Strangely, I'm not hiding. Instead I walk right down the center of the street, letting the keen silver light of the moon flow over me like gilded rain.

"You wanted me," I shout. "Here I am."

No one answers. I turn in a slow, wary circle, gaze touching on each building, the windows, the roof, the doors. Who, or what, am I searching for?

"Let her go," I order.

Laughter slithers through the air like a slug, leaving a damp and oily trail behind. Gooseflesh rises on my arms, and I shift my shoulders as the invisible bull's-eye pulses between them.

The rasp of my knife leaving the sheath thunders through the eerie silence. "We had a deal."

The laughter comes again, bringing to mind a cartoon red devil with a spiky black goatee and curling horns.

"Me for her," I say, though my voice is weaker. I'm starting to see what I've known all along-deals with the devil aren't deals at all.

A door creaks open a few yards ahead of me. A shadow moves inside. A thin white hand slides through the opening and beckons.

I swallow, my throat clicking with a cold, murky fear that nearly chokes me, and go in.

Jimmy hangs on the wall.

The laughter swirls through the room like a midwinter wind, but no one is here but us.

I want to run to him. I want to run away. Instead I stand there, just inside the doorway, and stare. They've crucified him.

Turning, I stumble back outside and throw up.

When there isn't anything left inside me but fury, I tighten my hand on my knife and return.

I stride across the room, my teeth clenched, and try to take the nails out of his feet. They're gold, of course, otherwise they wouldn't hold him at all.

He moans, opens his eyes, and, seeing me, curses. "Get out," he manages. "Take her and run."

"In h.e.l.l," I say, and use my knife to yank out the first nail.

Jimmy draws in a sharp breath. "Baby, where do you think we are?"

"Not h.e.l.l. Not yet." Though you wouldn't know it by looking around. "Where's the kid?"

"I don't know."

Fear flickers. "She all right?"

"I think so. Saw her when I got here. Heard her crying since." He gentles his voice at my flinch. "They wouldn't hurt her. Permanently. But I don't think they ever plan to let her go. They need her dead almost as much as they need-"

"Me dead," I finish.

"You shouldn't be here. If they kill you, Doomsday's back. Is that what you want?"

"Of course not."

"Then why did you come?"

"For Faith. But I'll take you, too."

"Idiot."

"You're welcome," I say, and yank out another nail.

Jimmy's mouth tightens, and his face pales. But he doesn't pa.s.s out. It would take a lot more than this to kill a dhampir. "I had it covered, Lizzy. Me for her. That was the agreement."

I lift my gaze. "Same one I made."

"Double-dealing a.s.sholes," he says without heat.

I have his feet free and reach up to work on his right hand, sliding in the blood on the floor. My stomach lurches. The scent is nauseating.

Odd. Lately, the scent of blood has been anything but.

Suddenly I realize that my collar is gone.

I jerked in my sleep, b.u.mped my head against the side of the plane, my elbow against the arm of my chair, and the image shimmied, almost fading. What did the absence of that collar mean?

Was this only a dream, not a prediction of the future? Because in any true future, if I wasn't wearing that collar I'd be licking Jimmy's blood not only from his wounds but the wall.

Was it a vision of loss or the hope for a future without a demon inside me? I had no idea, so I fought my way back into my head.

"You can't save me," Jimmy says.

"Of course I can. Saving people is what I do."

"You won't be able to save us both. You'll have to choose."

I hate choosing who lives and who dies. But the Nephilim seem to get their jollies out of making me do just that.

"I'm the most powerful being on this earth," I whisper.

Jimmy's eyes meet mine, and in them I recognize good-bye. "Won't be enough this time. You'd need two beings just like you if you wanted any kind of chance at all."

Two beings like me. Two.

I stifle a sob as I realize that the only way out of this is Sawyer, and Sawyer is dead.

CHAPTER 23.

I came awake with a start, gasping, trembling.

"You okay?" A flight attendant leaned over me, the concern in her voice belied by the watchfulness in her eyes. If I so much as blinked funny, she was going to signal the nearest air marshal.

