“Ultimately,” he said slowly, “I do not care whether or not it was you. I just need a responsible party. Do you understand?”

Dashiell takes care of his own. I knew what that meant now. Dashiell didn’t need the right culprit, he just needed to be able to publicly punish—kill—someone to keep the other vampires happy. And I was the obvious choice. I nodded.

“Good. So let’s say for a moment that I am willing to consider the possibility that you weren’t involved. I will give you until Friday at dawn to bring me the other null, if there really is one, and the person who did the killing. If you don’t know by then, I will assume it was you. If you run, if you so much as leave LA County, I will assume it was you.”

“You can’t possibly expect—” I protested, but he cut me off.

“Of course I can. Dawn is at six thirty-six. I’ll expect you here by six, with whoever is responsible.”

I thought about that for a moment and chose my words carefully. “If I can’t find this person...You’re asking me to show up for my own death. Why would I do that?”

“Because you and I both know that you still have people you can lose. Both here and in Esperanza. You don’t want anyone else to have to die for you, isn’t that right?”

I felt my face turn white. He knew about my brother. How was that possible? I’d been so careful...But it wasn’t the moment to figure that out. He had me, and we both knew it. I would be there at dawn, one way or the other.

He saw understanding on my face and made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Go, then. Bring me the killers, or just come yourself. It doesn’t matter much to me either way.”

My back was straight as I walked out of Dashiell’s, but it was an effort. I went to the end of the long driveway, pulled my cell phone out of my jeans pocket, and called for a cab. I was desperate to get back to Van Nuys and get that silver away from Eli, but I’d still turned down Dashiell’s offer to have Hugo drive me home. I didn’t want to be anywhere near the giant vampire, especially after I’d hit him. I also owed Cruz a call, but my hands started shaking, and I finally just shoved the phone back in my pocket. Tears were blurring my vision. I crouched down to the ground and threw up everything in my stomach. I heaved and heaved until I was empty of everything. Good thing my hair was up.

I scooted a few feet away from the vomit puddle and settled down on the curb to wait for the cab. My insides still churned. Just...goddammit. For a minute there, I’d really thought that Dashiell was going to kill me. And he probably knew about Jack, and maybe Eli, and who knows what else.

Besides, it wasn’t just the confrontation with Dashiell. I had always been comfortable in LA, because from a supernatural standpoint, it was so small—I didn’t have to work too hard or think too much. Now, in the space of two days, I’d been unable to make it to a job, I’d seen the city’s worst crime scene in generations, and my life had been given a short countdown by a very scary guy.

This was not working with my lifestyle at all.

My cell phone rang while I was still calming down. I held it up to see the caller ID—Jack again. I frowned. What the hell? For a brief, dreadful moment I pictured him lying in a hospital bed, dying or in need of a kidney. Jack and I don’t talk, but he’s the only real family I have left, and the image of something happening to him...I couldn’t deal with it just then. I hit Ignore. If Jack needed something, he could leave a message. And if I lived through the next thirty hours, I could call him back.

When the cab pulled up, I scrubbed at my mouth with my shirtsleeve one more time and stood up to meet it. The driver was a little Armenian man with surprisingly perfect English. I gave him the address of Artie’s studio and leaned back, hoping he wouldn’t be too chatty. I hate chatty cabdrivers. He was fairly quiet, though, and I began to organize my plan of attack. First, rescue Eli. Then back to the house to drop him off and call Cruz. I had the vampires’ identities now. We could figure out who their human servants were and interview them or whatever. Maybe that could get us somewhere with the investigation. I frowned to myself. Something else was tugging at me, something about the smaller of Dashiell’s henchmen. Albert. I’d seen him somewhere before, but where? And did it have any relevancy to the murders? Maybe it was the adrenaline or the stress, but I couldn’t place him.

When we were a mile from the studio, I pulled my wallet out of my front pocket. Eyeing the meter through the cab’s bulletproof glass, I counted up the cash I had left. I would have just enough to make the fare, although my tip would not be stellar. When the driver stopped in front of Artie’s gate, I threw the cash through the slot and ran full-out around the building.

Eli was right where I’d left him, collapsed on the pavement behind my van, only now he wasn’t moving. I had a flare of panic. How fast does silver poisoning work? Skin contact isn’t as bad as contact with his blood, so it couldn’t possibly have killed him this quickly, could it? I pounded across the blacktop, calling Eli’s name. I felt it when he hit my radius, and he felt...wrong. Twisted and sick.

I dropped down by his side, looking him over. All the blood had drained from his tanned face, and there were raw, oozing wounds where the silver touched his skin. He had ripped away strips of his shirt, probably trying to get it between his skin and the silver, but had lost consciousness before it could help him. I pulled helplessly at the handcuffs, hearing an anguished sound coming out of my throat. By taking away the werewolf magic, I could make the damage stop, but I couldn’t heal anything.