“You look pretty busted up yourself,” he said, with typical midwestern frankness.

“I’ll heal,” I said, and limped back to the spot where I’d left Rose and was baffled to find she was still there. She hadn’t so much as moved from her position, despite my giving her ample opportunity to get away.

That surprise faded when I saw the hunger in her eyes—and recognized it. As Patience had said, she was feeding off the chaos—the pandemonium she’d spawned with a flick of her hand. This was her power, I thought, as two women pushed a gurney between us and settled the woman from the vehicle upon it. This was the destruction she could wreak. This was the power that had her exiled from Chicago.

That should have been enough to have me turning back or looking for backup, because what could a bit of steel do against her? But I didn’t stand still, because that wasn’t my nature. And I was too furious anyway. I walked forward, one slow step after another, until only five feet separated us.

She was scenting the air again. For what? Is that why she’d come back to Chicago? To claim some treasure she’d left behind? Or find some treasure she hadn’t been able to claim the first time?

“Get out of my city.”

It took a moment for her to drag her gaze away, look at me again. “No. I entered here, and my business is not done.”

“I don’t care. Either you leave, or I’m going to send you back to wherever you came from. I’m going to be the one who stops you.”

The dull roar of the magic machine began to sound again, recharged and ready for another round of lightning. Based on the last one, we had only a couple of minutes before lightning groped for her again.

I couldn’t tell if Rose was aware of the danger or was worried about it. She cocked her head at me, brow furrowed as if I were a puzzle she didn’t know how to solve. “Why would you try to stop me? Why do vampires hate other supernaturals so much? Is it because they aspire to be human? Because they miss being human? That self-loathing is a very unattractive quality.”

“We don’t hate all supernaturals,” I said with a thin smile. “Only the assholes.”

The roaring grew louder, and this time Rose glanced up and looked mildly concerned. I had a visceral memory of her screaming and sobbing from the back of the SUV, and my anger sparked again.

She flicked a hand again, and I went on guard.

Behind me, a human screamed, then slammed a tree limb into the window of a building to our west. Then again, then a third time, until the glass spider-webbed and cracked and imploded inward. Others picked up bricks and chunks of asphalt deposited by damage to building and street, began heaving them at each other.

“Stop,” I said, looking back at Rose, and tried to appeal to her self-centeredness. “If you destroy Chicago, what kingdom will be left for you?”