Too bad vampires didn't have to ask to feed on memories, too, G.o.dd.a.m.n him.

The outrage returned-shame at having her mind bared and entered. Her revolver trembled as she kept aiming it at Nathan.

On the other side of the gla.s.s, Robby began to laugh.

With a start, the dad backed away, shaking his head to clear it. "d.a.m.n you, Robby! You know what they'll do to me if I give out that kind of information!"

"They"? The Underground?

The vampire kept laughing, making it easy for Dawn to guess what had just happened. Robby had mind screwed Nathan, purposely setting his dad up for the consequences from "they."

Would Nathan be forced to stay in this Underground, allowing Robby to hold on to his dad forever this time?

There was a definite power game going on here. Revenge?

But, hey, as long as they were fighting each other, Dawn and Breisi might just get more information about the Underground-and maybe Frank-in the fallout. Then they would worry about getting Robby alone to Jonah for follow up.

It was just a matter of figuring out how to do that-what, with those red eyes still bobbing in the darkness behind Robby like flares on an ocean of night. Simple, huh?

Nathan straightened his designer shirt, averted his face from Robby again. "It's time to take you back, you ingrate."

He raised his hand to the Guards.

"Stop!" It was Marla, shooting out of her corner, jacket pooled behind her on the marble. She got in Nathan's face. "He said he doesn't want to go."

Finally. Dawn backed up a few steps, raised her revolver higher at him in agreement. Breisi was on it, too.

"She's got the idea," the other PI said. "We'll be taking Robby with us to give him peace."

"Yes, he needs peace, like she said," Marla added. "Please, Nathan."

Yet, even in the face of his dire situation, her husband laid a hand on Marla's shoulder, then pushed her away. She fell backward, sprawling on the floor in her silk pantsuit.

"First," he said, "if I lost Robby, I'd also lose the millions of dollars I've invested in this program. Second, there're a lot of...caveats...that aren't going to let you have him."

He gestured to the Guards.

Giving them permission to move on Robby.

With a burst of adrenaline, Dawn pointed her gun at the window, targeting the flicker-frizz of one creature. Breisi joined her, firing, too-the pane bursting into shards. But the pale creatures easily zagged out of the bullets' paths, their bodies beating forward as Robby charged away.

Yet the smaller vampire didn't succeed in escaping tonight-the three Guards were too close. While two flicked out their tails, coiling them around Robby and dragging him into the porch-dimmed darkness, the other stood back, its tail waving.

Then it did something Dawn had only barely noticed during the first fight with them.

Its tail barb zinged open into a bloom of long, machete-like blades. It ran one of them near Robby's throat in a slow, slashing motion. Then, instantly, the blades swallowed back into a lone metal gathering of tips. It was daring Robby to change, Dawn thought. To go into big-time vamp form with that misty body and all-powerful eyes before the Guard could decapitate him.

A challenge from one undead creature to another.

Dawn didn't understand why they just didn't zoom off with him. Were the Guards waiting for Nathan so they could take him to exact those consequences Robby had mentioned? Were they going to use the boy vampire as a lure?

Or h.e.l.l. Were the Guards after some PIs, too?

On the fringes of that thought, everything seemed to slow down, compressing all the action into one pinched second: looped time, eternally torturous.

"Mom!" the vamp screamed. His voice contained a dragged-out knowledge that he had no more father, that Marla and the PIs were his only hope now.

In the meantime, Dawn squeezed off another bullet.

Marla opened her mouth. "Robby, come in, come to Mommy!"

Then everything fell to pieces: Before the Guards' tails could snap open into blades, Robby sipped into mist and streamed out of the Guards' clutches, slamming through the window frame and into the house, his mouth yawing in a ferocious roar as he took feathery form and poised his fangs above a screeching Nathan. In a very human moment, Breisi stumbled back at the awful sight of the vampire, while Marla scuttled behind a chair. Dawn's bullet missed one Guard as all three rushed the window and halted, unable to enter. Breisi saw their hesitation, too, and while she covered Robby with her gun, Dawn raised the b.u.t.t of her own revolver to hit Nathan over the head before he could invite the red-eyes in.

