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Soht, Amelia murmured in the back of Cor lot outside his aparthts bathed the washed-out concrete walls The roar of cars on the nearby highway beat at the air His shoulders ached They’d spent the afternoon putting uppark on the other side of the city, which see to write a check A as how she didn’t have a body That e and candles while walking around a couple of acres of territory He was tired

Aical instinct in hiht, Corht into the ambush at the base of the stairs

Move away froht off what it was Nothingwas so at hoot the reputation of vanishing like smoke You’d look and the vampire simply wouldn’t be there any the asphalt and rolling under the nearest car, a sedan with busted fenders, while reaching inside his jacket for a stake To think, so stakes everywhere

A thump pounded the top of the car as he rolled out the other side, and the va down on top of hiuy kicked it out of his hand, ut Move like that shouldn’t have been possible, but then neither should vas, the shock in his back, Coruy in the nuts That still worked on vampires at least

The thing about fighting vampires, your defenses had to be solid Not a crack That was the only way you’d get a chance to strike back They moved so fast, their reflexes were so sharp, they’d be on you and breaking your neck or ripping out your throat before you knew they were there You couldn’t let the their power and experience to bear Couldn’t let theaze, stare in your eyes, and immobilize you

This oneno vahborhood off the Boulder turnpike So he came home to the run-doo-story apart to his own front door

Cor face, a flop of hair The permanently offended snarl of a self-io, he took on a gang of vahborhood He wouldn’t dignify the group with the label Fa to act like one They hadn’t been old enough, rich enough, or sh to avoid trouble Cor hiar, and half his followers The rest had scattered, gone to ground

Turned out, at least one of the his time

Coruy, looked wildly around for the stake, raced for it—the varabbed his ankle and he fell Coruy’s nose Didn’t kill him Not much would

Nothing in Aet away, get a little space and time for her to work a spell But that was just it, vaave you that ti instincts try to save them

He ran Didn’t think he could get to his front door and the safety of the threshold before the vaht up to hi had exterior stairs leading up to the second floor Cored behind the steel frame of the staircase and spotted the door to the janitor’s closet

“You’ll pay for what you did!” the minion yelled, from the other side of the stairs

“That was a long ti to say to a vaetting soft

He had one more stake tucked in his inside jacket pocket Pulled it out, held it outstretched while the vah to just run right up it He grabbed Cor hiht there; instead, he paused, savoring thehimself closer, closer

Cormac’s other hand was on the utility closet’s handle He yanked open the door, fell in, knocking the va the door behind him As he hoped, a stack of rabbed a broom with a wooden handle, set it under a foot and snapped it in half

When the vampire opened the door, Corh his heart The guy screauish

The vampire couldn’t have been that old, a couple of decades at most The body blackened, but it didn’t shrivel to a husk and turn to ash the way the old ones did, the rot of the grave if they had been allowed to rot in a grave Beco a vampire only delayed the inevitable Va themselves on stakes for a Master who had been destroyed years before—what a waste But nobody held a grudge like a vao of the stake, and the rotted body dropped at his feet

Well, that was bracing

Because the vampire didn’t turn to dust and bloay, conveniently disposing of itself, Cormac now had a body to deal with

“I do not need this shit,” he muttered Irate, he kicked it The leathery skinsound

It’s better than letting hi nonplussed But yes, it is a bother

He dragged the body soht before anyone found it The apart’s du lay a gravely stretch, a foot or tide, between the building and a boundary fence A couple of scraggily dead shrubs poked up through the rocks No one went there, and it faced east As soon as the rays hit it, it would burn to ash, then poof, gone Hell, this was such a clear case of self-defense maybe he should call the police Except no, not with a hter conviction on his record Besides, co to report

Finally he got safely into his apartet the stink of dead vampire off him