"Seriously, Danny," Blaze reiterated when the boy continued to ignore her and dropped down to crouch beside a metal grate near the ground of the building. "These things are difficult to kill. You don't even have a weapon, do you?"

Danny didn't even look at her. He pried open the door and crawled into the shaft headfirst, on his hands and knees. Emeline and Blaze exchanged a long look. Blaze followed him with Emeline close on her heels. Blaze understood him. She would have gone after Emeline no matter her age. Emeline would have come after her. That was family. That was the bond. That was love.

Hurry, Maksim, she whispered softly into her mind. They have three girls and this wonderful boy is risking everything to find his sisters.

You and Emeline are risking everything as well. Stay together. Remember, it will not be the undead that will come at you. First will be their humans and then their puppets. Maybe a lesser vampire. If we have not arrived, I will need to see through your eyes. Lojos gave Emeline blood. He can see through hers.

Blaze kept crawling through the narrow ventilation shaft, Emeline close on her heels. Danny clearly had come this way many times. There was no hesitation on his part at all. He moved with a.s.surance in spite of the fact that the shaft was pitch dark. Blaze could see. Her night vision was extremely acute now, a by-product, she was certain, of the Carpathian blood running through her veins. Emeline didn't complain, either, so she had to be able to at least see Blaze.

The shaft narrowed and teed. Danny immediately was on his belly, using elbows and toes to thrust himself forward, following the shaft that led to the right and began a downward slant. There was definitely fresh air coming from somewhere. She couldn't imagine what these young children had coped with to drive them so far into the shaft to find out where it led. Emeline had been on the streets for years. She used the fire escapes and rooftops more than anything on the ground. She'd always said it gave her a sense of safety to be able to see anything coming her way.

Ahead of her, Danny tumbled out of the shaft onto cement flooring. Blaze followed, landing easily, looking around as she moved out of the way for Emeline. They were in a large tunnel. Very large. The ceiling curved above their head, and the hallway led in two directions. Sconces high up on the wall were lit, spilling light and shadow throughout the long, winding pa.s.sageway.

"What's down here?" she asked Danny. No way would he bring his sisters to this level without some exploring first.

"The tunnels run under at least three city blocks," Danny said. Whispering. "We kept to the right and stayed just at the entrance so we could get back in the shaft as quickly as possible. Even the baby learned to be quiet down here."

Blaze shivered at the sudden note of tension in his voice. She already felt the difference, the moment Danny had turned down the shaft leading toward the left. The air emanating from the right side smelled clean and fresh. Coming from the left, there was a strange musky smell. Repulsive. Not strong, just enough to keep anyone from wanting to travel down that wide corridor.

"They can smell you," she told Danny. He needed to know, just in case they got the girls back and came out of it alive. She glanced at Emeline. "It's interesting that after all that time when they could have taken the girls down here, they waited to kidnap them until tonight. And right under the windows of the bar and apartment."

"I didn't think of that," Emeline said. "It's a trap then. They wanted us to come down here."

Blaze nodded slowly. Maksim, they lured Emmy and me down here using the children. Danny and his sisters have come here many times over the last year. Why would they wait if they wanted them? How could they know Emeline would be with me tonight in my apartment?

A scream filled the tunnels. High-pitched. Animalistic. One of the girls. Terrified. In agony. She had to grip both Danny and Emeline to prevent them from rushing headlong into certain trouble. Still, she had no choice. It was impossible to leave a child to the monsters. To allow the undead or their puppets to torture and feed off of them.

What they were doing was insane. Going straight into a hornet's nest and they were waiting for them. She knew that. She knew it in her brain and felt it in her gut. Still, the scream didn't let up. Now it was much more guttural. The throat shredded and raw.

I have to go, Maksim. I can't hear this and not go to her. I can only hope they don't want us dead. Get here soon. Hurry. Please hurry.

I could stop all three of you.

In spite of the implacable statement, she knew he wouldn't. She was well aware of him there in her mind, hearing what she heard. Knowing she would have to do this. He was afraid for her, but he wouldn't stop her because he knew and understood who she was. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't try.

I love you. She whispered the declaration to him softly. Intimately. Meaning it. Expecting to die, but hoping he would get there fast enough to save all of them.

