The apartment window shattered. I turned in surprise, just in time to see a dark shape tumble into the living room. It leapt at Sabine, and she cried out, snarling and slashing with her fingers. Both of them were moving so fast that they became blurs, like two shadows fighting.

I watched in a kind of grim fascination as they flowed through the air, bouncing off objects, striking each other, growling-two spectral panthers slashing at one other, fighting on some other bizarre plane of existence.

Finally, one of the figures slowed down enough to appear slightly distinct, and I felt a wave of sudden hope rush through my body.

It was Lucian.

He struck Sabine across the face, and her form seemed to shimmer for a moment-all of her shadows collapsing into themselves-before she tumbled across the floor and struck the far wall. Lucian gestured, and I felt the cold immensity of his will slam into Sabine. His power held her in place, even as she squirmed-I'd always heard that necromancers could chain the undead with their will, but I'd never actually seen it in action. They just stared at each other, the master suddenly surprised that her thrall was demonstrating real power. As usual, she'd critically underestimated a human.

Sabine growled, shaking off his control like a cat might shake off a glancing blow. Then she went for his throat. He rolled backward and kicked her in the face, but she grabbed his ankle and hurled him sideways. He slammed against the wall, crying out as he slid to the floor. That ankle was definitely broken.

Marcus pointed the gun at Lucian, but I kicked him sharply in the kneecap, channeling enough power to break it in several places. He fell to the ground, half grunting, half swearing, and I dove for the bed. I groped blindly underneath until my hands closed around the Browning Pro .40. Thank God.

Lucian managed to raise himself up, hanging on to a light sconce for support. His left foot was bent sharply, but he could still balance on his right foot. I thought of the smallness, the delicacy of those feet. His body, already so marked.

I was going to kill Sabine. For good.

She grabbed the bedpost and wrenched, pulling off a sharpened stake the size of a bat, then advanced on Lucian again. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as he channeled necroid materia. Ropes of shadow twined and swirled around his fingertips, like raw dough that was pitch black, its cold, silken scales tightening around him as his will shaped it. Sabine swung the makeshift bat. Lucian flung his hands outward, and the shadows warm leapt at her, steaming, visceral. It wrapped its tendrils around her face, and she screamed, but the fleshy vines only pried her mouth open farther and slithered down her throat. Black oil poured from her eyes.

This wasn't any magic I'd ever seen. It was the closest thing to raw evil that I could describe. And Lucian wielded it, calmly, unthinkingly, his eyes narrowed as he poured the coagulated mass of darkness down Sabine's throat.

My God. Who was he?

Shuddering and crying out as she raked at her face, Sabine managed to pick up the sharpened stake again. She drove it forward like a spear, and Lucian had to roll to the side, his arms going awry. The night-strings melted back into the air as he lost control of the necroid materia in what I could only imagine was its purest form. Sabine vomited darkness and blood onto the ground. Then she rose, her face covered with self-inflicted cuts, and her expression was more than determined.

Suddenly, Lucian's eyes flicked to me, and I saw something in his expression.

"Tess!"

He was too late. Marcus's fist caught me across the chin, and I stumbled backward, trying to hold on to the gun. Before I could raise it, Marcus already had the Glock .45 trained on my head. At this range, with what I could only assume were Hydra-Shok bullets, it would blow a crater in my skull. All over, just like that. One squeeze of the trigger.

"You worthless bitch!" There was spittle on the corners of his mouth. He'd completely come undone. There was no going back for him now. "You are not walking away tonight. Do you understand?"

I understood.

So much became clear in that instant. I knew that Marcus had never been human-that all of his criticisms, all of his condescending looks, hadn't ever been the result of my actual incompetence. He'd always wanted me dead, no matter what, and breaking me down one piece at a time had simply been the easiest way. In fact, I'd never really listened to him to begin with. Selena had always been my teacher, and it was her opinion that mattered. I understood that Mia's place in this, like mine, was so wildly random. Like Patrick, the poor vampire-chosen lying in his hospital bed, his life erased, we'd been selected because we happened to fit certain types. I was the patsy; Lucian was the diversion; Sabine was the muscle; and Mia was the spark, the energy source that set all of this into motion, but that was all she'd ever been to Marcus. Just a battery. Just a living flame, a vessel for power that I could barely imagine, let alone understand.

But I didn't have to understand it to use it.

