Curran stands on the grate above me and I talk to him. I say, I love you all. This is not the end. I won’t roll over and die.

I wish I had been a better person. I wish things had been different.

This place won’t kill me. I will survive. I won’t break.

Curran smiles at me. He’s holding his hand out. I know he’ll come for me.

He’ll come for me. He just might be too late.

• • •

NOISE. LOW RHYTHMIC noise, like the pounding of some giant heart.

It keeps getting louder.

It keeps coming.

I’m hallucinating again.

Pain.

My left hand is gripping the grate. There is a chunk of brick on the other side of the grate next to it.

There is a chunk of a brick.

My mind started working slowly, like a rusty engine trying to will itself back to life.

Thud! Something hit the wall above us.

Another brick bounced off the grate.

I reached over and shook Ghastek. He hung motionless in his restraints. I could barely move him.

Thud!

“Ghastek,” I whispered. “Ghastek . . .”

His eyes opened slowly.

Thud.

Bricks showered the grate. In the dim light of the electric lamps, the shaft wavered, blurry, but I saw the hole about twenty feet up. Another thud. More bricks plunged down, bouncing off the metal. Someone moved at the top of the hole, leaped, and landed on the grate. Gray eyes looked at me.

Curran.

Please let it be real.

He stared at me. His eyes were horrified. “Kate? Jesus Christ.”

My lips moved. “Please be real.”

He pulled a metal hacksaw out of his backpack and started slicing through the grate. “Stay with me, baby.”

This was a dream. Another hallucination. Or Hugh screwing with my head. I braced myself. I would wake up and he would disappear.

Two others landed on the grate. Jim. Thomas, the rat alpha.

Jim saw me and swore.

“Get me out,” Ghastek whispered. “Please.”

“I should leave you in there, you sonovabitch,” Curran snarled. “Cut him out.”

Jim pulled out another saw.

The blade sliced through the bars above me. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Please be real. I reached through the bars and touched his fingers in cutoff gloves. His hand was warm.

“Hold on, baby. I’ve got you.”

A creature tumbled out of the hole and landed on the grate. Hairless and muscled, it crouched on all fours as if it had never walked upright. Thick curved talons crowned the toes of its feet. Its chest was wide, its hindquarters muscled like those of a boxer dog. A bone ridge protruded from its spine. The massive jaws unhinged and finger-sized fangs pierced the air. Its eyes, deep set and bright red, burned with hunger.

A vampire. An ancient vampire, so old it sent a shiver down my spine.