He couldn't think about who they had been, he told himself, only what they had become.

"I don't see any more of them."

Still back-to-back, they circled. "Sorak!" Kadra shouted. "Come and meet your fate."

As if on cue, light flashed into the tunnel. Through the glare of it, three demons charged.

"He's used the portal. He's brought more through."

Harper fired, and when the Glock clicked on empty, he used it as a club. His leg screamed as he sprang off it to launch himself into a roundhouse kick. The demon barely staggered, shoving Harper so that his wounded leg buckled. He skidded over the floor, and lost his breath and the gun when the demon landed on him.

For the second time, he felt the bite of claws. Screaming in rage, he plunged the knife into the demon's throat, snarled like an animal himself when the thick green spewed onto his hands and face.

When he crawled out, covered with blood, he saw Kadra fighting both of the remaining demons.

Her blades flashed like lightning. She blocked the sickle sword that one of them swung at her, then plunged her dagger into his belly while she hacked her blade through the second demon.

"Next time," Harper said as he limped toward her, "I get the two-on-one."

Winded, she nodded. "Next time."

The smoking blood hazed the air. She peered through it, pointed her sword at Sorak. His claws and face were smeared with the blood of the body that lay at his feet.

He had fed, and fed again, she realized, and would have the strength of ten.

Still, her stance was cocky, her voice a sneer. "You should have brought an army, demon king. We would have littered this place with your dead."

"I brought better than an army." Sorak reached back and hefted a small girl by the scruff of her neck. She let out a sobbing squeal as her little legs kicked in the air, two full feet off the ground.

Leering, Sorak skimmed his teeth over her throat. "The young are so sweet to the taste. How much for her life?"

Kadra lowered her blade. Though her hand was steady, her heart stumbled in her chest. "Will you bargain your life with a human child's? Is not a king worth more?"

"I was not speaking to you, Kadra, Slayer of Demons." Sorak lifted his other hand, and the gun.

Subway cop, Harper thought on a jolt of panic. Sorak had taken the gun from the transit cop, and he had been too angry to notice the empty holster.

On an oath, Harper shoved Kadra aside as Sorak fired. As she fell, blood streaming from her temple, the sword clattered to the ground.

"No. Goddamn it, no!" Harper fell to his knees, gathering her up, checking quickly for a pulse.

"I was born for her death." Sorak shook the child until she began to wail. "Tell me, Harper Doyle, were you born for death?"

She was alive, he told himself. And slayers healed quickly. He would do whatever he could to give her that time, and to save an innocent child from death. Or worse.