They’re here was the only coherent thought in her head. She had to be ready to fight, to run, to react, but all she could think of was how utterly scared she was just now. And how helpless.

There were things out there in the world, things that vampires feared, and now those things were here. She was only seconds out of a very light, fitful sleep, but she knew that the nightmares had followed her effortlessly right into the real world. The draug. They weren’t vampires; they were something else, something that moved through water, formed out of it, dragged vampires down to a slow and awful death.

A week ago, she’d have laughed something like that off as a bad joke, but then she’d seen them come for Morganville, Texas. Come with the rains that rarely fell in this desert-locked, sunbaked town where the vampires had, finally, made their last stand.

Today she woke up with the blind and panicked knowledge that no matter how bad the world was with vampires in it, a world that held the draug was vastly worse. They’d come to Morganville, infiltrated stealthily, built their numbers until they were ready to fight … until they could sing their awful song that somehow, impossibly, was also beautiful and irresistible. To humans as well as to vamps.

The strongest of Morganville’s vampires had gone up against it, and scored a few hits … but not without cost. Amelie, the ice-queen ruler of the town, had been bitten; without her, it was all going to get worse, fast.

Michael was still thrashing and making that terrible sound, and it came to Claire gradually that instead of cowering here while her brain caught up, she should go to him. Help him.

And then the lights brightened from dim to dazzling in the big carpeted room, and she saw her boyfriend, Shane Collins, standing in the doorway, looking first at her, then over at Michael, who was still desperately struggling against … nothing.

Against his nightmare.

Claire pulled in a deep breath, shut her eyes for a second, then made the OK sign to Shane; he nodded back and went to their friend’s side. Michael was tangled up in the shredded remains of his sleeping bag, still flailing and, as far as Claire could tell, still dead asleep. Shane crouched down and, after a brief hesitation, reached out and put his hand on Michael’s shoulder.

Michael came awake instantly—vampire speed. In one blurred second he was sitting up, one hand wrapped around Shane’s wrist, eyes open and blazing red, fangs down and catching the light on razor-sharp points and edges.

Shane didn’t move, though he might have rocked back on his heels just a little. That was better than Claire could have done; she’d have fallen backward at the very least, and Michael would probably have broken her wrist—not intentionally, but sorry didn’t matter much when it came to shattered bones.

“Easy,” Shane said in a low, calm voice. “Easy, man—you’re safe. You’re safe now. It’s over. Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”