“And Milton too, along the north edge,” Jim said.

Wait a minute. “Milton?”

He nodded.

The last time I had occasion to travel to Milton, it was because Andrea had gotten upset over some floozy flirting with Raphael, pulled a gun, and nearly drowned her in a hot tub. Beau Clayton, the Milton County sheriff, had personally talked her off the cliff and locked everyone up until I got there.

I punched his number into the phone. “Beau?”

“Kate.” A deep voice tinted with Georgia’s brand of country answered. “Funniest thing happened. One of my deputies just saw what he described as ‘a whole mess of undead’ moving in your general direction. Now, I am curious. Are you having a party?”

“Beau,” I said. “I need your help.”

• • •

I STOOD ON the wall of the Keep. The day was beautiful. The sun lit the turquoise sky, tinting it with a pale veil of gold. Before me a clear snowfield stretched to the jagged dark wall of the forest. Wind stirred a loose strand of my hair.

Behind me the Pack Council waited.

Something moved in the distance at the far-off tree line. A single skeletal shape emerged out of the brush, a dark squiggle against the white snow. The undead paused on all fours. Its magic brushed by me, revolting, like a smear of decomposing flesh on the surface of my mind.

Vampires poured out of the forest, their gaunt, grotesque bodies moving ridiculously fast. So many . . . Behind them four armored cars crept onto the field. Painted in fatigue colors and set on eight wheels, they looked like small tanks. And they were probably chock-full of navigators.

“The People got themselves some Strykers,” Andrea said. “Slat armor, full hull protection. These have a layer of steel, then a layer of ceramic armor against armor-piercing rounds, then more steel and then probably reactive armor tiles. You can fire a rocket launcher at that thing and it won’t even sneeze.”

“How heavy are they?” Martha asked.

“Little over sixteen tons,” Andrea said.

“So around thirty-three thousand pounds,” Robert murmured.

Martha shrugged. “Too heavy to roll.”

Prying Ghastek and his posse out of the Strykers would be a bitch.

The armored fighting vehicles rolled into position and stopped. The vampires formed around them.

Where are you, Curran? In my head I had thought he would somehow magically show up. But he wasn’t here. I was on my own.

I turned to the courtyard and waved at Roman and the witch next to him.

“Is that his sister?” Andrea asked to me.

“No.” I had spoken with both of them. “I’d asked her that. Her name is Alina, she isn’t his sister, and she feels deeply sorry for his sisters, because if she had to put up with being in his presence for longer than a day, she would throw herself off the nearest bridge just to end the agony.”

“Well,” Andrea said. “Glad she cleared that up.”