Turquoise eyes ignited on both sides of the road. How many of the damn things were there?

Desandra pointed up. Thirty feet above us a glass iceberg thrust to form an almost horizontal ledge. Derek grabbed me and hurled me up. I caught the ledge and pulled myself on it. He took a running start and jumped at the lowest part of the ledge. Desandra followed, slipped, and Derek caught her hand and muscled her up. Ascanio jumped straight up, like he had springs, and hoisted himself on the glass next to me.

Less than a hundred feet until the vamps reached us.

Robert ran to the nearly sheer glass wall, scrambled up, quick and silent, as if his hands had glue on them, and slid in place next to us. We lay flat on the glass, just close enough to the edge to look down. If the bloodsuckers looked up, they would see the outlines of our bodies through the glass.

Two emaciated, hard creatures loped into view directly below us. A man and a woman in their former life. The male still retained some semblance of humanity in his face and his body didn’t seem as dry, but the female was older. She must’ve been dark-skinned in life, and undeath gave her skin an unnatural bluish tint. She crouched on her haunches and raised her head, looking around. The Immortuus pathogen leached all fat and softness from its victims, atrophying their internal organs. Her breasts hung on her chest like two empty pockets of skin. Cords of muscle stood out on her neck.

“It was here,” a young male voice said from the female vampire’s mouth. I could identify all of the Masters of the Dead in Atlanta by sound. I didn’t recognize him, so he had to be a journeyman or someone new. Perhaps one of Hugh’s imports.

“There’s nothing here,” another male voice answered.

That’s right, there is nothing here. Move along, because we don’t have time for this. We had to get to Robert’s scout and the clock was ticking.

“I’m telling you, I felt a blood vector,” the first navigator said.

The male bloodsucker raised his arms. “Where is it, Jeff? I don’t feel anything.”

Nope. Definitely journeymen. Not highly ranked either.

The female vamp moved around and slid on the damp patch of dark blood. “Look. What the hell is this?”

“Whatever it is, it has no hemoglobin in it, because my boy isn’t pulling at his leash. Maybe it’s vomit. Maybe one of those twisted things that lives here came over and puked all over the glass and now you’re sliding around in it. Do you want me to call down and get some sawdust for you to deodorize her with when we bring them back?”

Journeymen. Always a pleasure.