I smiled thinly. “It has always been my goal. We have simply had differences of opinion about what it meant to save them.”

“Humans, too. Don’t betray my dreams. My promises.” Her eyes slowly closed. “I am very tired now. So tired. It has been a long fight, has it not?”

“Ages,” I said. “Against Bishop. Against me. Against a thousand foes, all laid at your feet.”

That got me a dry rustle of a laugh. “I never laid you at my feet, Oliver. Never you.”

She was wrong in that, and had been for some time, but there was no point in telling her. And I was still proud enough to want to conceal that … weakness. “If I am not defeated, then you cannot order me to leave you, can you?”

She released her hold on my wrist, but I kept my hold on her hand. She didn’t open her eyes, but I saw the faintest lift at the corners of her mouth. I had won a smile, at least.

But she said nothing else.

Not even good-bye.

I had no warning before she lost the battle. The draug rose in a glistening, heaving surge, coating her, consuming her. I fell backward in momentary shock; I could see Amelie’s form within it, trapped, but the thick, gelatinous coating on her skin grew in size, multiplying rapidly to cover her. She was only a shadow within it in seconds.

Gone.

I had known it could happen, would happen, but I had hoped … hoped for more time. For, perhaps, a miracle. I used to place such trust in miracles, in my breathing days when I was right with God.

I had not felt such an impulse to pray in many years, but this … this was the face of evil, overtaking us. God helps those who help themselves, I thought, and shook myself out of that dark hollow of fear. The draug were enemies, yes, but I had fought enemies all my life, and beyond. Some were well deserved; some I had created through my own actions, and those, I regretted.

But this was pure, a battle against something more evil than I could ever be, vampire or no.

And I had to win.

I drew the silver knife from my belt, the one that Naomi had urged me to plunge into Amelie’s chest, and I began to fight for my life.

Where the silver tugged through the draug’s gelatinous, rippling, changing form, it burned, blackened, and shriveled the thing; like us, they were vulnerable to it, but unlike us, the silver did not significantly slow it down. A master draug was strong, dangerous, fast, and cunning; a master draug fueled by Amelie was far worse. It was still fighting to absorb her power, still vulnerable in at least a small degree, but that would be done soon.

And this room was very small. Our plans were crumbling before my very eyes.

A sound drifted up through the house, shuddering it to its very bones, and I recognized the shriek of pain of a master draug.