I didn't have to look over at Mia to see that she hadn't moved-she was still curled in a ball on the floor, eyelids fluttering, struggling to remain conscious.

I'm sorry, I thought. Mia, I'm so sorry. For this, and for everything else. I wish I could have been a better protector.

And suddenly Eve was there, and I didn't know who I was sorry to, who I was even looking at. Her shadow burned within Mia's, a transparency laid upon her, features blurring until I couldn't tell one girl from the other.

"Eve-" My eyes filled with tears. "Oh God, I'm sorry-"

Marcus stared at me. "What?"

But Eve only smiled. And for the first time, I didn't feel that icy sadness, those choking tears-I only felt a kind of warmth. A light. It spread through my body like glory, filling me. I stared at the girl who'd haunted me for so long, and she looked-different. Or maybe I looked at her through different eyes.

It's just light, she said, still smiling. We both know that now. The fire, the magic, the sun, the gleam of a blade, even the glow of love in your friend's eye. It's all the same spectrum. All just light. And you don't have to be afraid of it anymore.

The tears slid down my face. I don't?

No. Because it's beautiful, Tess. The light that we created. The soft flush of the northern lights, the blood-kiss of the Occident, the warmth of the sun on new leaves, the shimmer of a coin tucked inside your pocket, the slumbering glow of a dying hearth. It's all magic, and it's all light. The point of grace where two humans connect, if only for a moment-that shock of brilliance, like a tongue of flame-and yes, it burns, too, but how brightly! And how sweet!

And isn't that worth the fire?

I knew then. The light could both heal and harm. The same hand that wove thread and kneaded dough could crack a skull, pound human flesh-the only thing separating a weapon from a tool was the soul behind it. The fire poured across my body, as if someone had tilted forth a chalice of liquid light, but it didn't frighten me.

Eve reached out, and I felt her love slam into me, and it was on fire.

I let my gun drop to the ground. For just an instant, I saw a flash of confusion in Marcus's eyes-What's she doing?-and his concentration wavered. A moment was all I needed to reach back with my mind, to follow the tenuous thread that still linked me, as one mage to another, with Mia. Her power was raw and wounded, like a drawer full of broken knives, but I'd drawn upon it once before and I still knew the way. It was a door that opened easily, if painfully, as I pushed on it, and I could see the burning light that lay beyond, a whole desert of searing, impossible strength.

Thought travels more quickly than bullets. Mia wasn't awake, but I didn't need to talk to her conscious mind-in fact, that probably would have just gotten in the way. I reached for the sleeping girl inside her, reached out to touch her insubstantial cheek with my hand, to say once more how sorry I was.

She felt my need, and her reply was simple: Take it. Take it all.

She opened beneath my touch, a burning orchid, a deadly plant with dark, furious leaves that swarmed over the length of my body, down my throat, into my eyes, suffusing every inch of me. I held in the scream, swollen to bursting with Mia's stolen energy, and tried with every ounce of my will to channel it.

I saw, as if from a distance, Marcus stare at me in disbelief. I knew what he was seeing-not a twenty-four-year-old girl, a perennial screwup, a stick of a thing wearing a bloodied jacket and barely standing. No. He saw me taller, brighter, my eyes glowing with golden light, my hand raised as if it could ward off anything. He saw what was inside me, and I knew that it terrified him, because he was nothing but detritus and shadows inside, nothing but the suggestion of a man, a human stain.

Lucian and Sabine had both stopped now, and were staring at me. He shuddered as he stood on the wounded foot, but his eyes were fixed on me.

"Marcus." My voice was even as I said his name, steady. I was bleeding from half a dozen cuts, bruised all over, but I could barely feel it anymore. "Put the gun down. This is over."

He laughed, but it was a staccato sound, sharp with anxiety. "Because you say it's over? Nice try, Tess. You may be running on borrowed power, but it isn't enough. It's never going to be enough." He shook his head. "You could borrow all the power of the ancients, all the massive, searing energy from every star in the sky, and you still wouldn't be anything but a worthless piece of trash. You know that."

I gestured, and the gun flew out of his hands. Just like that. All of his shields melted like a burnt sheet of plastic, and suddenly my hands were on him, my mind was touching his, all over him. Marcus flinched, trying to step back, but I didn't let him. Invisible vines curled around his arms and legs, holding him in place.

"What I know," I said, "is that you talk too much."

