Ravenous

out of nowhere, pouncing on the guard. They fell into a snarl of bodies, the guardsman shaking them off like a hound shedding water, breaking the neck of one—but he had to use both hands for that.

He dropped the book.

Alessandro was right there, cleaving a changeling in two, but another crept behind him, waiting till Alessandro raised his arms to slide a silver knife between his ribs.

Pain arched clear to the roof of his mouth, the silver flying inside him like acid, vibrating on every nerve. His vision went black. He dropped his sword, fell to his knees with a violent curse.

Breath failed Alessandro as he groped for the hilt of the knife. It slid from his flesh in a gush of blood, leaving him sick and sweating. He retched into the grass, lungs flailing for air. A fraction higher and the blade would have pierced his heart.

The two surviving changelings scuttled across the lawn with the book, the guardsman in pursuit. The skirmish was over in the matter of a minute.

Alessandro picked himself up. He felt like cracked glass, fissures of white-hot nerves spidering out from where the knife had thrust. Blood coursed from the wound, taking his strength with it. If he got help he would recover, but the blade had been silver. Healing would be slow.

'Score one for the bad guys.' Macmillan sauntered into Alessandro's field of vision, materializing from thin air. Alessandro lunged at Macmillan, but the demon cop danced away, his laugh taunting. 'Hey, you might be fast, but I'm barely even here.'

Alessandro held the wound in his side, feeling wetness ooze between his fingers. 'What do you want?'

Macmillan waved a hand. He looked oddly transparent, even in the darkness. 'Nothing that tattooed goof hasn't already accomplished. We have the book. The queen's champion is wounded and stalled outside enemy lines. I'm pretty much done for the night. After years of mopping up after criminals, it's kind of nice being on the winning side for a change. Basically I'm just here to gloat.'

'You haven't won yet.'

'Oh, suck it up, vampire. There's no way you're pulling a victory out of this mess.' The detective turned his back, apparently intending to simply walk away.

'Is that it? Has Geneva eaten your entire soul?'

'What? You want us to have a buddy moment and save the day?' Macmillan looked back, the horror in his eyes belying his light words. 'The worst part of this, Caravelli, is that with every passing minute I lose a piece of what made me human. There's nothing left but the impulse to feed. Thank whoever you pray to that vampires don't smell like food.'

Macmillan held up his hands, showing their translucence against the dormitory lights. 'You see, I haven't eaten in a few hours. I can't last that long. She tells me it gets easier the longer you're a demon, but right now… God, I hate this part.'

Alessandro stared at Macmillan, forgetting his own pain in a wash of revulsion. He'd seen this before, but it never got any more pleasant to look at.

The detective's hands were knotted with dark veins, the ropy, engorged ridges so thick and black they seemed the very absence of light. They seemed to flow with darkness, bubbling and pulsing until the flesh between vanished.

Now wholly shadows, Macmillan's fingers crumbled into blackness like a dry, rotted leaf succumbing to the wind. He was powdering into a mist, powerless, a shade, a nothing. His hands, his feet, and his arms fell away, nothing left but a blot against the empty night air. Then, mercifully, he was gone.

Gone somewhere to envelop an unsuspecting victim and drain his soul. How many would it take before he could resume his own form again? Or that of some creeping or scurrying beast?

Alessandro felt sick. A mere handful of days before, Macmillan had been a good man doing honorable work. This was what it meant when a demon ate your soul.

But whether he meant to or not, Macmillan had given him a warning: The queen's champion is wounded and stalled outside enemy lines. Alessandro was the wounded champion. The enemy wasn't there yet, but he'd better hurry to avoid getting caught on the wrong side of the battle.

Alessandro started off at a slow jog, as fast as his wound would allow. When he got near the Arts Building, he leaped to a low balcony, then to the third-floor roof. The exertion tore at his side, but the improved view was worth it. Macmillan's tip had been good.

But Alessandro was too late.

In the parking lot behind the dormitories, a series of yellow school buses were disgorging ghouls and changelings. Buses? It was clever. There was no hint of magic to tip their hand, and no one would ever expect the enemy to arrive in something so mundane. Of course, this was just the advance guard. They would have to use a portal for an army large enough to take the whole town. But this is enough to keep us distracted while they get down to business.

At the far end, closest to the playing field, he saw a handful of changelings setting up a ritual circle. And there… Alessandro flew forward, eyes wide in shock. He gripped the balcony rail to stop himself, the tails of his coat flowing around his legs. Merda!

The figure standing to one side—was John Pierce—Pierce!—holding what had to be The Book of Lies. Of course. He knows enough sorcery to use it. He's depraved enough to do it. Pierce would open a portal to let Geneva's army through. An entire battleground separated Alessandro from Pierce. And, for that matter, from the queen. He looked around, desperate for a solution.

So much was happening. At the edge of the campus he saw the flashing lights of police vehicles. Now the humans were aware something was going on, but hellhounds and the fey were holding them back—the hounds with sheer ferocity. The fey were raising a fog, blanketing the campus north of the battlefield. Soon visibility would be next to nothing. At least one thing's going right.

Then his eye caught something farther off, where the land rose behind the playing field. More vehicles, this time pulling into the southernmost lot. Even to vampire sight it was too far away to make out the faces of the figures leaving the vehicles, but the luxury six-seat SUVs were impossible to miss. No one else in Fairview drove anything like that. Clan Albion had come for the show, and they were arriving from the south.

They weren't going to be cheering for Omara.

The queen was caught between enemies.

Then Alessandro saw a figure climbing up the bleachers. He turned cold, as if his final death had crept into his bones unannounced. Holly. She was trapped right along with his queen.

From the safety of the bleachers, Holly searched under the earth for stores of energy. There were ley lines down there, but the raging battle made it hard to concentrate. It was as if her magic seized up along with the cold, hard knot that used to be her stomach.

There. She found the main line beneath the playing field, ripe with a thick, golden energy. Though not turbulent like the ones under the Flanders property, it was still wild. Not all that easy to handle. She'd have to be careful.

Suddenly something whistled by Holly's arm, and she leaped into the air with sheer surprise. A changeling hunched in the shadow of the bleachers, its maw tight with concentration as it aimed what looked like a small crossbow. She summoned a quick bolt of energy, so fast it was more of a flash than a strike. It was enough to make the thing drop its weapon, but three ghouls raced from behind it, bounding up the bleachers toward her. They were moving too fast for more than a sputter of power.

'Perry!' Holly cried as she scampered the length of the bleacher seats, hearing the old wood creak and moan. At the end, she grabbed the handrail and started toward the ground, half climbing, half tumbling as she went. When she hit the grass she bolted, the ghouls hot on her tail.

Unfortunately, where Holly could run faster, so could they. She turned again, heading south. Here the lawn sloped up a sharp incline, and she grabbed at branches and tufts of grass to gain momentum. Cursing, she heard the ghouls closing in, making the sickening yip they gave when scenting prey.

Perry sprang from the shadows in an arcing, elegant bound. The wolf snarled, making Holly's every nerve recoil. Perry landed on the ghouls in a fury of fangs. The ghouls' yipping stopped in a sudden, profound silence. The wolf had ripped the throats from all three of the lethal monsters in record time.

Job done, Perry chased after the changeling with the crossbow. Holly's mind stalled. She would never