If they waited and planned this, acquiring either you or Emeline or the both of you is their ultimate goal, Maksim stated.

Thankfully he didn't sound so far away as he had when she'd first contacted him. Still . . .

They could have killed you in the club, but they did not. If they get you, they will know you are my lifemate, but Emeline has not been claimed.

Blaze was horrified at the implication. Can vampires have s.e.x? Are you saying they are looking for a lifemate? That's the most disgusting thing I can think of. No woman would want to have s.e.x with rotting flesh.

They do not consider themselves rotting. Of course they can have s.e.x, but to feel anything they would have to torture the woman and take her blood for the rush. To a vampire it might even be the ultimate high.

Blaze had begun to move slowly through the tunnel. The thought that Maksim could be right in his a.s.sessment of what the vampires wanted Emmy for turned her stomach, the imagery burned itself into her brain. She looked at Emeline. Emeline had a look of utter despair on her face. Her eyes were filled with sorrow. With trepidation. She knew something Blaze didn't.

"Emmy, you and Danny should stay here. I'll go ahead and try to get the girls. We can't all be in jeopardy. That would be foolish. Watch my back. You have a gun. I'll give one to Danny. Shoot the eyes and nose. That will at least blind them and hopefully make it so they can't smell you. Set them on fire if you can. Whatever you do, don't let them get their hands on you."

"I have to go," Emeline said softly. She pressed her lips together and then took a deep breath. "I can change things in my dreams, Blaze. I tried many different versions of this one, hoping to stop what I know is going to happen. If I don't go, those girls die. The baby first. I have to be there to get the baby while you're fighting off the guards. Danny has to be there as well to take the baby."

Get here fast, this is a disaster.

We are coming, Maksim a.s.sured.

It seemed like it had been hours since she'd first called to Maksim, but she knew it was only a matter of minutes. It just seemed much longer. Blaze snapped her teeth together and set a much faster pace through the wide tunnel. The deeper they got into the maze of twists and turns, the more it felt as if eyes watched them. The more the stench grew. Small red eyes glowed at them as rats scurried to get out of their way.

Blaze had seen these tunnels before, and strangely, because she'd had the nightmare of running in them hundreds of times, she knew the way. She knew to turn left and then right. She knew when they neared the command center and the lights of the banks of computers and large screens would cast eerie green and blue lights across the ancient floors. She knew exactly where the room with dozens of cages was.

As they approached, she held up her hand to stop the other two from moving forward. This was her job. The prisoners were kept here. The ones used for food. The ones they experimented on. She took a deep breath, drew her knife and pushed inside. She'd gone over the scenario a hundred times. In her dreams she'd been killed over and over until she learned the exact sequence of events.

She saw the human first. A Hallahan. He was on his knees, a young girl on the floor, her clothes torn, her face swollen and b.l.o.o.d.y. This was Amelia, Danny's older sister. Blaze had never seen faces clearly, but she wasn't surprised to see a Hallahan a.s.saulting a child. He looked up at her, shocked to find her there. She was on him in seconds, kicking him in the face, sending him flying off the girl.

"Into the hall," she hissed at the child, not looking at her. Carrick Hallahan grinned at her as he stood, wiping the blood from his mouth where her boot landed.

"My sisters . . ." the girl protested.

"Into the hall. Danny's there."

Amelia scrambled on her hands and knees, sobbing loudly. Too loudly. Blaze hoped Danny and Emeline would quiet her. Blaze whirled around, transferring the knife to her left hand while she gathered her throwing knives with her right. She threw them as she advanced quickly on Carrick. The knives went true, sinking into flesh from his belly to his throat. Four of them. He hadn't taken a single step toward her. He was still grinning macabrely at her. Her momentum took her past him and she kicked him hard in the back of the knee, taking him down, one hand reaching for his hair to yank his head back. Her knife bit deep into his throat and she shoved him away from her, already turning toward the door of the second room.

Another room for prisoners. Long tables covered in blood. Saws. Drills. Cages lining the room so the prisoners could see what would happen to them. He would be waiting above her. She couldn't be distracted by the room. She couldn't vomit at the stench of what she found there. She had to be prepared.

