In the roar of gunfire and the explosion of blue smoke, Matthew felt a hot sting across his right cheek and the force of the shot staggered him back along the hallway. He had stars and pinwheels in his eyes, and for an instant everything turned blood red and the hallway itself seemed to pulse like a labored heart. He knew he’d been hit, but had he hit Krakowski?

The answer came at him like a maddened bull.

Krakowski struck out with the empty pistol, caught Matthew on the left shoulder and drove him down. Matthew lost his own gun in the impact but had the sense to roll away from a steel-tipped boot that kicked at his skull. He was not dazed enough to miss the fact that he was fighting for his life, and Julian could not help because as soon as Firebaugh got out the door the rest of Lash’s group would charge in. Matthew felt the blood running down the side of his face from the bullet that had creased him, and in desperation he pulled the ivory-handled dagger of Albion out from his waistband and stabbed at the smoke-stained air where Krakowski had been a second before but now was not.

A pistol swung, a knee came up, a fist chopped down and Matthew was flattened. The dagger went spinning from his nerveless fingers. He tried to scramble away but a hand caught the back of his coat and then an arm went around his throat and the immediate pressure caused his eyes to bulge from their sockets.

He was facing the front of the house as he was being choked to death. And through the smoke that blew past him he saw her pick up the dagger.

And he saw her look at the blade, and he saw her change.

She was bringing up RakeHell Lizzie from the depths. She was doing it to save a brother Broodie, and even so close to passing out Matthew thought that Sandor Krakowski did not realize who had just entered the hallway. If so, he might have let Matthew go and run for his life.

But it was too late.

Elizabeth’s face had become a waxy mask. It was as if the creature underneath it had in an instant manufactured its own disguise. Her eyes, so warm and brown, took on a cold, hard black shine. Her mouth crimped, as if thirsty for murder. Her entire body tensed like a spring about to uncoil, and with it a need beyond anything Matthew could ever begin to fathom that would only be sated by blood.

She came at Krakowski like a silent spirit drifting through the gunsmoke, her eyes ashine, her mouth twisted slightly to one side, the dagger upraised.

She struck, fast as a blur.