Knife-man ran at me. As I recovered my balance, another man ran toward the road-Asian, about my age, short and muscular, with modern clothes. Shit! How many were there?

Knife-man whacked a fist into the side of my rib cage. I stumbled, then caught myself and whirled around, blade in my hand. The knife hit him in the shoulder. His eyes widened. As he fell back, my first thought was "Hmmm, didn't think I hit him that hard." Then another blade flashed in the moonlight. A sword, slicing up, as knife-man fell back, screaming.

I followed the sword to the hand of the newcomer.

He met my gaze, and brandished a wide smile. "Katsuo."

"Oh, thank God," I murmured. "Please tell me you have hellsbane potion."

He laughed. "For two."

At a noise from the end of the road, we both turned to see four shapes running at us.

"And not a moment too soon, it seems," Katsuo said. "Catch."

He tossed the vial. I caught it just as knife-man struggled to his feet. I kicked him back, then uncapped my vial. Both bird-man and the werewolf rushed me from opposite sides.

"Sorry, guys," I said. "Gotta run."

I dumped the potion into my mouth.

Chapter 46

I LANDED BACK IN THAT LITTLE ROOM WITH THE DOOR that led to the killers' hell. Trsiel was there waiting for me. I knew he'd been worried, and he'd want to know what had happened, but I wasn't ready for that yet. I brushed past him with a murmured "I got it." He tried to follow, telling me I needed healing, but I hurried down the hall to another room. When I opened the door, Kristof was there, right where I'd left him.

For a moment, I just stood in the doorway, legs trembling, ready to give way under me. Kristof crossed the room in two long strides, scooped me up, and gave me a fierce hug. Then he closed the door behind us, carried me across the room, and lowered me to the floor.

I huddled there against him, shivering, unable to speak. I wished I could have strode through that door and shouted a triumphant "I did it," forgetting everything that had happened. But I couldn't. And this was the one place where I knew I wouldn't have to, the one person who wouldn't think any the less of me for sitting here, shivering, a heartbeat away from breaking down and bawling like a baby.

Kristof took my left hand and traced his thumb around the stab wound through my palm. His lips moved. I strained to hear what he was saying, then picked up a few words of Greek and recognized a minor healing incantation. A witch spell, one of the few he knew. I'd taught it to him when we'd been together, a little something for his boys, to make the cuts and bruises of childhood easier. He'd struggled with the spell, but had insisted on perfecting it, practicing more than he ever would for any spell of true power.

When he finished, he glanced up at me sheepishly. "Guess you need something stronger than that."

My eyes filled. "No, that was perfect. Thank you."

I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his, closing my eyes as the warmth of his skin chased away the last niggling bits of cold from that place. I put my hands to his cheeks as I kissed him and the heat radiated through, as soothing as Trsiel's healing touch, maybe more.

He wrapped his hands in my hair and kissed me back, and I tasted my own fear mingling with his, knew how worried, how frightened he'd been for me. How many times in my life would I have given anything for this, to come home after something awful and have someone there waiting for me. To have Kris there.

"I need to finish this," I said, pulling back to look up at Kristof. "I put Savannah in danger, and I need to get her out of it. But after that, it has to stop. This one last thing, and it's over. I'll let her go."

His arms tightened around me and he pulled me to him. "You don't have to let her go, Eve. You just need to step back, trust that she'll be okay, and look after yourself."

"I know."

We sat there for another couple of minutes. Then it was time to let him know what I'd found, and figure out what to do about it.

Before I began, Kristof decided we should called Trsiel in. Trsiel insisted on healing me before we got to work. Any pain from my injuries was gone. The hair would grow back. The missing tooth wouldn't. As for the ear and other open wounds, he could close them, but warned me they'd likely scar, a reminder of the price I'd nearly paid to stop this Nix.

As I finished telling them how Dachev had captured the Nix, Kristof paced the tiny room.

He shook his head. "I had hoped that when this Dachev caught the Nix, he'd both initiated and carried out the capture, but it's now obvious that he only took advantage of a preexisting circumstance."

"One that's going to be damned difficult to replicate," I said. "We're in the same position as Dachev. Pretty much impotent when it comes to killing anyone in the living world. But that's exactly what we need to do." I glanced over at Trsiel. "Not kill Jaime-just deliver a mortal blow and resuscitate her. The question is, how?"

Trsiel gave a slow shake of his head. "It doesn't solve the original problem. Delivering a mortal blow-"

"And resuscitating. We're going to find a situation where she has a damned good chance of being resuscitated."

"A damned good chance isn't good enough, Eve. No matter how carefully you set it up, there's no possible way to guarantee that she would survive."

Kristof wheeled on him. "What the hell do you want from us?"

Trsiel stepped back, blinking. "I'm not-"

"You're not doing a damned thing, Trsiel. That's the problem. Eve just went to hell and back to get you this information. Now you're telling her that it was for nothing?"

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that if there's another way-"

"There are other ways," I said. "Of course there are. But none that stand a better chance of us catching the Nix without killing Jaime."

"You don't need to convince me, Eve," Trsiel said. "I get it. I really do. I'm not telling you that I disagree. But the fact remains that Jaime is an innocent, and therefore, no angel's sword can strike that fatal blow."

"But Eve isn't an angel," Kristof said.

Trsiel threw up his hands. "Which is why she can't even use the sword to touch Jaime. And if she can't touch her, or cast magic on her, she can no more attempt to kill her than I can."

"Do you still have Dantalian's Amulet?" Kristof asked.

"The soul-transference one? Yes, but it only works on-" Trsiel stopped and looked at me. "Someone with demon blood."

Two days ago, I'd have jumped at this chance. It was everything I'd wanted, everything I'd dreamed of. But now, after I'd come to a decision about moving forward with my life, about breaking away from Savannah…?

I looked at Kris, and I knew it wasn't a matter of whether I should risk it. You don't test your swim strokes by sticking to the shallow end. Kristof studied me for a long minute, then scooped me out of the deep end… and plunked me down into the center of the shark-infested ocean.

"She should transfer into Paige," Kris said.

"Oh, hold on," Trsiel said. "That's not-"

"It has to be Paige," Kris continued. "She's right there, on the scene. She can get next to the Nix easily, without arousing suspicion. She's a witch, which means Eve should be able to use her own spell-casting skills through her. And Eve knows Paige. Knows her well enough that she should be able to, temporarily, fool Savannah and Lucas." Kris's eyes met mine. "Because that's what she'll have to do. She can't tell them what's going on."