Blaze burst through the door, leaping into the air. She had forgotten she was fully Carpathian and her strength was enormous. Her ability to jump drove her straight to the ceiling, the knife unerringly finding the heart of the guard. Another human. Not a Hallahan, but she lost her knife when she'd pinned him so deep and she didn't take the time to yank it free. A through and through straight to the ceiling.

She couldn't look at the baby's face, swollen with tears. A smear of blood on her cheek as she lay in a cage beside a mutilated corpse. Blaze kept moving, straight across the room toward the other Hallahan brother. Terry Hallahan was ready for her, bringing up a gun. Behind her, she knew Emeline had entered the room. She couldn't look. She had her job and Emeline had her own. They had worked this scenario hundreds of times. Both knew what would happen; still, they couldn't leave the children there.

They had never known what drew them into the tunnels because they were already in it when their dream started. She kept her eyes glued to Terry, the last brother. He aimed at her kneecap.

"I killed them, you know," she said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. She kept walking toward him. "All three of them. I was the one who killed them."

His eyebrow shot up. The gun was forgotten for a split second while he tried to comprehend what she was saying.

She went in under the gun, sliding, taking out his legs in a scissor takedown, rolling so she was on top and he was pinned beneath her, the gun crushed between the floor and his chest. She leaned into him, her mouth to his ear, the knife from her boot in her fist.

"Your brothers. For my dad. It isn't a fair exchange, but then you all are sc.u.m." She drove the point of her knife deep into the base of his skull. And left it there. She only had one more knife and she drew it from where it lay between her shoulder blades.

Emeline was still crouched at the child's cage. She had to trust that Emmy could get her out. There was a man slumped in a cage, alert, his eyes on her. She felt compelled to approach that cage. In the dream she hadn't known why. It was a stupid thing to do when she needed every second to count, but now she realized he was Carpathian. A hunter. Ravaged. Drained of blood. Tortured. Maybe even mad.

Go, he whispered. Leave me and save yourselves.

It was an order. Arrogant just like the other hunters. She ignored him and crouched by the cage, because if he ordered her to leave, he wasn't insane. "You need blood," she whispered, her eyes, not on him, but on the door. The puppet would come next. Emeline and the baby had to be out of there by the time the puppet came. Emeline would be taken in the hall, but Danny would get the baby and Amelia out. That left Liv. It was up to her to get Liv.

She never knew what happened to Emeline after that. She would wake from the nightmare and Emmy would be huddled into a protective ball, her body shuddering, her fist jammed deep in her mouth and her eyes haunted. She always looked at Blaze with despair. With pain. With absolute terror.

Blaze always forced herself to wake after she shoved Liv into the hall so she could run to freedom. She forced herself awake because there was no way to win the battle beneath the ground. She died down there. Every time.

I cannot aid you. Leave this place. It is too dangerous.

The other hunters are coming.

Leave me for them.

She couldn't. She'd left him several times and each time he'd died there in that cage, speared by a puppet cleaning up on his master's orders. She shot the lock as she'd done so many times in her dreams.

Can you make it out by yourself? I still have one more child to get.

He nodded. She wasn't certain of his fate. She couldn't stay. She didn't dare spare blood for him. She had to go into the next room where the puppet had Liv. Little Liv, the ten-year-old girl who shouldn't know there were monsters in the world. Little Liv, whose screams had brought them all running in an effort to try to save her from the fate she'd suffered over and over in Blaze's nightmares.

As she moved away from the cage and toward the door, she heard a whisper of movement. Of course. She should have known. Emeline came back. Emeline gave the caged Carpathian the blood to save his life. Brave Emmy who thought she was not a warrior. Who couldn't fight with guns and knives but fought back with sheer courage. She was already kneeling by the cage as Blaze went through the last door of the prison.

FIFTEEN.

LIV WAS BEHIND the door, just as she was in the nightmare that had plagued both Emeline and Blaze for years. In the dark corner, the puppet crouched over her, devouring the child alive. Unlike in the nightmare, this time the little girl had a face and a name, but Blaze knew better than to look at the terrified little face as the puppet fed on her, tearing great chunks of flesh from her body with his rotten teeth. His fetid breath blasted through the room as Blaze entered. He raised his head as she burst through the door, those red, burning eyes focusing on her.

Blaze sliced a small, neat cut in her forearm to lure him from his victim. Flinging her arm over her head, she sent droplets of blood toward the puppet. He sniffed the air, dropped Liv and turned toward Blaze, stumbling to his feet with jerky motions. She was Carpathian, and he would want her blood above all else.