As he collapsed, she brought her weapon back up in a flowing arc, aiming at Robby out of pure instinctual fear and realizing only too late how futile a silver bullet might be.

Scraa-eeeee-tttccchhh!

Sensing the threat of Dawn's gun, Robby redirected his fury, raging over her now with the force of an animal clawing into the belly of felled prey.

Violated, attacked- She bared her teeth at him and tensed, ready to shoot."Dawn, no!" Breisi yelled.

Robby, in her head, pawing though stinging images of Eva...

In a moment of clarity, she realized that she wasn't facing a child here. Robby wasn't even a poor monster that someone else had created. No, this thing above her was something that snuck into houses at night to kill, over and over again, unless it was stopped- Dawn fired.

The silver thunked into his arm, embedding itself like a jewel in the midst of white cotton. The vampire's roar came to an abrupt stop. As Dawn avoided his eyes, he hesitated, then dropped to the floor, his body spinning back into human form.

He panted, going into the fetal position. "You didn't have to do that."

Yes, I did, she thought. For Kiko. Forme.

Even through a filter of terror, Dawn heard sobs in back of her. Marla had come from behind the chair and...d.a.m.n it, Nathan was holding his head where Dawn had hit him.

Unfortunately, she hadn't cracked him hard enough to knock him out, but a fine trail of blood was wiggling down his face as he stared at his son, his mouth and eyes saucered.

Maybe Nathan had just seen thetrueface of his child for the first time. He'd created this thing, and it horrified him. Good.

She heard the Guards hissing near the window, but they weren't standing in front of it. They were hiding, making themselves sneaky, tough targets.

"Blood," Robby said plaintively from his spot on the floor. "I need blood to wash the silver out."

While Breisi covered the Guards, she shouted at Dawn. "The silver is working slowly. We need to allow the boss access to him in this weakened state before the elements consume his body and destroy him."

"Daddy?" Robby crawled to Nathan, fixating on the trickle of blood. "Will you feed me?"

"Get away." Sweat poured over Nathan's face, mingling with the red. "No fangs, no fangs!"

Fear of vampires or fear of his son?

"Dawn,"Breisi said, trying to get her moving.

She rolled to her good side as Robby plopped to the floor in front of his father, tilting his head.

"They're going to get you anyway, Dad." The boy vampire smiled. "You've already said too much. If it's not my fangs, it'll be theirs. You're going to be with me forever now."

"No!Nonononono-" Nathan's eyes were rolling back in his head. "I'll kill myself before I let them-letyou-touch me!"

Marla resumed her place behind the chair, her gaze darting from her son to the window.

"Forever." Robby smiled. "We'll always be together."

Nathan's wide eyes locked on something to his right.

The sculpture by the door-the blob with the bladed thrust of iron coming from its center. Robby scooted closer to his dad. "Let me feed from you."

With a long cry, Nathan darted away and ran ahead at full steam, straight at the sculpture.

Robby watched him, head c.o.c.ked. "Daddy?"

"Nathan!" Marla screeched.

With a thrust of blood, the blade jabbed out of his back, making Dawn's arm lose strength as she fell to the floor in shock. He slumped against the iron, embracing the sculpture, the artistic sword holding him up.

Unintelligible words whistled out of his mouth and, for a blurred second, Dawn thought they were regrets for his son.

But then all h.e.l.l broke loose as the Guards appeared in front of the window frame.

Dawn knew exactly what his last words had been.

"He invited them in!" she yelled.

Before she and Breisi could raise their guns, a baffled Robby had staggered to his feet, beginning to change back into what Dawn now thought of as "Danger Form." He flickered in his attempts, weakened as he watched his father hug the statue with more true adoration than he'd probably ever received himself.

But the Guards were already pounding forward, propelling into the room as their tails whizzed behind them. Abruptly, they reared back-from the garlic?-and clawed the air, preparing their tails to strike.

