And then the fun really began.

They’d gone about two blocks when the Caldwell police cars started showing up. And unlike the Benz? The blue-and-whites with their flashing lights were going the right way on the street.

“I shall have to go onto the sidewalk,” Fritz called out. “Just a bit of a bump—”

That crazy bitch-ass butler yanked the steering wheel to the left and hopped the curb, capping a fire hydrant that promptly exploded in their wake, sending a gusher of water up into the air. And then, by the grace of God, the Benz landed like a gentleman, its superior shock absorbers cushioning what was no doubt a slam and a half.

Wrenching around, Trez looked out the back windshield. Cop cars were spinning around and breaking rank to follow them as Fritz hit a wall of newspaper dispensers, sending the red and yellow and green plastic boxes flying behind them. The flimsy things broke apart as they crashed on the sidewalk, sheets of papers fluttering off like doves released from cages.

As he turned back to Selena, he braced himself, trying to think of a way to reassure her—

Au contraire.

Selena was alive with excitement, her fangs flashing thanks to a huge smile, a giggling laugh bubbling out of her as she hung on to the door.

“Faster!” she yelled at Fritz. “Let’s go even faster!”

“As you wish, mistress!”

A fresh roar from that massive piece of German engineering under the hood sent them careening not just down the sidewalk, but right up to the very edge of the laws of physics.

Selena looked over at him. “This is the best night ever!”

“Okay, time to pull out.”

Rhage nodded at Manny. “I wonder what they had for dinner.” He checked his phone again and wished he had actually gone to that steakhouse. He’d only flown that shit to put Trez at ease. “He said nothing about the entrée or dessert. I mean, come on, he could have given a few deets. We only got eight letters from the guy.”

“Actually, it was five.”

“That’s what I said.”

The Doritos had worn off an hour ago. Then again, sometimes he could say that about three-course meals.

Manny put the RV in drive and started off, the ambulance trundling over a pothole, then gathering speed. “I’d better get a move on. Fritz has a heavy foot.”

“Like, did they have the roast beef? I saw a picture of the way they do it up there in a magazine—”

Boom!

Just as they came to a four-way juncture of alleys, something big flashed out in front of them and bounced off the hood. As Manny slammed on the brakes, the massive weight rolled off.

“Jesus Christ, was that a deer?” the doctor hollered.

“Try moose.”

Rhage palmed both his guns and was about to jump out when the bullet shower started. High-pitched metallic pings ricocheted off the RV and spiderwebbed the thick glass.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Manny bit out. Then he screamed through the windshield to the shooters, “I just got this thing!”

Rhage went for the door handle, but got nowhere with it. “Let me out!”

Ping-ping-ping. “No way, you’ll get killed!”

“We’re sitting ducks!”

“No, we’re not!”

All at once, the RV settled about four inches and metal plating dropped down over every square inch of glass there was. Instantly, the sound of the gunfire was dulled to a distant snare drum.

Rhage glanced over in the relative silence. “You are a genius.”

“Harold Ramis is.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You ever see Stripes? My favorite movie of all time. I based this thing on Bill Murray’s ride.”

“I knew I liked you.” Rhage quickly glanced at his phone. No Brothers were in the vicinity, and that was a good thing given the firepower. “Only one problem—we can’t just sit here. The human police are going to be all over—”

An LED screen the size of a TV rose vertically from the dash, taking up most of the now-blocked windshield space. And on its flat surface was a green pictorial of the streetscape in HD—so they got a really good picture of the shooters as the pair of trigger-fingers ran into their headlights. The two were both sporting long-nosed guns, AKs in his opinion, each discharge causing a bright flash from the muzzles as they kept those rounds pumping.

They didn’t pause as they went by Manny’s vehicle.

“Those are lessers,” Rhage muttered. “They’re going too fast for humans. Plus only slayers would be dumb enough to make this kind of racket. Let me the fuck out of here.”

“You’re not going after them—”

Rhage reached over and grabbed the front of the man’s shirt, dragging him into the aisle between the seats. “Let. Me. Out.”

Manny met his eyes. Cursed. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“No. I won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I got fun and games no one can handle.” He nodded to the window. “Crack it and I can ghost out through the slats between your armed plates. Unless you have steel mesh in there somewhere.”

Manny started muttering all kinds of vile things as he went for the requisite button and Rhage’s little slice of see-through went down about two inches.

“As soon as I’m gone, hit the gas,” Rhage demanded. “We need you on Trez’s tail. No joke.”

Closing his eyes, he concentrated and …

… dematerialized out of the interior, re-forming beside the RV and then pounding on the door. The shooters had gone past them, tracking their prey, which put him in a perfect position. As the engine under all that metal plating revved up, and Manny’s little portable clinic rambled off, he started to run. The scent in the air told him he’d been right; this was a pair of slayers with a very expensive set of toys—something they hadn’t seen in how long?

Not since Lash, that bastard, had been Forelesser.

Thighs pumping, guns ready, he was closing the distance when the sirens came behind him. Suddenly, he was spotlit from the rear, and not in a good way. With two autoloaders in his palms, they were liable to think he was the goddamn problem, instead of the solution trying to catch up with his enemy.

Sure enough, a male voice projected out of a high-res speaker came down the alley. “CPD! Stop! Stop or we’ll shoot!”

God. Damn. It.

Humans: Nature’s remedy for an otherwise good time.

THIRTY-SIX

Back in his cell at the palace, iAm was busy wearing a track in the polished marble floor, going back and forth between that new bedding platform and the shelf of books.

The longer he was left by his little lonesome, the more he became convinced that the maichen had made the offer to get him to the healing texts out of an abundance of impotent compassion. But, hell, even if she had been serious and did show up again with some kind of plan, it wasn’t like he was going to accept her help. There were so many people sucked into this mess already, and he wasn’t sure she knew what she was volunteering for: He was a prisoner of the executioner’s, which meant even though many could have access to him, there was only one son of a bitch who had the keys to his escape.

And it was not that lowly female.

If she did spring him? Even if it was not to the great outdoors, but the library? The monitoring systems would surely report them both—and then sudden death would be the best outcome she could hope for.

What was more likely was a long, suffering period of torture during which she would pray to be—

As that panel slid open, he made sure his sex was covered and wheeled around.

It was the maid, and she had bolts of cloth in her hands. As the door slid back into place, she tucked something next to the jamb to prevent it from closing all the way and rushed over to him.

“Put this on. We have no time—”

“Wait, what—”

“Put it on! The security staff is changing shift and they are required to have a mandatory prayer of sorrow and remembrance for the infant. We have to get you down the hallways now—”

“I can’t let you do this—”

“You want help, right. For your brother’s love, right.”

iAm gritted his teeth. Rock, meet hard place. “Fuck!”

“I do not know what that means.”

He grabbed whatever it was out of her hands, but kept up the arguing as he threw the folds over himself. “What about the trip back?”

“I’ll create a diversion. You’re going to need some time in the library—unless you know exactly what you’re looking for?”

The heavy robing rushed down his legs. “What about in here?”

Without warning, the lights went out. “I activated the circadian system.”

Ah, yes, the alternation of light and dark without which you couldn’t sleep.

Click!

A tiny flashlight showed her the way to the bedding platform, and she quickly arranged the pillows and duvets such that it appeared there was someone in there. Then she ran back and put something up to his face.