Darkness and dust and fear ran with them.

When they reached the cave-in, Chap crawled immediately through the opening on top of the debris. Brenden crawled through and began pulling Magiere's still form after him. Leesil heard the sound of booted feet coming down the tunnel. He did not have time to wonder how anyone could have gotten through the flames.

"Hurry," he urged.

Magiere's feet slipped through the opening, and Leesil tossed the torch through and followed as well. Sliding down the other side of the cave-in, he stopped to dig in his sack. He had only one flask of oil left. Picking up the torch, he pulled the flask's stopper with his teeth, spit it aside, and poured half the oil over the boards caught in the debris. He then stuffed his oil-stained sack into the opening and lit it. The gap through which they'd crawled closed in flames.

"That will hold him for a while," Leesil said, trying not to breathe in smoke, and clutching the remaining half-empty flask. "Go."

He barely remembered the rest of the flight down the tunnel, except that every step was another drop of Magiere's blood lost. Brenden moved as fast as he could in the cramped passage, and Chap's increasing pants suggested approaching exhaustion. Leesil kept saying to him, "Keep going, boy. Just a little farther now." His own face burned from the cuts Ratboy had dealt him.

When they reached the trapdoor to the decorative sitting room, Leesil set the torch and half-empty flask on the tunnel floor and grabbed Brenden by the shoulder.

"Give her to me and jump up," he said. "You'll have to lift both Chap and her up one at a time."

Brenden dropped Magiere's feet to the ground, and Leesil caught her limp body, pulling her close. As the strong blacksmith lifted Chap under his arm and climbed the ladder, the dog whimpered softly, but did not struggle.

If there were time, Leesil would have lowered Magiere to the floor, but, instead, he leaned back against the tunnel wall so that he could free one hand to lift her face to his own. Her complexion was almost white, and her wound was still bleeding through the makeshift bandage. He held her tightly against his chest and then tilted his head to place an ear near her mouth.

Her breathing was shallow and short, but he could hear it.

"Is she alive?" Brenden leaned through the opening, reaching down with one hand.

"Yes," Leesil answered.

"Don't know how, with her neck cut open."

Leesil pushed Magiere over near the ladder. He lifted one of her arms up until Brenden could grab her by the wrist. Stepping on the first rung, he prepared to lift her as well from below, but as soon as Brenden gripped her vestment with his other hand, he raised her with little effort.

"It'll be all right," Leesil said to her unconscious form. "Just don't die on me."

He grabbed torch and oil and followed up the ladder. By the time he was out of the tunnel and had kicked the trapdoor closed, Brenden had Magiere over his shoulder again.

"Why bring the torch?" Brenden asked. "We don't need it now."

Leesil didn't answer. There was no time to argue with the blacksmith over what he planned next. Instead of heading toward the shaft they'd entered through, Leesil walked over and opened the room's main door.

"We can't get Magiere down the shaft, so we're going out the front. This hallway should lead somewhere into the warehouse. Now move."

Brenden's eyes widened slightly, but then he nodded and headed out the door. Chap followed him.

Leesil hesitated only for a blink. There was no other way to be certain no one followed them, and perhaps he'd get lucky and burn those creatures to death. Either way, he didn't care anymore about the cost of lost livelihoods and merchant tallies-not with what this had cost Magiere.

He sprinkled the oil lightly over the rug and the trapdoor. He splashed the couches as well, lit each and the rug, and then ran out the door. He paused in his flight only to splash the walls here and there with a light stain of oil, until the flask ran out. When he reached the enormous warehouse floor, Brenden was waiting for him between the piles of crates arranged for shipping or retrieval by some local merchant.

Leesil glanced quickly around and spotted a stack of cloth bundles. Brenden's eyes opened wide as Leesil set the torch on top of the stack.

"We're out," Leesil said flatly. "Let's find a door."

Brenden looked at the slowly catching cloth and the smoke streaming out of the hallway. "Over here," he snapped angrily.

Leesil followed as Brenden led the way to a plain, ordinary-looking door. It was barred from the inside, and so likely not the exit used by the workers leaving at the end of the day. Leesil lifted the bar and threw it aside, kicking the door open.

Once outside, Leesil saw Chap was panting, weak with exhaustion and numerous small wounds. He stooped down and lifted the dog in his arms. Except for his face, Leesil was unhurt but weary. The strength of panic and anger was draining out of him.

"I know little about healing," Leesil said. "We have to find them some help quickly."

Brenden looked at him, sadness and anger trading places across his face. "My home. You'll all be safer there."

Chapter Fourteen

After Brenden laid Magiere on his own bed and covered her with a blanket, his hands began to shake and he could not stop them. Leesil ripped sheets into strips and then attempted to slow the bleeding from Magiere's neck wound by using the strips as bandages. She'd been cut from one side of the neck halfway to the other. Brenden didn't know how or why she was still alive, but he had no doubt she was dying. Did Leesil know?

Chap lay just as still as Magiere, on a rug near the bed, breathing uneasily.

Brenden's small one-room cottage was built out back of his stable and forge. Once, this house had been a warm, comforting place filled with his sister's humming and the smell of baking bread. Eliza had loved candles, and he often brought her wax and oil scents from the market so that she could make her own. She was not beautiful at first sight, a bit on the thin side with plain, mouse-brown hair. But he always knew she'd one day leave him for her own husband. Her beauty was evident in other ways. Her hazel eyes had laughed at his jokes, and she exuded that cheerfulness so many men sought in a woman. She kept the house neat, helped him with work in the shop, and cooked fine meals. What man wouldn't want her? She could not, should not, spend her life caring for an older brother. Though he had no interest in marriage himself, he was well prepared for the day that she would many and leave him to raise a family of her own.

But that morning, that terrible morning when he found her by the wood stack changed something inside him.

Eliza was small and fragile, not like this fierce woman who now lay dying in his bed. Eliza could not fight for herself, and he'd failed to protect her, even after the news of so many disappearances reached their ears. They liked their home and their smith's business and chose to ignore the whispers and rumors. After all, nothing bad had ever happened to them.

And now she was gone. There would be no husband or children, and he felt no joy from having destroyed her killers. Rather, he sat on his bed, watching a vampire hunter die.

Brenden did not know how to assist, and his hands wouldn't stop shaking. He thought he should feel satisfaction, that a circle had been closed. But he didn't. Nothing about this night was as he had imagined.

The face of the filthy urchin called Ratboy kept flashing in front of him, emaciated and savage. Had this creature been the one to murder his sister? Perhaps it had been the tall one who looked noble. Or maybe the woman. Brenden closed his eyes and then opened them quickly as darkness only made Ratboy's features more clear.