I closed my eyes and thought of my sister-in-law. Jenny. Beautiful, sweet-natured. A schoolteacher and mother. I thought of my brother, Sean. A detective, a loving husband, and father. And Sam, his son. Cute, smart as a whip, and an expert on all things baseball. He wanted to play third base for the Orioles when he grew up.

If he grew up.

My tears mingled with the blood on my face.

“Okay,” I gasped. “Okay…”

He moved slightly back, easing the pressure that held me within the shattered crate.

“You will be remembered as the first of your kind to—”

“Fuck you,” I snarled as I tore my loosened other shoulder free of the splinters and clamped my right hand around his balls.

Full-fist grab, hard as I could, backed by all the terror and desperation that howled in my mind.

Grigor’s eyes flared wide and he tried to simultaneously back away and twist his body free, but I clamped down and held on with everything I had. I came out of the crate with a spray of bloody splinters, and hit him across the face with my left. Once, twice, twisting his nuts as each punch landed. His scream was so high and loud that stalactites trembled loose from the roof and fell around us.

So I spit right into his screaming mouth. There might not be enough of garlic in my bloodstream, but there had to be a lot of it in my saliva.

Even in the midst of his pain, he stared at me in blank surprise for just a moment.

Then he hit me.

A third straight punch to the center of my chest. My hands and feet went instantly numb. I lost my grip and I lost my ability to stand as the punch sent me crashing back into the crate. I hit the corner of the big one and spun off and down, landing on my face near my fallen flashlight. For a single burning moment I could not feel my heartbeat, and I was positive that the shocking force of the blow had stalled it in my chest.

I gasped like a dying fish and could not move.

The Upierczi had begun to laugh like spectators at the Roman circus, amused at my defense but delighted by Grigor’s apparent victory.

Then their laughter died.

My body seemed to be catching fire. My chest was a solid knot of agony. I collapsed down as the darkness closed around me like a fist.

Behind me I heard Grigor gagging and keening as he staggered away from me, but he wasn’t clutching at his groin. I could just barely see him through the gathering haze. He was clawing at his own throat. His pale face was turning red, and I could see his chest labor as he fought to suck in a breath. All he managed was a high-pitched wheeze as the allergic reaction shut down his upper airway.