"Damn!" I drew my gun and pushed Tomas back into the storeroom. Not that it helped much; if Tony had sent vamps after me, we needed more protection than a simple door could give. I'd seen Tony rip a solid oak plank off its hinges in one movement of his delicate, ring-covered hands, just because he couldn't find his key and was in a mood.

"What is it?"

"Somebody I don't want to see." I looked at Tomas and got a vision of his face streaked with blood and his serene gaze empty with death. It wasn't a Seeing, just my brain coming up with its usual worst-case scenario, but it was enough to help me prioritize. The vamps wouldn't come in and slaughter half the club looking for me. Tony was too afraid of the Senate to okay mass murder, but he wouldn't think twice about removing some street kid who got in his way. It was the same attitude he'd demonstrated when he orphaned me at the age of four to ensure himself complete control over my abilities. My parents were an obstacle to his ambition, so they were removed. Simple. And the Senate wasn't likely to fuss over something that could be passed off as regular old gang activity. Priority number one, then, was to get Tomas out of the line of fire. "I have to get out of here or I'll endanger everybody. But now they might come after you since they saw us talking. They'll think you know where I'm going."

I dragged him back through the storeroom, trying to think. I'd been a fool to come here, to let them see Tomas and me together. Despite being told otherwise on a regular basis, half the people at the club assumed he was my lover. If Tony's thugs started asking about him and anyone told them that, they'd torture him to death trying to find me. I should have known better than to get involved, even platonically, with anyone. I was like some kind of poison—get anywhere near me, and you're lucky if you just die. Somehow, I had to get Tomas away as well as myself and, like me, he could never hope to return. Some life I'd helped him build.

There was also the problem that the vamp had let us go. I'd seen them look like they dissolved into the wind, they could move so quickly. He'd had more than enough time in those few seconds to strike, swift as a snake, or to shoot me from a nice, safe distance. Vamps didn't really need guns against mortals, but the Senate preferred hits to look as natural as possible, so most of Tony's guys carried them. He might have suspected I was armed, too, but I doubted he feared my gun even if he didn't know how bad a shot I was. The best I could hope for would be to slow him down. No, I was alive because whoever was out there had been ordered to play the game. The obit had said 8:43, and 8:43 it would be. I could hear Tony telling the family that he'd arranged a last little Seeing for his prophet, and this time, she didn't even have to do the work herself. I wondered if they planned to kill me here and carry me over to Peachtree, or if they'd simply overwhelm my mind and have me walk there like the proverbial sheep to slaughter. I wasn't real keen on either plan.

I licked suddenly dry lips. "Okay, here. Put this on and get your coat. Tuck your hair up." Mike had left one of his many baseball caps on a storage shelf and I grabbed it, but no way was all that hair going underneath it. "We need to find somebody who has a coat with a hood you can borrow. You're too easy to identify." Maybe one of the Goths would loan us a cape. If I could make Tomas look different enough, he might be able to sneak away while the vamps were concentrating on me.

"Cassie, listen. There is—" I never found out what Tomas had been about to say, because the door we'd just entered slammed open as if the lock wasn't even there, and five huge vampires rushed into the room. They looked like a bunch of linebackers who had joined a grunge band—all bulging muscles and shoulder-length, greasy hair.

For one frozen moment, we all stared at each other. Size is pretty much irrelevant when you're undead, but Tony likes them big, I guess for the intimidation factor. It worked—I was intimidated. The fact that they weren't bothering to hide their real faces under polite masks didn't help. I knew what a vampire looks like when hunting—I'd seen it enough times—but it was still the stuff of nightmares. I had time to wonder if I'd live long enough to need to worry about bad dreams before they moved in a blur of motion. I got a shot off into one in the general area of his heart, but it didn't stop him. I hadn't thought it would. Not that it mattered: I hadn't expected to rank five vamp assassins, and no way could I deal with those odds. Tony must be even more pissed than I'd thought.

Chapter 2

The gun was snatched from my hand and I was smashed into the mason-block wall, face first. In the same breath, my arm was wrenched up so far behind me that I was afraid it would break. I didn't see what happened then because I was too busy getting a concrete facial, but I heard what sounded like every metal shelving unit in the place being turned over. Someone gave a roar of rage, then a swell of power billowed through the room like a hot wind, crashing against my skin in a hail of sparks. If I'd had enough breath, I would have screamed, both at the sensation and at the sheer pettiness of the bastard who wouldn't allow me even a tiny chance of escape. Not only had Tony sent a whole squad of vamps after me, but at least one of them simply had to be a master. No one else could summon that kind of power, not even five ordinary vamps working together. And it wasn't just any old master, either.

Most vamps spend their immortal lives as little more than slaves, serving whoever made them without the ability to break away or to refuse an assignment. But some, usually those who were the strongest willed in life, over time gain power. When they reach master level, they can make other vampires to serve them, and are usually given some autonomy by their makers. Seventh level is the lowest master rank, and most never progress past it, but for those who do, each additional step up the ladder gains them new abilities and more freedom. I'd been around master vamps all my life, up to third-level ones like Tony, and I'd seen plenty of them lose their tempers. But it had never before felt like their power might actually burn holes in my skin. It seemed impossible that Tony had talked a senior vamp, second or first level, into taking on a sordid little assassination—offing me wasn't exactly a challenge—but there wasn't any other explanation.

I yelled for Tomas to run, even knowing it wouldn't do any good, and my vamp decided I must not be in enough pain if I could make all that noise. He lowered the hand holding the back of my head to my neck and squeezed. I remember thinking that, if I was lucky, he'd choke me to death before he remembered to bring me over. It didn't make for a great night for me, but it was better than looking at Tony's ugly face for eternity.

A second later, when I was beginning to see dots swirling around my vision and to hear a roaring in my ears, the vamp gave a high-pitched scream and the pressure suddenly let up. I gasped and fell to my knees, struggling to get a deep breath past my burning throat, while he flopped around in front of me, screeching as if he was literally being torn apart. It took me a few seconds to figure out what was wrong with him, since it wasn't an everyday occurrence. A big hint was the warm, almost liquid feeling tracing a lopsided pentagram on my back, as if someone had drizzled heated oil over my skin. Another clue was that the vamp's arm and part of his chest were covered in lines that glowed gold as they sizzled and popped, cooking the flesh between them and the bone. As I watched, one molten welt obscured the small indentation over his breast where my bullet had gone in and kept going. I stared at him in paralyzed shock. From the shape of the marks, it was pretty obvious that my ward had flared to life.