Even as she ensnared another victim, she was aware of Grigori. He had not even bothered to leave the city but had simply gone home to that—that—wife of his. He was there now, waiting. Waiting for her. He did not seem particularly afraid, when he should be cowering from the wrath to come. From where had he found this sudden courage, this need to defy her?
Disposing of the last body, she drew in a deep breath and blew it out in a long shuddering sigh. She was ready now, impatient for the confrontation to come. Her eyes narrowed as she focused all her energy on Grigori.
He was not alone with Marisa.
The vampyre hunter was there, the one who had dared attack her. She lifted a hand to her face, assuring herself that no scars remained from the holy water he had splashed over her. She had already marked him for destruction, had believed she might have a difficult time finding him after he had felt her power. She smiled. They had joined forces, the vampyre hunter and the vampire, making it that much easier to find them both. Khira discounted Marisa’s presence. The puny mortal was no threat. And it would be such a pleasure, poetic almost, to feed on Grigori’s woman after the battle.
But where was Ramsey? She searched but could not find him or his woman. Had they left town? Or had Ramsey grown strong enough to conceal himself—and his little slut? She knew a momentary pang of regret. She had been drawn to Ramsey from the first, attracted to his cool facade and growing power. If she had concentrated more on him, perhaps he would be at her side now, aiding her against Grigori and the hunter, Duncan.
She dismissed the thought even as it formed. She had never been foolish enough to trust those of her own kind. She was a law unto herself.
Still, her inability to locate Ramsey troubled her.
No matter. She was full of power. She could feel it seething within her, her anger growing, feeding on itself. It was time. She would destroy them all: the vampire hunter, Edward and his fledgling, Marisa, Grigori . . . She closed her eyes, imagining a world without Grigori in it.
Why, Grigori? Why have you done this?
“I asked only for a year,” she whispered. “A year out of our immortality to spend together again. And you promised!” Anger overcame sentiment. “You lied to me! Humiliated me!”
But it was more than that. He had wounded her pride by leaving her to go to another woman. A mortal woman. Her voice rose as her outrage flamed high once more. “You will pay for your folly,” she vowed. “Before the night is out, you will have paid the ultimate price.”
She felt a familiar sense of pleasure as she gathered her power around her. She embraced it, reveled in it, and then, with a wave of her hand, she went to make her final preparation for the battle to come.
“What if she doesn’t come?” Marisa asked.
“She’ll come,” Grigori said. He sat back in the easy chair, looking calm. “Her pride will bring her.”
Duncan was playing solitaire. He turned over a card, the ace of clubs. “Got all four aces up now,” he said with satisfaction. “My only concern is, what if she goes after Ramsey first?”
“She can’t find Ramsey. I can’t. And I know where to look. Ramsey is our hole card. So to speak.” Grigori smiled. “Your five of hearts can go up now.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” Duncan remarked as he played the five. “Yessir, I think I’m going to win this hand.”
“Let’s just hope we win the battle.”
They both seemed so calm, Marisa thought. Was she the only one who was afraid? She hated waiting, wondering, not knowing. Too nervous to sit still, she stood and began to pace the floor in front of the hearth, trying not to look at the sharpened wooden stakes lying in obscene innocence on one of the end tables. A finely engraved solid silver dagger with a triangular blade ending in a needle point lay next to them. Tools of the trade, Duncan had called them. He had two vials of water at his elbow. He didn’t have to tell her what they were. She knew it was holy water. She shuddered at the memory of the damage it had done Khira’s features, the way it had eaten into the vampire’s flesh.
She fingered the thick silver chain around her neck. She had not worn silver since she met Grigori, but tonight he had insisted. She wore wide silver bracelets on her wrists, as well. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to face Khira. Coward that she was, she wanted only to leave town. But Grigori had refused. No matter where they went, Khira would hunt them down sooner or later. Better to end it now, he had said. And Ramsey and Duncan agreed with him. Khira had to be destroyed, and there was no one else to do it. When they had first discussed their plans, Grigori had told her there was no need for her to stay, but then he had changed his mind. Alone and unprotected, Marisa would draw Khira like a beacon on a dark night. Give her a hostage to use against him. Defeat him before he had a chance to fight.
