"Justin, watch out!" I heard Shelton shout from somewhere to the side.

The rage didn't want to watch out. It wanted to mangle, kill, destroy.

Thankfully, one shred of sanity remained in my addled mind, and I dove away.

"Oh dear," the robot said an instant before the missiles struck where I'd been.

The explosion drove into my back like a giant club, batting me across the lawn. I plowed through shrubs sculpted into the shapes of planets, and my face plowed into the dirt. I struck something immovable, and my rear end flew up and smacked into something hard before dropping back to earth.

I tried to groan, but dirt filled my mouth, my nose. I tried to move, but nothing responded. Hands gripped my shoulder and jerked me to the side. I sputtered as my face came free of the dirt and mud, sucking in a breath and coughing violently.

"Holy dog balls in a hand basket," Shelton said. I felt his hands wiping at my face, and then I could see.

"Can't move," I said, my voice still sounding deep and guttural.

"You've got shrapnel sticking out of your back," Shelton said in a strange tone I'd never heard from him before. He almost sounded…concerned. "Oh, man. Hang on."

My body felt went numb, and I wondered if it meant I was dying. I felt a tug at my back. A rush of pins and needles raced along my skin followed shortly by intense agonizing pain. I screamed.

Shelton squeezed my shoulder. "This is gonna hurt like a bitch, man. So hang in there."

I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut as he jerked more shrapnel from my back. Each piece burned like serrated agony through muscle and flesh. I must have passed out at some point because, when I came to, I saw the ground, a pair of booted feet walking, and what was probably Shelton's butt.

"Gug," I said.

"Taking you back to the dorm," he replied.

"Wait. Walk." I tried to move my arms. They responded feebly.

Shelton leaned over to plant me on my feet. My knees wobbled but somehow held, probably because he slung my arm over his shoulder.

"Man, you're gonna need more clothes." He looked me in the eyes. "You ok to stand?"

I nodded even though every inch of my body hurt. "How long?"

"Were you out?" He mused the question for a moment. "Twenty minutes, maybe." He pointed ahead to the dorms. "Let's get inside, get you cleaned up. We gotta talk."

After drinking copious amounts of water and taking a shower, I felt somewhat better. My back was healing on its own, though slower than its usual speedy rate. I had a nasty feeling the vampling virus had something to do with it. As I slid on sweat pants and a T-shirt Shelton had pilfered from the laundry room, someone knocked on the door. He answered it and took delivery of a pizza.

I grabbed a piece and gobbled it, hardly pausing to breathe. Even as my food stomach filled, my demonic appetite made itself more apparent with a clawing sensation inside my belly.

"So, about the robot," Shelton said, taking a piece of pizza and blowing on it, "the one that attacked us ain't the same one from the entrance."

I paused mid-bite and raised an eyebrow. "Not the same one? But it looked—"

"Identical, I know." His phone projected a three-dimensional holographic image of the killer robot. Even though the missiles had blown it open, I noticed the torso was devoid of electronics or mechanical gear necessary for a robot to function.

"Um, where's the sciencey stuff?"

"For one thing, this wasn't a robot."

I paused in the middle of another bite and spoke with my mouth full from the last one. "It wasn't?"

"Nope." He displayed the image of one of the half-melted guns from the arm. "This was a golem someone went through a lot of trouble to make look like a robot. Specifically like the one at the entrance."

"A golem?" It seemed inconceivable anyone would go through the trouble. Then again, I probably didn't understand the meaning of the word. So many inconceivable things had happened to me over the last few months, I spent more time trying to figure out the next improbable way someone could kill me than I did choosing which cereal I wanted from the grocery store.

"Those gray men who tried to kill you are only one form of golem," Shelton said. "Hell, you can animate just about anything into a golem—stick figures, rocks, clay."

"Yeah, but why make it look like a robot?"

Shelton magnified the image on the gun, revealing an array of splintered sticks inside. "Those are wands, each one specifically spelled to cast death curses."

"But they looked like lasers."

"Death curses come in lots of forms." He went to an image of a missile. "These were basically charmed like flying brooms with potion bombs in the tips."

I peered at the missile, recognizing it as the one that had fizzled out. Greenish liquid dripped from the tip. "Potions—like witches brew?"

He nodded. "More or less. It's a form of magic people with less inherent power like to pursue, but whoever made these, was a master. I've never seen such a tiny amount of potion do so much damage."

"Why did that missile not explode?"