The woman next to me and the man next to her were leaning as far away from me as they could get with their seat belts on. Everyone else in the vicinity was staring.

"Fine." I wiped my face. My hand came away drenched with sweat. A bead ran down my cheek. The air from the vent couldn't stir my hair because every strand was plastered to my head.

"We're on our descent," the flight attendant said. "I'll get you a cup of water, but you'll have to hurry."

I nodded and glanced out the window. Lights reflected off pools of black water-swamps with gators, Lake Pontchartrain-and in the distance ships cruised down the winding Mississippi, which spilled into the sea. New Orleans was surrounded on three sides by water, which was both beautiful and foolish.

"I don't much care for flying, either," the woman to my right murmured, her voice so full of the South I could see Spanish moss on the trees and smell the magnolias in bloom. She patted my hand, withdrawing with a mew of distaste when her fingers slid on my slick skin.

"Sorry," I said.

She gave me a tight smile and went back to her book.

We landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport, and I retrieved my bag then rented a Jetta. I figured I might as well drive something I was familiar with, and I doubted they had any vintage Impalas around.

The instant I walked out of the terminal New Orleans. .h.i.t me in the face. August in the Crescent City, not the best idea in the world.

The humidity swirled around my head, clogging my nose and throat, making my limbs lethargic and my eyelids heavy. I practically dived into the car and cranked the air-conditioning to ice.

Though the sun was still up, it was falling steadily toward night. I checked into a hotel in the French Quarter. Certainly I could have stayed near the airport, but why? I was in New Orleans.

The last time I'd been here, I'd attended a bartenders' seminar. After spending the mornings inside a banquet room, we'd spent the both the afternoons and the evenings on the town. I had fond memories of New Orleans. Memories I hoped I didn't tarnish too badly on this journey through.

I had no trouble getting a room in a tall, narrow hotel several streets from Bourbon. At this time of year, I could have gotten a room with a balcony that opened onto the legendary street itself, but I wanted to be far from the lights and the music.

I did have a balcony, but it gave me a view of a less traveled side street, just what I'd asked for. I wanted as few eyes as possible-preferably no eyes at all-to witness what I had planned for when the sun went down.

After a long, tepid shower and a change of clothes, I hustled to Bourbon Street and found a bar-ha, I couldn't not find a bar-that was showing a baseball game on a mammoth plasma TV, then I ordered a Sazerac-a traditional New Orleans c.o.c.ktail with rye whiskey-and fried alligator, followed by a m.u.f.fuletta. If I were still alive in the morning, I'd walk down to the river and buy beignets with strong, black chicory coffee.

What was it about this town that made me so hungry? Probably the food.

I strolled back to my hotel as the sun gave its last gasp. A few times I could have sworn I felt someone following me, but even though the tourist trade was nearly nonexistent at this time of year, there were still plenty of people on Bourbon Street, so people were following me. They couldn't help it. I was in front of them.

I ducked into a T-shirt shop, chose a few new shirts since I'd had to toss so many lately, and kept my eyes open for suspicious characters. An exercise in futility. Everyone seemed suspicious around here.

Like the guy dressed as a jester playing a saxophone on one corner, or the girl who appeared pale enough to be empress of the undead selling ice cream from a cart across the street. Several soon-to-be senior citizens in full black leather chaps and vests strolled into a strip club. A drag queen in a sundress, black chest hair curling over the yellow bodice, strutted down the sidewalk walking a cat on a leash. The cat wore a Mardi Gras mask that matched the guy's dress. G.o.d, I loved this place.

It took me a while to find a shirt that wasn't p.o.r.nographic. I could have walked over to the French Market and found something more appropriate, but now that the sun was down, I didn't have the time.

I ignored everything with variations of drink, drank, or drunk, b.o.o.bs, party-you get the drift-and made do with three different colors of I FLEUR-DE-LIS NOLA. I also couldn't resist a tiny pink T-shirt that read: MARDI GRAS PRINCESS. I stuffed that one deep in the bottom of the bag.