“How long do we have to wait for her to act?” Marisa asked. “I hate waiting, not knowing . . . ”
“It shouldn’t be much longer,” Grigori said. “I’ve felt her in my mind. She knows we are here, and that Duncan is with us. She suspects we are plotting against her. One of her revenants is watching the house even now.”
Revenants. Marisa shuddered.
“She will be here,” Grigori said, and went suddenly still.
“What is it?” Marisa touched the chain around her neck again. “Grigori . . .”
“Damn it, I should have expected this,” Grigori said tensely. “Duncan! The front door . . .”
The rest of his words were drowned in a splintering crash as the front door exploded inward.
There was the sound of heavy footsteps, and two huge men burst into the room. Another followed. And another . . . and another.
They were all built like football linemen—tall and massive and muscular. They fanned out toward the room’s occupants without a word. They moved fast enough, but in a disjointed shamble, mouths slack.
Their eyes were dead.
Marisa’s stomach churned with fear. She ran across the room toward Grigori without thinking about the silver she wore—until she saw him flinch away. She ducked around behind him—far enough away so the silver would not weaken him.
By then, two of the revenants were on him, while two more closed in on Duncan. She couldn’t see the vampire hunter past their bulky bodies.
They seized Grigori’s arms. Marisa felt him gather his power, felt it crawl along her skin, lift the hairs at her nape.
With a savage cry of rage, Grigori broke free. He shoved one of the revenants away, and at the same time, he snatched the other to him, his hands folding over the creature’s bulky shoulders in an obscene parody of a lover’s embrace. Jerking the revenant’s head down and to the side, he exposed its muscular, corded neck. The creature he had thrown off was shambling back to the fray, grunting furiously.
Grigori buried his fangs in his prey’s neck and drank deep as the other one laid his hands on him and tried to pry him away from his kill.
Across the room, one of the creatures blocking her view of Duncan sagged suddenly and collapsed. Eyes glazed with the heat of battle, Duncan coolly planted his foot on its chest and withdrew a bloody stake. But before he could set himself to strike again, the second creature drove him to his knees with a clumsy roundhouse blow.
Marisa shrieked as a huge hairy arm circled her waist and lifted her off her feet. The grip tightened relentlessly, cutting off her breath.
“Grigori!” She gasped his name.
He flung his prey aside, spun out of the grasp of the second, and was at her side in the blink of an eye. She couldn’t see what he was doing behind her, but the revenant’s arm fell away and he dropped heavily to the floor.
Duncan was up again, struggling with one of the attackers. She scrambled toward the wall and turned, her mind reeling, her nostrils filling with the scent of blood.
A stake was raised in the air, the end dripping blood.
It took her what seemed like forever to realize it was not wielded by Duncan, but by one of the revenants. And that it was aimed at Grigori’s back as he battled the creature who had seized her.
Shadows blurred across her vision, moving fast.
And suddenly Ramsey was there, his grip locked on the wrist of the revenant who held the stake. Kelly was there, too, struggling with the creature who had almost bested Duncan.
Marisa watched with horrified fascination as Ramsey looped his free arm around the revenant’s neck and snapped it with one powerful stroke.
Kelly screamed as the monster she had attacked broke her left arm and hurled her to the floor. Ramsey immediately launched himself at the creature. Duncan grabbed a stake from the table and tossed it to Ramsey, who drove it through the revenant’s heart.
The room stank of blood and fear and violent death.
The surviving revenants pressed their attack, utterly oblivious to the fate of their fellows.
And then, Khira was there.
Her triumphant laughter filled the room. “Sorry I’m late, children. I had to wait until Ramsey and his little trollop came out of hiding.”
Like a whirlwind, she spun through them. A single blow sent Duncan flying across the room. He slammed into a wall and slid to the floor, boneless as a rag doll. A revenant turned and plodded toward him.