"That's a damned good question." Shelton braced his chin with a hand and pondered it for a moment. "You put up a barrier of some kind, but it wasn't physical. It could be you somehow threw up some kind of energy that defused the spell, or maybe we just got plain lucky."

"Well, since luck is never with us, I'd almost say it was my barrier, but knowing how terrible my magic skills are, it makes me want to say it was luck."

He laughed. "Well, it saved my ass."

I polished off my fourth—or was it fifth?—piece of pizza, and my stomach growled. "I need to feed."

Shelton turned off his phone and leaned back in his chair. "I was afraid you might need to."

Times like this really made Elyssa's absence painful. She understood my need to feed because she needed blood for her dhampyr side, although she could easily get blood packs, while I couldn't just as easily obtain bottled soul essence.

In other words, I needed a woman. Feeding off males was nearly impossible for me unless they were in a specific frame of mind. Women, on the other hand, could be doing laundry and still give me enough of an emotional vibe to feed on.

"Well, good thing we know someone," Shelton said. He checked the time on his phone.

I wrinkled my brow. "We do?"

He nodded. "Well, I don't personally know her, but I put in a call to Bella, and she said she knew someone going to school here who could help you out."

"Good thinking," I said.

He nodded and tapped his temple. "Brains. Not just for zombies anymore."

I laughed, even though the thought of Bella choosing someone to help me was a bit worrying. "So, uh, who—"

A knuckle rapped against the door.

"Come in," Shelton said.

The door opened, and a woman in a short purple skirt with a tight white T-shirt stepped inside. Her skin was the color of caramel, and her hair fell in long black waves over her shoulders. Chocolate brown eyes looked over an aquiline nose. She was every bit as lovely as the last time I'd seen her.

"Hello, Justin," Lina Romero said with a smile.

Chapter 12

Lina crossed the space before I could respond, squeezing me in a hug that sent pain racing up my ravaged back. I made a sound between a grunt and a whimper and feebly returned the hug. She felt very warm, very soft, and very curvy against my body. I jerked away as the demon in my pants took notice.

Lina gave me a knowing smile. "So, you are in trouble again?"

"It's a habit with this guy," Shelton said, trying to act nonchalant, though his roaming eyes and smirk told me he was enjoying the sight of the pretty girl.

"A golem robot thingy tried to blow us up," I said.

"Shrapnel in the back," Shelton added.

Lina's eyes grew wide. "Oh, no. I must look." Before I could protest, she was tugging the T-shirt off my back. She gasped. "Justin, this is terrible!" Her Colombian accent was lighter than the last time I'd heard it, but thickened with her distress. "It is so good I came to you."

"Why are you here at the academy?" I asked, still a bit off balance by her appearance.

"I'm attending A.U." She smiled. "I'm finally a college girl."

Shelton leaned back in his chair, still munching on pizza. "Well, she's here and willing. Go ahead and do what you need to do."

I liked Lina. She was smart, pretty, and feisty. But she'd also wanted to be more than friends when we first met. At the time, Elyssa had lost her memories of me, and I'd all but given up on her ever remembering me or loving me again. Lina had helped me out quite a bit in my time of need—and no, not in the naughty way either. But she'd wanted more than I could give. My heart belonged to Elyssa then and now.

"You're concerned about what happened last time," she said, giving me a sober look.

Shelton leaned forward. "And what was that?"

"Uh—" I started, unsure what to say, if anything.

Lina smiled. "I had a crush on Justin."

"Bah." Shelton leaned back in his chair. "Man, I thought it'd be something interesting, not high school romance."

She rolled her eyes, the smile never leaving her face. "Bella told me about you, Harry. Maybe you should look into this high school romance stuff a little more. She could probably teach you something."

He chuckled. "Man, I'll bet she could teach me things that would—" He cut off abruptly, giving us each uncomfortable glances. "Ah, forget it. Just feed already, I'm sick of hearing the kid groan."

Lina brown eyes met mine. "It's okay, Justin. No more girly crushes."

I took a deep breath and regarded her for a moment before deciding I was just too damned hungry to care. I extended my incubus senses, and Lina's halo, a glowing nimbus around her body, flared to life. I latched a tendril of my essence into her gently swirling aura. Emotions flooded through the connection, but I filtered the noise and evened out my own emotional state to match the ones that were most benign. I was constantly improving my technique, though to any older Daemos, I probably looked like a toddler with applesauce smeared all over his mouth and cake in his hair.