As I walked out a young girl walked in. Her T-shirt proclaimed: THROW ME BEADS IF YOU WANT A LOOK AT THESE! I could barely read the words past all the multi-colored coils around her neck-and it wasn't even Mardi Gras.

I headed away from the lights and the music, down a quieter side road. It wasn't long before footsteps echoed mine. When I glanced over my shoulder, however, I was alone.

As I continued, so did the footsteps. Closer and closer they came. My knife rested inside the f.a.n.n.y pack around my waist. Un-cool yes, but I couldn't exactly wear a knife on my belt on Bourbon Street. Better loser-ish than dead-that was my motto.

I walked a little faster, trying to give myself time to slide open the zipper and slip a hand within. My fingers closed around the hilt and I spun, grabbing the person behind me by the neck and slamming them against the nearest wall.

It was the Goth girl who'd been selling ice cream and the instant I touched her, I knew she was human. She'd been thinking about school. She was a student at Tulane. The vamp costume was just for show, for the tourists, to make a buck and pay her bills.

"Sorry." I let her go immediately, allowing the knife to drop out of sight within the pack. "You-uh-" I ran my hand through my hair, embarra.s.sed.

"I scared you," she said. "Don't worry about it."

I knew better than anyone that if they looked like a vamp, they weren't. A little girl skipping rope in the sunshine was more likely to be hiding fangs than this one.

She rubbed her throat, eyes dark in her overly powdered face. "Can't be too careful around here."

My ears p.r.i.c.ked up. "Something strange happen lately?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's New Orleans."

"Right." Something strange happened every day. "Sorry," I repeated.

"Forget it." She ducked into a courtyard. The gate clanged shut, then it locked behind her, and I was alone once more.

In my room, I turned off the A/C and opened the terrace doors. A breeze had risen along with a thick curved band of a moon and both spilled into my room, one languid and hot, the other cool, liquid silver. I lost my clothes, touched my neck, and changed.

Bright light, cold and heat, my body contorted, becoming something else. I experienced both the pain of the change and the pleasure at bursting forth. In an instant, I could fly.

I doubted anyone would notice a huge, multicolored bird banking over Bourbon Street. They had better things to discover on the ground. Even if they happened to glance up and see me, they'd blame the bourbon.

I sailed out of New Orleans, easily following the scent of brackish water, cypress and rot. The Honey Island Swamp is over seventy thousand acres huge, with more than half of that a government-protected wildlife refuge. There was no way I could check the place for an abandoned church at a crossroads on foot.

Even with wings it took me most of the night, flying back and forth from one corner to the next in a tight grid pattern so as not to miss anything. Broken-down buildings abounded-not just in the swamp but everywhere across New Orleans-and upon landing I discovered that a lot of them were still occupied, and none of them was a church.

I was near to giving up, the sun just beginning to lighten the eastern horizon, turning the blue-black night a hazy purple, when I caught sight of a listing belfry and dived like the phoenix I was into the trees.

The instant I came within ten yards of the place, a screeching began, so loud and horrific I became disoriented and flew into the dripping Spanish moss of a cypress tree. Similar to a spider's web, but damp and musty, the tendrils clung to my brightly colored wings like a net.

Trapped and panicked fire shot from my beak, and the moss dissolved into nothing an instant before I would have tumbled toward the earth.

But I wasn't safe yet. The screaming continued as dark, prehistorically huge bat-like creatures sailed out of the belfry. They were large enough to be pterodactyls, if pterodactyls weren't extinct. Of course extinct was just a word these days.

My breath was a flame, rolling over their darkly ethereal bodies, making them appear like Halloween decorations studded with tiny orange lights. Then the fire went out with a puff, and they kept coming.

I braced for impact, and one flew right through me. I'd have thought it was a ghost-bird, except I felt its talons sc.r.a.pe my bowels, its beak peck at my liver. The pain was like being torn apart from the inside out. Two skimmed either side of me and wherever they touched, agony flared, as though their feathers were tipped with razor blades.

Tumbling toward the earth, I picked up speed as I fell, and the horrible winged creatures followed, shrieking so that my eardrums seemed to rupture and bleed. I hit the ground with a solid thump, and at last blessed silence was mine.