"Can you get up?" Blaze asked the child, keeping her gaze wholly on the monster shuffling toward her.

The child didn't answer. She didn't make a sound. Not even to scream. Blaze backed away from the corner where the puppet had been feeding on the child, drawing the monster to her to give the child time to get to safety. There was movement. Still, Blaze counted her own heartbeats, breathing in and out, all the time her gaze glued to the monster she faced.

No gun, no knife, was going to end this puppet's existence. She had to kill it, though, in order to get out into the corridor to save Emeline. She'd never done it. Not one single time and she'd tried hundreds of times, playing out various scenarios in the nightmare. By the time she'd dispatched the monster, Emeline was already gone-taken by the vampires.

"You have to get up now," Blaze persisted, pouring steel into her tone. She couldn't sympathize. She couldn't so much as glance at the terrified child. She'd done that time and again, made that very mistake in the dreams and each time she had, everyone died. She knew better. So no sympathy. Pure steel. "Get up now and run to the tunnels. Danny's there. Go. Right. Now."

The puppet was nearly on her. His face was distorted, almost as if the skin on one side had melted and his flesh was sloughing off. One eye hung half in and half out of the socket. His hair was ratted and fell in long, dank dreads. He had the child's blood smeared all over his mouth and chin. Up this close she could see flesh in his teeth. The smell and sight turned her stomach. Still, she had a job to do.

She moved the knife in a figure eight, her speed blurring, cutting arteries in his legs, arms and belly as she slid beneath him, coming up behind him. Before he could turn, she had his head jerked back and she cut him with the amazing strength of the Carpathians. It nearly took his head off.

Blood was everywhere, all over the room. She felt like she was drowning in it. She took two steps back and pulled the small bottle of accelerant from inside her jacket, flinging it over the puppet.

The door banged shut and she knew the child was gone. Thank G.o.d. She already had enough trauma for ten children, let alone to see this. Blaze scratched the match and threw it on the top of the puppet's head. Instantly, the head was engulfed in flames. Blaze leapt back and hurried toward the door. She jerked it open, praying she was fast enough this time.

Something sharp and terrible stabbed into her ankle and she found herself on the floor, sliding straight toward the flames and that horrible, grisly, gruesome wreck of what has once been a human being. His fingernails were long thick talons, each sticking into her ankle. Deep, maybe a good three quarters of an inch. He dragged her back through the door toward his gaping mouth, a mouth that was surrounded by crackling flames. It was grotesque and insane. It made no sense that he could be on fire and still try to eat her alive.

Flames spread quickly over his body, but his eyes were on the cut on her forearm. Great thick strings of saliva hung from his wide-open mouth. Blaze refused to give in to the first reaction-to try to escape by flinging herself away from him. Instead, she went with the momentum of his strength. As he dragged her toward him, she hurled herself back at him, coming down across his wrist with the blade of her knife with every ounce of strength she had. She severed the wrist, kicked at his head right through the flames and scrambled backward.

Hard hands caught her under her armpits and yanked her through the door. It was the hunter-the one she'd rescued-the one Emeline had taken the time to give blood to.

"Emeline," she whispered, looking up at him.

He didn't answer. He set her aside and strode purposefully into the room with the burning puppet, ignoring her plea to leave her and save her friend. Blaze leapt to her feet and then collapsed when her ankle gave out. She glanced down and her stomach lurched. The hand was still embedded in her ankle. It took a few precious seconds for her to get the courage to rip the talons, one by one out of her flesh. Each time she tugged at one of the talons, her stomach rolled and bile filled her mouth.

She tossed the hand away from her, jumped to her feet in spite of the blood streaming from her ankle and ran back through the other two rooms to the tunnels. Like every single time in her dreams, Emeline was gone. This was where she woke herself up. There was no waking up from this. No do-over.

They have Emeline, Maksim. They took her deeper into the tunnels.

We are in the tunnels, draga mea. Every hunter we have available to us. Get out and let us take care of this.

