I watched as they burned, though I could see nothing beneath the blazing flame-cocoon. Part of me wanted to dance in malicious glee, to throw my arms up in the air and crow my defiance and scorn to my enemies while they died, and to roll through their ashes when they'd cooled.

More of me grew sickened. I stared at the spell I had wrought and couldn't believe it had come from me-whether or not I'd taken the power, maybe even some primal knowledge of this spell, from Kravos's devoured spirit, the magic had come from me . I had killed them, as swiftly and as efficiently and with as little forethought as one gives to crushing an ant.

They were vampires, some part of me said. They had it coming. They were monsters .

I glanced aside, at Susan, who stood panting, her white shirt stained dark brown with blood. She stared at the fire, her eyes dark and wide, the whites filled in with black. I watched her shudder and close her eyes. When she opened them again, they were normal once more, blurred with tears.

Within the confines of my spell, the screams stopped. Now there were only cracklings. Poppings. The sound of overheated marrow boiling, bursting out of bone.

I turned away, toward the door, and said, "Let's go."

Susan and Justine followed me.

I led them through the basement. It was large and unfinished and damp. The room outside the washroom had a large drain in the center of the floor. There were corpses, there. Children from the masquerade. Others, dressed in rags and castoff clothes. The missing street people.

I stopped long enough to send my senses questing out over them, but there was no stirring of breath, no faint pulse of heartbeat. The corpses showed no lividity at all. The floor lay damp beneath our feet, and a hose still ran out a trickle of water, to one side.

Dinner had already been served.

"I hate them," I said. My voice rang out too loud, in that room. "I hate them, Susan."

She said nothing, in answer.

"I'm not going to let them keep this up. I've tried to stay out of their way before. I can't, now. Not after what I've seen."

"You can't fight them," Justine whispered. "They're too strong. There are too many of them."

I held up a hand, and Justine fell silent. I tilted my head to one side, and heard a faint thrumming, at the very edges of my magical perception. I stalked across the room, around the bodies, to an alcove in the wall.

Cheap shelving had been installed in the alcove, and on the shelves sat my shield bracelet, my blasting rod, and Bob's skull, still in its fishnet sack. Even as I approached, the skull's eyes flared to life.