His energy immediately flowed across mine, allowing me to see everything he saw, everything he felt. While this level of connection wasn’t as deep as some we could achieve, any bond between the living and the dead could be deadly. All magic had a cost, an old witch had once warned me. While my ability to link with the ghosts wasn’t so much magic as a mix of psychic abilities and my own close call with death, it still taxed both my strength and theirs. And it could certainly drain me to the point of death if I kept the connection too long.

But for certain situations it was worth the risk—and this was definitely one of those situations.

There was at least a score of vampires out there, which meant this wasn’t the usual hunting party. If I’d been alone, if I hadn’t promised to keep Jonas safe, I would have shadowed and run. The vampires might sense me in this form, but if I became one with the night—became little more than dark matter, as they could—then it was harder for them to pick me out from their own. I knew that from my time in the war, when the vamps had overrun a village I’d been assigned to.

But I had promised, and that left me with little choice. Using the images Bear fed me as a guide, I raised the rifle and fired over my shoulder, keeping the bursts short to conserve ammunition. The needle-sharp projectiles bit through the night and burrowed into flesh. Three vampires went down and were quickly smothered by darkness as other vampires fell on them and fed. The scent of blood flooded the night, mingling with the screams of the dying.

I crashed through yet another garden bed, my feet sinking into the soft soil. A deeper patch of darkness leapt for my throat, and the pungent aroma of the dead hit. I flipped the rifle and battered him out of the way with the butt, then switched it into my other hand and fired to the right, then the left. Two more vamps down.

I leapt over a fallen branch. Jonas’s weight shifted, making the landing awkward and losing us precious speed. Sweat broke out across my brow but I ignored it, grabbing the ranger’s leg to steady him as I ran on.

“Bear,” I said, my voice little more than a pant of air. “Light.”

Ethereal fingers tugged at the bag of flares by my side and lifted one. Energy surged across the night and light exploded, a white ball of fire surrounded by a halo of red.

It was bright enough to force them back, but they didn’t go far. They knew, as I did, that the flare would give me only a minute, at most.