And the driver’s side door was open.

Claire choked, gasped for breath, and tore at the hand holding her throat closed. No good. Her fingernails didn’t concern him any more than her heels when she kicked backward.

“Hush,” Oliver chided her, and squeezed harder. “I’d like to say this will hurt me more than you, but that wouldn’t be strictly true—”

He broke off with a stunned gasp, and his hand slid away from Claire’s throat. She stumbled forward two steps, both hands holding her aching neck, and then looked back.

Oliver was staring down at his chest, where the point of a stake had emerged from his rib cage.

“Damn,” he said, and pitched down to his knees, fighting it all the way.

Michael was behind him.

Michael had just staked Oliver.

He dashed around the older vampire and grabbed Claire. “You okay?”

She couldn’t get words out through her bruised throat, but she nodded, eyes wide. In seconds Myrnin was there, too, picking her up and dumping her unceremoniously into Michael’s arms. “Take her,” he said. “Oliver is not going to be pleased, boy. Better go.”

“I had to,” Michael said. “I had to stake him. He was going to kill her.”

“In point of fact, he wasn’t; he was going to hurt her so badly that Amelie would feel it, that’s all. But that’s not what I meant. You crashed a car into the limousine. Oliver loves his limousine.”

Michael opened his mouth, then closed it without thinking of anything to say to that.

Myrnin, watching Pennywell, said, “Michael, take the girl and go. I have things to do here. Do leave the stake where it is—I can’t have Oliver interfering just yet. The witchfinder and I have old debts to settle.” When Michael hesitated, Myrnin’s dark eyes flashed toward him in command. “Take her.”

Michael nodded, and Claire lost all sense of where she was, except that she was held firmly in his arms, and moving fast. Lights flashed by, moving too quickly for her to focus on. The burning in her throat died down from a bonfire to a slow broil, and she tried clearing it. It felt like gargling with glass, but she got a weak sound out.

Michael slowed to a normal human-speed run, then a walk, and Claire saw that they were back at the TPU theater. Eve, Shane, and Kim were standing in front of Eve’s car. Two of them looked shocked; Kim just looked like none of it was much concern of hers.

“Claire!” Shane got there first, taking her out of Michael’s arms and easing her to her feet. When she faltered, he held on to her, anxiously looking her over. “What the hell happened, Michael?”

“Crash,” Claire whispered. “Car crash. Hi.”

“Hi,” Shane said. “What do you mean, car crash? Jesus, Michael, you crashed your car?”