I drew my athame, focusing the power down to a point, and the blade began to glow with curling golden fire. I could see the tendons in his neck straining as he tried to move, but Mia's power was too much for him. I placed the tip of the blade on his neck, and he cried out as smoke leapt from the contact, as the metal burnt his skin.

"What do you say, Marcus?" I smiled. "You like fire, right? You burned both of Mia's parents, watched them smoke and smolder until there was nothing left. Why shouldn't I do the same thing to you?"

"Because-" He was sputtering now, his lips wet with saliva. Losing control. Finally after all these years, something had surprised him. "You know damn well that you can't. There are rules and protocols to follow, procedures for dealing with people-" He smiled. "With people like me. You can't kill me, Tess, and you know it. You'd be ejected from the CORE, and that's worse than death."

"Maybe it would be worth it," Lucian said coldly. Sabine gave him a strange look, but said nothing.

"Hah!" Marcus glared at him. "This coming from a necro-the original betrayer. I don't take ethical advice from traitors, and you're the worst kind of all."

"Maybe." I kept the knife point against his throat. "But it doesn't matter in the end. You're right, Marcus. I won't do it. You're not going to die tonight."

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as I pressed the knife to it for one moment more, then let it fall.

He chuckled. "I knew you'd see reason."

"No." I looked at him. "This isn't because of you. It isn't because of rules, or protocols, or even ethics. I'd love to kill you, Marcus. Right now, I can't think of anything else that would make me feel better. And nobody would stop me. You know that, don't you? Look around-"

I gestured to Lucian and Sabine. "They won't do anything to help you. Sabine was never loyal to you, and Lucian doesn't give two shits about you. As for Mia, well, she's probably less discriminating than me, so it's a good thing that you don't have to deal with her."

Marcus was silent.

I sighed. "I'm not saving you, Marcus. I'm saving me. Your life-the blood pumping through your veins, the breath in your lungs-that's the only thing that separates us. Such a fragile thing, really, but it's the only barrier between us, the only thing that keeps me from becoming you. If I live, then so do you. I think it's a fair trade, so long as I never see you again."

I turned around, knowing as I did so that Marcus was already moving. I felt him gathering the power, but with Mia's heightened senses, it was like hearing a gunshot rather than a whisper-I'd caught on to it long ago. I smelled the whiff of ozone as the levin-bolt materialized in his hand; I saw Lucian's form shimmer as he tried to interpose himself between us; but just this once, I was faster than him.

I thrust my athame backward, without turning around, and felt its red-hot blade sink into Marcus's chest. It passed through the flesh easily, between the ribs, until its point burst through the pericardium like a window being thrown open, a ray of deadly sunlight flooding a darkened space, the horror of Marcus Tremblay's heart.

Marcus stiffened. I turned. I looked into his wide eyes, and managed to smile, even if every part of me wanted to scream.

"I'm sorry," I told him, watching the spark of recognition die in his eyes, watching his jaw slacken, and feeling what was left, what may have been his soul or something else, unfold into a thousand whispers, hovering in the air for a moment before it flickered out.

I withdrew the blade, and Marcus fell to the floor.

The power left me in that moment, and I almost fell myself-but a surprising hand reached out to steady me. Selena? Where had she come from? Her free hand, holding a Glock .40, was trained squarely on Sabine. Luckily for me, Selena could do two things at once.

I saw Derrick standing in the doorway, looking more than a little frightened, and realized that he must have gone for help.

I looked again at Marcus. I watched the blood as it flowed from him, almost cherry red against the dark wood floor. Blood. That's what this all had been about. Blood. It was so rich and red as it pooled against the wood. I suddenly wanted to cry.

Crouching on the floor, I turned and saw that Mia was looking at me. She was awake now, and her eyes were incredibly wide. I reached over and grabbed her hand.

"It's over," I said. "Look. It's over."

I didn't believe it for a second, and she probably didn't either. But she squeezed my hand tight, all the same.

29.

Marcus's blood was everywhere-on my jeans, my jacket, my shoes, my hands, possibly even my hair. I must have looked like one of the Furies. Tisiphone in a Gap jean jacket. Mia was staring at me, wide-eyed, and I couldn't tell if she was relieved or terrified. I held her with one arm-she resisted at first, but then she leaned into me. There was no trace of the power left, the wild energies that she'd unleashed only moments before. It had left her like a bad dream, and now she was just a thirteen-year-old girl sitting in a pool of blood, looking like she wanted to wake up.

