no doubt his rogue spell-caster and Omara's murderous vampire enemy—was summoning a demon. This was far worse than they'd thought.

The demon had not yet passed through, but it was trying to make a door. The hole had grown to the size of a dinner plate. Alessandro clenched his fists, offended. This is not your town, he thought, glaring at the hole in the wall. Frustration leaped through his body. He was no sorcerer. He had no power over this kind of magic. Who is close enough to help?

A desperate cry came from the street behind him. He turned to see a cluster of figures pounding through a parking lot a block away. The figure in front was moving fast, but the two creatures pursuing it were gaining ground.

He stared, for a moment feeling nothing but cold refusal to believe. Then horror surged through his flesh, like blood tingling into a sleeping limb.

Bald, hunched, the two in the rear chased their prey with a peculiar, rolling lope. Changelings. Squat, gray, misshapen abominations, they were the bastard children of the Undead realm, made from a line that had never Turned properly. They were vampires, and yet they were not. Abhorrent and insane, they were shunned by even the lowest of the vampire clans.

Changelings in Fairview? They're extinct!

But that had been the odd smell clinging to the body of the girl he had found. Vampire, but not. Drinking blood, but unable to bite without mangling the victim.

Then he felt his stomach turn cold all over again. He knew the prey. It was Macmillan, one of the detectives from the Flanders house. Ironically, Alessandro had tried to avoid the cops. Now here was one running virtually into his arms. And he's not going to make it.

Alessandro sprinted across the street at an angle that brought him to a point ahead of the running figures. Gripping his knife, he faded into the shadows, willing himself to be one with the darkness. A moment lapsed, thick with anticipation.

Macmillan was track-star fast, but losing ground. Alessandro let him pass, timing his own attack with a predator's instincts. As soon as the man was two steps away, Alessandro lashed a kick at the first of the changelings, sending him flying into the side of a passing Toyota. The metal dented with a resounding thud. The vehicle's owner jumped out with a yell, but Alessandro was already running after the detective and the second pursuer.

The other changeling was easy to catch, but harder to hold. Claws slashed at Alessandro's eyes, forcing him to duck. The movement loosened his grip on the creature's arm. It seized the advantage, landing a hard blow to Alessandro's shoulder. Alessandro got a glimpse of its face, the maw of needle teeth where a nose and mouth should have been.

Macmillan had stopped and turned. As Alessandro drove his elbow into the changeling's chin, the detective pulled his weapon and fired. The silver grips on the sidearm meant it had silver bullets—the standard ammo for stopping a vampire.

The changeling kept coming with the determination of a nightmare, bits of blood and flesh spattering the street. The cop was a good shot, but not fast enough to keep up with the changeling's supernatural speed. He fired again and again, but none of the rounds penetrated the heart or head.

The gun clicked empty.

Alessandro feinted with his knife, drawing the changeling's attention away from the detective. The creature turned, slowed only a little by its gaping wounds. Alessandro circled, looking for a weakness in its guard. He gave an experimental lunge; the creature parried with its claws. Alessandro circled again, testing while Macmillan took cover behind a mailbox and drew his regular weapon—the one meant for mere humans.

'Get out of here!' Alessandro ordered the man.

The changeling edged sideways toward the mailbox, its limbs hunched like a squat spider, its maw gaping wet and red. Then it leaped, using all its limbs to spring. Macmillan emptied his second weapon, the sheer force of the assault knocking the creature sideways. It fell to earth, but got up and lunged again, jaws extended.

The detective vaulted backward, barely avoiding the changeling's grasp. Alessandro tackled it from behind.

'Run!' he bellowed.

Macmillan had no choice. He bolted, disappearing into the shadowy parking lot between his would-be killer and the bright lights of the nearby movie theaters.

Deprived of its prey, the changeling twisted free, howling in frustration. Wounded in half a dozen places, it still had the strength to bound forward in yet another attack. Only Undead reflexes kept Alessandro from its fangs.