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      My vampire heart beat loud in my chest as I approached Cyrus’s mansion. The windows were dark, and for a wild, panicked moment, I thought I’d missed my chance. Cyrus had moved on, my heart tucked away in some box that was hopefully marked Fragile.

      Then I saw a gentle glow in the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows of his study, and my heart sank further. Nothing would take this confrontation from me. It was time.

      While charging through the front gate would have probably been the brave thing to do, I’d never prided myself on being exceptionally brave. It also didn’t seem like a good idea to walk, barely armed, up to the gates of a heavily guarded castle and politely ask to be let in.

      I patted my hip pocket, where I’d concealed a stake beneath the hem of my shirt. I didn’t even know if I had the physical power to use one against another vampire, especially Cyrus, but at least I’d have something to jab into one of the guards if they got too close.

      I followed the sidewalk around the end of the block. The entrance to the guardhouse was so far from the main gate that someone would naturally assume they were two separate residences. I passed the gate where Nathan and I had shared our secret meetings to plot Ziggy’s escape, and I thought of Nathan, still asleep in his bed.

      It seemed like all I had to do was walk into my room and Ziggy would be there, just like all those weeks ago. I glanced up the lawn. The lights were on in my old room. I felt an unexpected pang of jealousy at the thought I’d been replaced.

      A thin figure picked his way gingerly down the lawn, toward the hedge maze. I recognized that profile.

      “Clarence?” I called out. My voice echoed back at me in the cool air, and I gasped.

      He squinted, then straightened quickly as recognition dawned on him. “Doc?”

      My heart in my throat, I watched the old man scurry across the grass. The last thing I wanted was for him to break his hip. “Be careful!”

      “Be careful,” he mocked. “You’re a damn fool, coming back here. They told me you were dead!”

      From the pocket of his neatly pressed trousers, he produced a key ring covered with antique keys. After much muttering, he selected one and slipped it into the gate’s lock. Instead of crumbling to dust, it actually swung inward with a minimum of screeching. A few leaves from the clinging ivy pulled off, but no one would notice the gate had moved in a hundred years.

      “Get your ass in here,” he scolded, glancing nervously up at the house. “Now, you got some explaining to do. Did you eat that boy?”

      “What? No!” I said, a little too loudly.

      Clarence shushed me. “Keep your voice down. The master’s home, and he’s been in a real bad mood since his daddy left.”

      “I thought the Soul Eater couldn’t survive without his annual feeding?”

      “Ain’t nothing going to kill that bastard. Believe me, this isn’t the first time somebody tried.” Clarence shook his head. “What happened to the boy?”

      “Cyrus killed him.” I thought of the barrels in the basement and what Clarence had told me. “What did you do with him?”

      “I didn’t do anything with him. I had the night off. They probably burned him with the rest of them.”

      At least he wasn’t crammed in some barrel. I pointed to the house. “Where’s Cyrus?”

      “In the study. He’s been there since the night of the party, trying to avoid her.” His last statement was delivered in an accusing tone.

      “Her? Dahlia survived?”

      Clarence’s face scrunched in an almost comical expression of disapproval. “Seems somebody told her she should find herself a vampire to turn her at the party.”

      I ground my teeth. It would be one thing to fight Cyrus, but Dahlia was way out of my league. “What about the guards?”

      “They’re trying to steer clear of Dahlia and the Master, but they’ll find you if you go in there.” He squinted at me. “You got backup coming, right?”

      “No. I might as well stake myself right here on the lawn,” I muttered, looking up at the looming facade of the house.

      “I got one in my back pocket,” Clarence offered. “This is gonna be ugly, isn’t it?”

      I nodded. “You might want to get out of here.”

      “No, when he’s gone, someone’s got to tidy things up around here,” he said with a sad smile.

      “You don’t have to stay. I’ve got friends, we could help you get a condo in Florida or something. Anywhere you want.”

      “I ain’t going nowhere.” He made a halfhearted shooing motion with his hands. “I told you before. I come with the house. You give him hell, Doc.”

      I wanted to hug him, but I wouldn’t ask him to lower himself to hug a vampire. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t jump at the chance for freedom. I also couldn’t understand the strange compulsion people had to stay in their homes to face hurricanes and floods rather than evacuate. Fear of change, maybe. Or denial of their mortality. Whatever the reason, Clarence seemed to share their stay-put mentality, and I knew I wouldn’t change his mind. I made him promise to stay near the guardhouse and not show his face until morning. I watched until he disappeared into the maze. Then I headed up to the house.

      After spending weeks in close quarters with the Fangs and Cyrus’s human groupies, the house felt downright empty. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten around to replacing the numerous pets he’d expended for the feast.

      The guards were there, though. The second I opened the French doors to the foyer, all hell broke loose.

      Two bodyguards waited for me in the center of the room. No doubt they’d watched me as I spoke to Clarence on the lawn, because reinforcements—a lot of them—jogged down the staircase. Behind me, the front doors flew open.

      I whirled to see Nathan and Max framed in the wide doorway. Relief and dread crashed through me. I’m saved, I thought. Then I thought, We’re all dead.

      “Don’t put on the coffee, we’re not staying long,” Max announced with a wide smile.

      “Get out of here, Nathan,” I screamed as the first guard reached me. His hands crushed my shoulders. I grasped his forearms and fell backward, flipping him over my body as another guard came at me. I sprang to my feet and elbowed the next contender hard in the face. Blood spurted from between his fingers as he covered his broken nose. I punched him in the groin. When he doubled over I grabbed his shoulders and rammed the top of his head into my knee. He dropped limply to the floor.

      I looked to Max and Nathan. Max had knocked out one guard and used a stun gun to put down another. Nathan was cornered by an opponent brandishing a stake. He tried to dodge it, but the blow landed the wooden spike in his shoulder.

      “No!” I charged forward. Another set of hands closed on me. In my haste to get to Nathan, I gave a hard shove and sent the man flying into the wall. He crumpled СКАЧАТЬ