Gregory was there, his hands on Damian's arm and shoulder, trying to use supernatural strength against supernatural strength. He slowed Damian's push toward my face, but only slowed it. Damian was like a human on angel dust, stronger even than he'd been, because there was no one home to help him regulate his force. He was all about that force, and his goal in life seemed to be my face.

Nathaniel grabbed Damian's other shoulder. Blood was still dripping down his arm, but it had slowed. Which meant Damian had found a way to injure him that didn't include teeth or nails, those wouldn't have started healing, yet. I think with the two of them pulling and me pushing, we might have made it, but Nathaniel's bloody arm was next to Damian's face. He was enraged, but all vampires, even revenants, react to fresh blood.

His neck turned in my hand, and I'd been so intent on pushing him away, that it surprised me. He would have sunk fangs into Nathaniel's arm, except Gregory was a fraction too quick, and a fraction too slow. He managed to get his arm halfway around Damian's neck, which put his wrist almost in the vampire's mouth. Damian did what any animal would do, he bit him.

Gregory screamed and tried to pull away. It worked, and it didn't. He pulled away from us, but the vampire went with him. They moved so fast, that Nathaniel fell against me, smearing blood down my skin. He was on his feet and moving toward the sounds of fighting farther down the hallway, before I'd gotten to my knees.

Damian had Gregory pinned on the floor, worrying at his arm like a dog with a bone. Even over Gregory's screams I heard the bone crack. Nathaniel was there, wrapping his arms around Damian's waist. He lifted him into the air, but the teeth stayed in Gregory's broken arm, so that Gregory was pulled to his knees by the pain and the fangs locked into his arm.

I was almost to them, when Damian remembered he could fly. He pushed off from the floor and smashed Nathaniel against the ceiling hard enough that plaster dust rained down on them, and when Damian touched ground he rolled out of Nathaniel's loosened grip. Damian had been a warrior once, and though Nathaniel and Gregory had the strength, they didn't know how to fight. Strength without training was no match.

I was suddenly the only one standing in the hallway, except for Damian. He came for me in a blur of movement. I got one foot planted and had a heartbeat to see him, think what I'd do, and do it. Years of practice in judo, and my body remembered, before my mind had caught up. I used his own momentum against him, one arm and his hip as the pivot points, and I threw him, as far and as hard as his own motion would let me.

He ended at the top of the stairs, crouched, and turned toward me, before I had time to marvel at how far I'd thrown him. Let's hear it for not being human anymore.

But a figure rose above him, coming up the stairs. It was Richard Zeeman, local Ulfric, Wolf-King, ex-fiancé, and in the wrong place at the worst time. I had a few seconds to see that his hair had grown out just enough to give some curl to his woefully short locks, that the white T-shirt made his fading tan summer-dark with contrast, that he was still one of the most handsome men I'd ever seen. Then the vampire turned, noticed him, and launched himself at Richard. He balanced them both for a second, then the other man's weight took them both, and Richard fell backward down the stairs, with the vampire riding him. They vanished from sight, and over the sound of their bodies falling down the stairs, I heard a woman start to scream.

16

I went to the stairs, expecting to see them struggling on the steps, but the stairs stretched empty. I ran down the stairs toward the sound of fighting. Richard had taken the fight out into the living room, so he had room to use his long legs and arms.

He kicked Damian in the face hard enough that the vampire staggered backward. I got a profile glimpse of Damian's face; blood ran from his mouth and the right side of his face. Richard took the extra seconds that the vampire gave him to do a beautiful roundhouse kick to the other side of Damian's face. This one was hard enough that blood flew in a thin arc. Damian staggered, and I think would have gone down, but he bumped into the wall. He hesitated long enough for Richard to get set up for another kick. Back foot set, front foot, set but loose, body partially turned to give that pivoting strength, the way when you land a fist you turn the fist into the skin for that extra little bit of harm.

Looking at Richard with all his attention on the vampire, his body tensed and ready, hands held in loose fists, even though he was setting up for a kick, I was reminded that here was someone with preternatural strength that did know how to fight. There was blood on his left hand, and I couldn't tell if it was Damian's blood or his own.

A small sound jerked my attention to the far side of the living room. A woman I didn't know was standing near the television set. She was pale, dark-haired, and scared. I didn't have time to notice more. I was standing too close to the fighting to sightsee.

If Damian had just been a big bad vamp in my house, I'd have gotten my gun and finished him, but he wasn't a villain. It was Damian, and somehow it was all my fault. I couldn't get a gun and just shoot him. For one of the few times in my life I was frozen, overwhelmed by my choices, or the lack of them.

Damian had been against the wall for so long—fifteen, thirty seconds—that I thought the fight might be over, that Richard might have actually kicked some sense into him; I was wrong. The vampire came off the wall in a white and red blur. Richard met the charge with a kick to Damian's chest. It wasn't a pretty kick, not like the roundhouse, but the sound of its impact was thick and meaty. If he'd been human it would have dropped him, but he wasn't human, and it didn't.

He staggered backward, and I could have almost reached out a hand and touched his back. Damian went very still, like the old vamps can, as if he were some beautiful statue. Then I knew, knew that he was about to move and not toward Richard.

I had an extra few seconds to react, when he turned in a whirl of white skin and red hair, turned so fast that the colors blurred so he looked like a whirlwind of snow and blood.

I threw myself to one side, rolling over the back of the couch. I ended up on the other side of it, on the area rug. I had a heartbeat to stand, and Damian was on me.

I braced for it, but it was like trying to brace for a freight train. There was no stopping it, or fighting it. I was just suddenly falling backward with Damian on top of me. I didn't fight the fall, I used it. When my body met the floor I had one foot in Damian's stomach and two hands on his arms. A tome nage throw is the only throw in judo where you commit your whole body to it. Most throws have variations you can do at the last minute if they don't work, but the tome nage either works or it doesn't. You fail, and your opponent is on top of you in a perfect position to pin you. But I hadn't chosen the throw, it had been the only move Damian's attack left me. I had seconds to do it right or have him eat my face. So when I kicked up with my feet, I gave it all I had. I'd forgotten that all I had was more than it used to be.

Damian flew through the air again, but it wasn't his supernatural powers this time. I rolled over in time to see Damian hit the wall yards away. He hit hard enough to crack the paint and leave a partial imprint of his body on the wall, when he slid to the floor.