“But there is no place for a human in this fight!” Naomi said, trying for her usual innocent charm. “Michael, you must understand that I am only trying keep her from danger. There will be no mortals at risk in this fight.”

“I’m not leaving him,” Eve said. “You take him, you take me. Or you leave us both. We’re a package deal.”

“But—”

“No,” he said, and stared Naomi down. “We stay together. Eve’s told me about your little plots. You don’t get to have either of our backs.” He looked past Naomi to me. “You can punish me if you want, but I don’t trust her. Not with Eve.”

The boy was right. He had matured considerably, I thought, from the unsure, tragically trusting young man I had so nearly murdered on my first night in Morganville. I’d meant to turn him, make him one of my vassals, but instead the outcome had been … less ideal. He had not fully trusted me since, of course. I couldn’t blame him for that.

It was a little amusing that he trusted Naomi less.

“Remain here,” I told him. “You won’t be needed in this, in any case. Not if this chemical Myrnin so loves is truly effective.”

“Oh, it is,” Michael said. “I’ve seen it.”

“Then you won’t require his assistance,” I told Naomi.

“I thought you said I was to lead this attack.”

“You are,” I said. “Delegated to lead. Don’t confuse it with commanding.” I nodded to Michael and Eve, who nodded back and kept filling plastic bags with the chemical to hand to my … what were they to me, precisely? Vassals? No, they owed their allegiance, such as it was, to Amelie. Kinsmen? Some I might claim, but no.

They were my army, though. Mine. And a fierce and angry one that had finally seen the chance to strike back at an enemy that had haunted us since the earliest memories of vampires.

I did not see them off on their mission. There was no need; Naomi would not thank me for taking the focus from her moment of glory, and there was nothing I could add. Michael and Eve would stay or not, as they pleased; I had given them my blessing to do so. There was no sign of Shane, which was a very good thing. I did not need the complication of his involvement just now.

I returned to Amelie’s apartments, now unguarded; her loyal men and women had gone to fight the draug, of course. I opened the door to her bedroom and stopped there, because the sight was … grim.

Amelie was hardly recognizable now. Still fighting, because there was still a human form to be seen beneath that … growth, but she was losing, slowly and grimly. I pulled the soft silk comforter from beneath her to wrap around her body. I needed the full thickness to cover her. Once I had cocooned her so, I tied it off with ripped curtain cords, and took her slight weight over my shoulder. The smell of the draug settled around me, rotting fish and flesh, and I fought the urge to gag. She is not one of them. Not yet. I stopped breathing. A convenience of vampire physiology, but not always effective; our senses are too acute.