“Are you bringing backup?”

“No,” he said. He didn’t mention any reasons but I knew them all: his word, his pride, his duty, the fact that the upir would kill Derek. Any one of those would do.

I rubbed the sleep from my face. “What time is it?”

“Noon.”

The patrols caught me at seven in the morning and I had gone to bed around eight, which gave me a grand total of four hours of sleep. “When do we have to leave?”

“Seven thirty.”

I lay back down, pulled the blanket up, and yawned. “Fine, wake me up at seven then.”

“So you’re coming?”

“Did you expect me to hide here?”

“He referred to you as his little snack.”

“He’s a sweetie.”

“He’s also all about screwing you.”

I raised my head enough to look at him. “Look, Curran, what do you want from me?”

“Why does he want to mate with you?”

“I’m a good lay. Go away, please.”

Curran brushed my quip aside. “I want to know why he’s got a hard-on for getting you knocked up.”

There was a pun in that sentence somewhere but he didn’t look like he was in the mood to notice. “How should I know?” I said. “Maybe the idea of torturing my child gets him hot. I’ve had four hours of sleep. I need at least four more, Curran. Go away.”

“I will find out.” He made it sound like a threat.

“You read too much into it.”

He peeled himself from the wall. “How will I find the Crusader?”

“He’ll be here in a couple of hours. He thought he’d get an invitation. Please don’t take his weapons away this time. He comes of his own will.”

Curran walked out. I took a deep breath and forced my mind to go blank.

NICK WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR AT TWENTY minutes till four. I was awake and putting on my boots.

He closed the door and leaned against it. His face had gained stubble and his hair looked greasy again.

“What do you do to your hair?”

“Dust, hair gel, and a little gun oil.”

“Ever thought of patenting the recipe?”

“No.”

I stood up. He locked the door and took a leather roll from the inside of his trenchcoat. He put it on the table, untied the string securing it, and unrolled it with a snap. Inside lay two yellowish blades, one almost a foot long and the other about the size of my hand. I picked up the larger one. It was filed from a human femur split in half, and a long groove ran along the center of the blade where the bone marrow had been.

“Too heavy,” I murmured.

“And brittle,” he said softly. “I broke four.”

“Why didn’t you have one when you and Bono fought over Derek?”