Khira backhanded Ramsey out of her path and grabbed Kelly. Snatching her upright, she curled her fingers into hooked claws and raked them down the girl’s body, opening a great, gaping wound from shoulder to thigh. With a scream, Kelly collapsed to the floor.
Ramsey almost reached Khira, but she spun away, flying at Grigori. A revenant was bending over Kelly, a stake in his hamlike fist. Ramsey spared only a glance for Grigori before lifting the revenant high and breaking its back over his knee.
Khira stalked toward Grigori, her eyes blazing with the anger and jealousy of two hundred years. She waved her hand toward the table, and the remaining stakes went up in flame.
Whimpering softly, Kelly curled in on herself, her body lying in a pool of her own blood. Marisa wondered if Kelly, being a new vampire, possessed the resilience to overcome her wounds on her own. Ramsey fell to his knees beside Kelly, his face stricken. Over in the corner, Duncan and the last revenant wearily hammered at each like two tired prizefighters.
Marisa stood transfixed, unable to move. They were going to die, all of them.
Khira’s gaze burned into Grigori. “Have you nothing to say to me?” she asked with a sneer. “No last words?”
Marisa wrapped her arms around herself. She was trembling all over from what she had seen, from what she knew was coming. She could feel Khira’s power growing stronger by the moment, could feel it pushing against Grigori, could feel Grigori’s power pushing back. He had fed well, but so had Khira. How many people had died this night to strengthen her? How many more would die when there was no one left to thwart her?
It was a silent, deadly battle. Khira reeled backward as Grigori’s power pierced her own, but only for a moment. Slowly she lifted her arms, drew them together over her head, her eyes burning, burning, as she gathered all her power and focused it on Grigori.
He groaned low in his throat as pain engulfed him. “Ramsey . . .”
Khira whirled and waved her hand at Ramsey, who had started toward Grigori. Her power wrapped around him and flung him back against the wall. He lay there, trapped in the web of her power, unable to move.
And then she turned to Grigori once more. “It did not have to end like this,” she said. Her power slashed at him like a whip, driving him to his knees. “And now, because of you, they will all die, your woman last of all.”
“No.” The word was torn from his throat.
“Yes. I will drain her of every drop. Think of that while you writhe in hell.”
“Marisa . . .” He gasped her name as white-hot pain splintered through every fiber of his being.
Marisa stared at him, tears coursing down her cheeks. They had underestimated Khira’s strength. All this time, she had been toying with them, playing with them, letting them think they had a chance against her, but it no longer mattered, Marisa thought dully. If she was to die, so be it. Without Grigori, she had nothing to live for.
She glanced at Ramsey, helpless in the clutch of Khira’s power, at Duncan, who seemed to be holding his own against the last revenant, at Kelly, lying in a pool of blood, at the dead creatures who had once been men, their lives destroyed because of Khira’s jealousy. She looked at Grigori, writhing in agony because he was too fine and decent to run away and leave the city at Khira’s mercy. And she was suddenly ashamed of her cowardice. People had died, were dying. Grigori was in agony. If she was to die, she would die fighting!
Before she realized what she was doing, before she had time to talk herself out of it, she grabbed the dagger from the table and plunged it to the hilt into Khira’s back.
The vampire screamed, a high-pitched wail of pain and rage and disbelief that echoed off the walls and reechoed in Marisa’s mind.
Slowly, so slowly, Khira turned, her face a mask of agony, her eyes ablaze with hatred. She stood there for stretched seconds, her power shrinking around her.
“You!” The word hissed from her lips.
Marisa took a step backward, but there was no need. The life went out of Khira like an extinguished flame and she fell slowly, gracefully to the floor.
There was a moment of complete and utter silence. And then, as if they had all been released from some sorcerer’s spell, they all moved at once. Ramsey scooped Kelly into his arms and carried her to the sofa, murmuring that everything would be all right.
With a final uppercut, Duncan slammed his last antagonist back against the wall. The revenant went down, hard. Lips drawn back in a grimace, Duncan jerked a stake from the body of another revenant and plunged it into the heart of the creature lying at his feet.