"Tess?" Selena peered down at me. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Just a few bruises and scrapes-nothing major. I think Mia's in power-shock, though. We'll have to get her to the clinic later."

Selena nodded. She surveyed Marcus's body, and for a moment, I thought I saw a glimmer of sadness in her eyes.

"Fucker," was all she said.

I felt something then-a dark and languorous presence, like a sheet suddenly clamped down around my body, saturating my senses. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but I still felt that twinge of dread that precedes meeting a powerful immortal. Something was nearby, and it was very old and dangerous. Both Sabine and Lucian looked up. Lucian's expression was a mystery, but Sabine was clearly terrified. I hadn't thought that she was even capable of feeling fear.

A woman strode through the open doorway-I say "strode" because that's how she moved, slowly and decorously, like an aristocrat about to enter a cotillion dance. She didn't seem particularly imposing at first. She was short, about five-four at most, and wore plain blue jeans and a leather jacket over a green velvet blouse. The only hint of affectation was an ivory comb, glimmering with opals, that lay in her shock of curly red hair. Some redheads are beautiful, but she had a kind of deadly sensuality that took my breath away, and I'd never in a million years call myself bi.

Her eyes surveyed everyone in the room in the time that it took me to blink, and in that instant, we were all weighed, judged, and dismissed. I felt her mind brush against mine, the barest touch, but I was still floored by the immensity of her power. She could kill everyone in this room without breaking a sweat.

There was no question about it. This woman was the magnate.

Lucian and Sabine both gave a low bow.

The woman walked past Selena, Derrick, and me-we were nothing but air to her, and we could have left in that instant without attracting her notice. But I didn't want to leave, and it was more than curiosity. Her dark glamour was working on me, despite my defenses, and I wanted to stay in her presence.

Was this how Sebastian felt when Sabine touched him, kissed him, when she simply entered a room? Was he glad to die for her?

Her eyes passed over Mia for just a moment, and I thought I saw something like sadness-not the pity that some vampires have for humans, but a genuine sorrow. Then she approached Lucian and Sabine, and everyone held their breath.

"My lady." Lucian bowed again. She touched the back of his neck briefly. Then she turned to Sabine.

"I-am sorry, my lady," she managed to stammer, her eyes scraping the floor. "It was wrong-I know I must be punished."

"No, Sabine." Her expression didn't change. "You don't know my mind, so don't presume to know what your fate will be."

Sabine sank lower. "Yes, my lady."

How old was she, I wondered. How long had she ruled the city with an iron hand, the secret emperor who pulled all the strings? Was she kind? Could a killer, a deadly empress, still somehow be merciful?

"Sabine." She spoke to the vampire without looking at her. "You have violated our precepts and endangered our way of life. You unlawfully sought to create a new vampire, a night child, to challenge my successor's claim to the title of magnate."

A night child, I thought. That's what Mia was. A daughter of dark things, of alleys and corners, locked windows and ancient gates. A cipher.

Sabine said nothing.

The magnate looked at Marcus's body. There was no hint of lust or hunger in her eyes, despite the fact that human blood was pooling softly all around her feet. She was in utter control of her passions.

"An immortal's life is worth no more than a human's," she said, "and no less. The little bairn"-she looked at Mia-"her parents were killed, but now this one is dead as well. Killed by magic, and beyond resurrection." She sighed. "His death brings no satisfaction, but it does bring balance."

"My lady." Lucian's voice was unexpected-almost like a gunshot in the night. "Might I beg clemency-as an outsider-for Sabine's life?"

I stared at him, dumbstruck.

The magnate looked curious. "You are not one of us, Lucian Agrado. You have no part in our justice."

He kept his eyes on the ground. "I know that, my lady. And I know that Sebastian is gone. But he favored Sabine- loved her. And she, in her way, loved him. It would satisfy his spirit, I think, to know that Sabine yet lived."

The magnate seemed to consider this for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, she turned to Mia. "What say you, child?"

Mia blinked. "Um-me?"

The magnate's expression was indulgent. "Yes. Sabine stole something precious from you, and for no better reason than to gain a bit of power. I believe it should be up to you whether she lives or dies. I place her soul in your hands."

Mia looked at Sabine. I couldn't tell what passed between them, but there was no hint of vampiric charm, no immortal hubris. Sabine, at last, lowered her eyes.