I climbed out of the hole, then over and around a couple of dump trucks’ worth of rubble, and hurried over to Susan’s side on the opposite end of the ring.

She lay limp and still. There were small cuts and bruises all over her. Her leather pants had hundreds of little holes in them—the shards of bone from the exploding vampire skull, I guessed. Her spine was bent and twisted. I couldn’t tell how bad it was. I mean . . . Susan had always been fairly limber, and I had more reason to know than most. With her entire body limp like that, it was hard to say.

She was breathing, and her tattoos were still there, now bright scarlet. Her pulse was far too slow, and I wasn’t sure it was steady. I leaned down and peeled back one eyelid.

Her eyes were black, all the way through.

I licked my lips. The tattoos were a warning indicator the Fellowship used. As Susan’s vampire nature gained more influence over her actions, the tattoos appeared, solid black at first, but lightening to bright red as the vampire within gained more control. Susan wasn’t conscious, but if she had been, she would have been insane with bloodlust. She’d nearly killed me the last time it had happened.

It was sort of what had started this whole mess, in fact.

Her body was covered in injuries of various sizes, and I thought I knew what was happening. It was instinctively drawing upon the vampire portion of her nature to restore her damaged flesh—but as she had not provided that nature with sustenance, it could offer her only limited assistance.

She needed blood.

But if she got it, woke up, and decided that she just had to have more . . . yikes.

Her breathing kept slowing. It caught for a moment, and I nearly panicked.

Then I shook my head, took my penknife from my duster’s pocket, and opened a cut in my left palm, in an area where the old burn scars were thickest, and which still didn’t have a lot of sensitivity.

I cupped my hand while I bled into my palm. Then, very carefully, I reached down and tipped my palm to carefully spill a few drops into Susan’s mouth.

You would have thought I’d just run a current of electricity through her body. She quivered, went rigid, and then arched her back into a bow. Strange popping sounds came from her spine. Her empty black eyes opened and she gasped, then stared blindly, trying to find my hand again with her mouth, the way a suckling baby finds its meals. I held my hand over her mouth and let the blood trickle in slowly.

She surged in languid motion beneath my hand, savoring the blood as if it were chocolate, a massage, good sex, and a new car all rolled into one. Two minutes of slow, dreamy, arching motion later, her eyes suddenly focused on me and then narrowed. She snatched at my arm with her hands—and I drove my right fist into her face.

I didn’t pull the punch, either. If her darker nature was allowed to continue, it would destroy her, killing me as a by-product of the process. Her head snapped back against the ground, and she blinked her eyes, stunned.

I stood up, took a few steps back, and stuffed my injured hand into my pocket. I was tired, and feeling shocky. My whole arm felt cold. I didn’t stop falling back until I was sure I could shield in time to hold her off if she came at me.

I recognized it when Susan checked back in. Her breathing slowed, becoming controlled and steady. It took her four or five minutes of focus to push her darker self away from control, but eventually she did. She sat up slowly. She licked at her bloodstained lips and shuddered in slow ecstasy for a second before dashing her sleeve across her mouth and forcing herself to her feet. She looked around wildly, a terrible dread in her eyes—until she spotted me.

She stared at me for a moment, and then closed her eyes. She whispered, “Thank God.”

I nodded to her and beckoned for her to stand at my side.

I waited until she reached me. Then we both turned to face the Erlking.

Off to one side, the members of the Red Court remained where they had been—save that Esteban and Esmerelda had been trapped in the goblins’ nets as well. I had apparently been too intent on Susan to hear the sound of any struggle in the aftermath of the duel, but I could guess what had happened. As soon as the Ick had begun to falter, they must have made a run for it. This time, though, they hadn’t had the advantage of showing up in a totally unexpected place, with the goblins intent upon their meals.

This time the goblins had taken them, probably before they had actually begun to flee. Both of the Eebs were staring at Susan and me with raw hatred written on their snarling faces.

The Erlking looked at the captured vampires for a moment, and smiled faintly. “Well fought,” he said, his deep voice resonant.

We both bowed our heads slightly to him.

Then he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, once. It echoed like the report of a firearm.

Screams went up from the entire helpless Red Court crew as several hundred violence-amped goblins fell on them in a wave. I watched for a moment in sickened fascination, but turned away.

I hate the Red Court. But there are limits.

The Erlking’s kin had none.

“What about the Red King?” I asked him. “The Lords of Outer Night?”

His red eyes gleamed. “His Majesty’s folk failed to prove their peaceful intentions. The trial established their deception to the satisfaction of law and custom. Let him howl his fury if he so wills it. Should he begin a war over this matter, all of Faerie will turn upon him in outrage. And his people will make fine hunting.”

Beneath the screams of the Red Court—Esmerelda’s were especially piercing—a ragged chuckle ran through the hall. The sound danced with its own echoes. It was like listening to the official sound track of Hell. A goblin wearing thick leather gloves appeared, holding what was left of Susan’s club as if it were red-hot. The touch of iron and its alloys is an agony to the creatures of Faerie. Susan accepted the steel calmly, nodding to the gloved goblin.

“I presume, then,” I said quietly, “that we are free to go?”

“If I did not release you now,” the Erlking said, his tone almost genial, “how should I ever have the pleasure of hunting you myself some fine, bright evening?”

I hoped my gulp wasn’t audible.

The Lord of the Hunt turned and gestured idly with one hand, and a Way shimmered into being behind us. The green light that had let us see began to darken rapidly. “May you enjoy good hunting of your own, Sir Knight, lady huntress. Please convey my greetings to the Winter Queen.”

My sane brain fell asleep at the switch, and I said, “I will. It was a pleasure, Erl.”

Maybe he didn’t get it. He just tilted his head slightly, the way a dog does at a new sound.

We all bowed to one another politely, and Susan and I stepped through the Way, careful not to take our eyes off of our host, until the world shimmered and that hall of horrors was gone.

It was replaced with an enormous, rustic-style building that appeared to be filled from the basement to the ceiling with everything you might possibly need to shoot, catch, find, stalk, hook, clean, skin, cook, and eat pretty much anything that ran, slithered, hopped, or swam.

“What the hell?” Susan said, looking around in confusion.

“Heh,” I said. “This is the Bass Pro in Bolingbrook, I think. Makes sense, I guess.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said, and pointed. “Look.”

I followed her gaze to a large clock on the far wall of the big store.

It said that the time was currently nine thirty p.m.

Thirty minutes after our departure time.

“How can that be?” Susan demanded. “We were there for half an hour at the most. Look. My watch says it’s two.”

My heart began to beat faster. “Hell’s bells, I didn’t even think of it.”