At their hesitation, Breisi's bullet found a mark, and one creature jammed back against the wall, its body shriveling into itself as if eaten by an internal vacuum.

But Dawn wasn't so lucky. With her left-handed aim, she was off, hitting the wall, plaster exploding outward. The Guard aimed a stream of spit at her, but she expected it, dodged it.

Then, out of nowhere, a blade spun out of the darkness from the third Guard's direction, chopping Robby's wounded arm off, spraying blood over Dawn's arm as she hit the deck. Instinctively, she recalled the burn from the spit and prepped herself for the pain. But she was fine. Just fi- A roar of anguish shook the room while Robby fell to the floor, clutching his shoulder stump.

The long blade was speared into the couch, shivering.

Had that come from a Guard? And why the h.e.l.l were they trying to kill Robby? Had they removed his arm as some kind of surgery to keep the silver from spreading?

In a fractured flash, her hands remembered the feel of Matt Lonigan's blade sheathed near his spine. A machete?

With one peek at the darkened window, she decided she didn't have time to sort this out. She aimed her revolver at the spitting Guard, hitting its heart this time.

Swww-uuuuck.

Two down, one to go.

In the meantime, Robby was staring at what had been his arm. Then, a little boy through and through, he began to cry.Concurrently, as soon as Breisi had knocked off the first Guard, she'd engaged a second, ducking its tail and spit as she made her way to her saw-bow by the door. The creature had knocked her gun out of her hand with its tail and was now beating through the air toward her, wrinkling its nose and swiping at the garlic repellant.

But that's all Dawn saw, because she was facing Robby now-the boy who was starting to sputter with Danger Form. His bottled emotions were obviously fuel for the monster within.

Uninvited, memories stripped from her...

Uncontrollable, helpless rage had her in its thrall now, robbing her of common sense.

Ripped open, defenseless, attacked...

She grabbed her machete, slid it out of its sheath, swung back the blade, then leapt at the vampire.

Smack-the machete hatcheted into his neck, blood gushing over her chest, her neck and arms.

Unlike the Guards, Robby didn't spit. No, it was red matter bathing Frank's shirt as Robby fell to the floor, the blade gouged halfway into his throat.

"Dad?" he gurgled, his face wet from his tears. "Mom?"

No answer. With a glance, Dawn saw why.

The remaining Guard hadn't been going after Breisi at all-Marla had been its target. And with eye-blinking speed, it was flying out the window with the woman in tow, her mouth gaped open in a gulping scream.

Breisi rushed after them, leaving Dawn alone with Robby.

Now that he wasn't in Danger Form, she felt ill. Blood was gleaming on the marble. Red over white.

The boy sought her gaze, crimson bubbling from his lips.

Dawn wasn't sucker enough to make eye contact. "It hurt when my friend broke his back, too," she said in an effort to conjure her ire. But it was harder with this little body in front of her. A crying child.

Dawn, she told herself, don't trust him. Don't let him fool you. Don't have any mercy, because he didn't with you.

Fumbling with urgency, she cried out, yanking the machete out of his neck. Then, with feral purpose, she raised the blade over her head, swiped it at him again.Swick-he stopped crying.

The sound echoed as his head rolled away from his body, severed from his spine, coming to a stop near his father's impaled corpse in the foyer. Together forever.

Her heartbeat, her breathing filled the room, surrounding her in anesthetized distance from the horror of what she'd just done. But she didn't linger. No-for good measure, she calmly shot the vampire in the heart.

With a savage sucking noise, the clothing, torso, and head zipped into themselves, and Robby was obliterated. Leaving an outline of blood, like chalk lines at a crime scene.

Is this what you did for a living, Frank? Is this how it felt? Numb and inconceivable, even as you stared at the damage?

Dawn turned her head. Blocking it all out.

As a rivulet of Robby's blood ran over the marble and past her feet, she heard a sound at the window, quickly aimed at it. Breisi, empty-handed except for her spent saw-bow.