"But not much fun."

She grinned. "I'll survive. So what happened?"

"His dead lover tore open a portal into the ghost world and we all jumped through. Well, Lucas fell in, I jumped in after him, and Edward jumped in after her. We came back, which is good. He didn't come back, which is also good… except that it means that in punishment for his crimes he gets exactly what he wanted all along-eternal life with the woman he loves."

"Uh-huh. I think I'd better get the uncondensed version after we get back to the hotel. Oh, wait, you guys must be starving. First stop: food."

"What time is it?" Lucas asked, tapping his watch and frowning at it.

"Mine stopped, too," I said. "I don't think they survived that return trip."

"It's just past four A.M.," Elena said.

"You might have some difficulty locating a restaurant," Lucas said.

"Don't worry," Clay said. "We'll find food. We always do."

We stood at the take-out counter of a twenty-four-hour Cuban restaurant. Neither Elena nor Clay had ever eaten Cuban, so they were soliciting opinions and advice from Lucas. After placing the order, we took our coffees into the dining area to wait. After a few minutes, I realized we were getting a lot of attention. The restaurant had only eight other patrons, but every eye had slid our way a couple of times and, by the time my coffee was half-finished, I swear every busboy and cook had peeked out from the kitchen. Now, I'll admit, Elena and Clay made an eye-catching couple, but this seemed a tad excessive. The next time someone looked our way, I followed his gaze to Lucas's shirt.

"Uh, Lucas?" I said.

When I had his attention, I tapped my fingers against my left breast. He arched one eyebrow, lips curving in a slow grin. I rolled my eyes and discreetly pointed at his shirt. His gaze slid down to the bloody bullet hole.

"Ah," he said. "Perhaps I should wait outside… in the alley or someplace suitably dark."

"I'll come with you," I said. "Elena? Can I borrow your cell? I should call Cassandra, let her know we're okay, in case she's noticed we've been missing for eighteen hours."

"Not likely," Clay muttered. "Ten bucks says she hasn't noticed you've left the hotel room yet."

"That, I believe, is a wager I just might win," Lucas said. "In fact, I'll raise it to twenty and postulate that she's not only noticed, but started looking for us."

Clay shook his head. "Hate to take advantage of youthful optimism, but, sure, you're on. Twenty bucks it is."

It turned out that we didn't need Elena's cell phone after all. Lucas's was still working-though I really hoped no one had called while we'd been in the ghost world, or they'd have racked up a hell of a long-distance charge.

Cassandra wasn't at the hotel. She was out, with Aaron, looking for us, and had been since early the previous afternoon.

"How'd you know that?" I whispered to Lucas when Jaime told me the news.

He only gave a small smile and waved for me to continue talking to Jaime, who'd just returned to the hotel an hour ago, too exhausted from her nights of haunting to continue the search. I told her I'd track down Cassandra via Aaron's cell.

"Better call Benicio first," she said. "He's going nuts. I swear, the city's crawling with supernaturals tonight looking for you two. I heard he called in every Cortez security force in the country. We notified him as soon as we realized you guys were missing." She paused. "Hope that was okay."

"It was. Thanks. Will we see you later? Or are you taking off already?"

"Taking off?"

"Back on tour. Now that everything is over-"

"Over? What about Edward?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. Let me back up."

I told her what she didn't know. Then she told me what I didn't know. When Elena and Clay came out of the restaurant, Lucas and I were huddled together, talking quietly as we tried to absorb the news.

"What's up?" Elena said.

"We have a problem," I said.

"What?"

"Bad guy not dead."

Standoff

Last time I'd seen Edward, he'd been running for the portal, so we assumed he'd jumped through right after us. He hadn't made it. Less than an hour after we disappeared, Edward phoned John in New Orleans asking to be put in contact with Cassandra. John had the good sense to hand over Aaron's number, rather than try negotiating with Edward himself. When Edward finally got in touch with Cassandra, he demanded that she, as the vampire delegate to the council, negotiate on his behalf with the Cortez Cabal.

This made no sense to me. If Edward knew Natasha was waiting on the other side, why would he want to bargain his way out of a death sentence? Turned out he didn't. As Cassandra explained, Edward knew he'd be executed for his crimes, and he accepted that… so long as his punishment ended there. In a Cabal court, there is a sentence worse than execution: execution plus an afterlife curse, which sends your soul into limbo. For a vampire, the threat held little power, since most assumed they didn't have an afterlife. Can't curse a soul that doesn't exist. But now Edward knew better. Natasha still lived, in some form, in some place, and he wanted to be with her. Maybe this was why Natasha had been trying to contact Jaime, to somehow negotiate with us or pass along a message to Edward, telling him to stop and accept execution before he went too far. But now he had gone too far. In killing Lucas, he'd ensured that his death would come with every curse Benicio could dream up. His only hope was to negotiate an ironclad settlement before Benicio knew his beloved youngest son was gone.

The problem was that Cassandra knew nothing about portals and Cabal curses, and didn't even know for certain that we'd found Edward. She knew only that we were missing and he might be to blame. So she did the obvious: demanded to know where we were, whereupon Edward realized everyone knew we'd disappeared, which meant any hope of negotiating with the Cabals had also disappeared, which meant he didn't need Cassandra to mediate for him. So he'd hung up.

Not surprisingly, no one had heard from Edward since. My first thought was that it was still over. Edward would go into hiding, no more Cabal kids would die, and the problem would be resolved, however unsatisfying that resolution might be. Again, Jaime knew differently. When Edward had been trying to persuade Cassandra to negotiate for him, his terms were that he would stop the killings if the Cabal reopened a portal for him. Of course that made no sense to Cassandra, and Edward hung up before she could demand an explanation. Once I told Jaime what happened, though, she knew exactly what he'd meant.

Once a portal to the ghost world had been ripped open, it remained "hot" for about forty-eight hours. That meant, with the right materials, it could be reactivated. As for what material such a reopening required, Jaime knew only that it involved a sacrifice-a human sacrifice. Yet she also knew it wasn't as easy as selecting a random victim from the street. She had an idea where she could find details on the ritual, and promised to do so immediately. While I'd explained the situation to Elena and Clay, Lucas had called his father. We talked for another couple of minutes, then set out for our respective rental cars, which were parked in a lot near Edward's hotel. We got less than a block before a familiar black SUV squealed a U-turn in front of us.

"How the hell…?" I said.

"Cell phone tracking, I would presume," Lucas murmured.

As the SUV pulled to the curbside, I turned to say something else to Lucas, then saw the bloodstained bullet hole on his shirt.