She couldn't. She couldn't leave Emeline. The last of her family. She pushed down terror and followed her scent. Emeline always smelled like a combination of fresh magnolia and lily of the valley. Her scent was delicate and beautiful. Just like Emeline. She raced through the tunnels. Twice she shot a guard and kept going. Once she ran into a puppet, ripped herself out of his hands and continued. Behind her the hunter followed. Each time she shot a guard, he followed up, making certain of the kill. She glanced over her shoulder just as he plunged his hand into the puppet's chest and ripped out the heart.

She was very thankful she had rescued him and that Emeline had given him blood. He was thin and pale and clearly had been tortured for a very long time, but he didn't hesitate to guard a Carpathian woman. She turned the next corner and skidded to a halt. Emeline wasn't there, but there was no getting past the two vampires clearly waiting for her. Grinning maliciously. Knowing she was coming.

Maksim. She breathed his name. Find Emmy. Please, please find Emmy.

Look at them. I have to see them, Maksim ordered, his voice calm. You have to concentrate on your fight, not on your friend. You know that.

She pressed her lips together. Maksim didn't have a lot of give in him. There was no room for argument, nor was there time. She could only hope he was closer to Emeline than she was and that whoever had her kept her alive until the hunters could find her. She let out her breath slowly and kept her gaze glued to the two vampires. They separated and the one on the right crooked his finger at her.

"Come to me." The vampire to her right whispered the command.

She recognized the compulsion, but her brain didn't accept compulsion easily, and she remained where she was, shifting her stance, staying loose so she could move fast.

The moment he rushes you, and he will, run straight at him. Make a fist and use the combined momentum from your speed and his to drive your fist into his chest. Go for the heart. It will burn unlike anything you have ever felt. Ignore it and extract the heart. He will tear at you. You have to have patience and stay in position. The other will come at you, but get the heart. Try to keep the body of the undead you are fighting between you and the other at all times.

She didn't have time to digest what he said, or protest. She had come into this knowing she might have to fight a vampire. In any case, she knew the Carpathian hunter she'd rescued was somewhere very close. She saw the vampire's eyes and knew the moment he decided to rush her. She ran at him, at an angle, trying to do as Maksim had instructed, trying to put the other vampire on the other side of him. She slammed her fist into the chest wall, right over the heart, driving deep.

Pain blasted through her. Excruciating. Sheer agony. She kept driving forward, pushing pain to the back of her mind, although it wasn't working so well. The vampire screamed and ripped at her shoulder and neck with long, curled nails. He tried to lean into her to get at her with his teeth, but she kept circling, her hand buried deep in his chest.

Maksim moved in her mind, helping her to cut off the pain so she could continue. She heard movement and glanced over the vampire's shoulder. The other had moved toward her but he stopped abruptly. She knew instantly the other hunter had joined the fight. One moment the second vampire moved toward her, and then the hunter emerged between them.

Val Zhestokly. I thought him long dead. We all did. He is one of our ancient legends. Maksim breathed the name with utter respect. No one knew what happened to him.

She could have told him. He'd been in that dungeon a very long time. Years maybe. Enough time to drive him mad, but he'd endured like so many of the ancients did. She had no idea how. Her hand closed around the withered heart. She ignored the nails digging at her shoulder and began to withdraw her arm.

The sound was terrible. The feel of the withered organ pumping in her hand disgusted her. She needed to vomit. She didn't. She kept pulling the thing from the chest until she had it all the way out. She threw it as far from her as possible. Zhestokly dropped his hands on her shoulders and moved her gently aside.

She bent at the waist, gagging. Still looking. One vampire lay motionless, but his eyes were open and he stared intently at the blackened organ lying only feet from him. The undead she'd fought with lay in a corner where Zhestokly's powerful shove sent him flying. Flames arced in the air-and then leapt from the two hearts to the two bodies of the vampires.

She knew tears were running down her face, and she pressed her hand deep into her stomach. Zhestokly wrapped his arm around her waist. "You have to get out of here."

"They have Emeline," she whispered. "I wasn't fast enough."

"She gave me her blood. I can track her. You get to safety."

Blaze, get the children out. I am close to her. Zhestokly will catch up. Mataias is on his way to help you guard the children.

Blaze looked into the ravaged face and beautiful but dead eyes of Val Zhestokly. She took another breath and slowly nodded. She had no real choice. She couldn't fight vampires, especially master vampires, and she knew Emeline had been taken to one.