It didn’t take long to fill them in on my plan, and when I was done, Sal sat stroking his beard, and Reg asked, “So, you want to scatter the crowd, even though no human can outrun a vampire, and you want to fight off the rest with our army of three?”

“Basically,” I said. “You in?”

Reg didn’t answer, but he stepped down into the front yard and picked up an ax Sal kept leaning against the front porch. And that told me everything I needed to know.

Whether we were pleading for immortality before a council of the most powerful vampires in the world, or planning to take them down with a measly couple of fence posts, Reg’s side was my side. Always.

Soon, we were dismantling Sal’s white picket fence, one stake at a time. Reg ripped each stake off the fence and yanked it out of the ground; Sal hacked them to a handheld size and shaved the triangular tips into a more lethal point; then I piled them into duffel bags Sal had unearthed from a closet, each one falling onto the rest with a hollow clunk.

Rip.

Yank.

Hack.

Shave.

Clunk.

The posts made for some pretty sad stakes, and the squared-off shape was uncomfortable to hold, but it was the best we could do on short notice. Retired slayers didn’t exactly keep an armory of stakes stashed around.

I turned one of the posts over in my hands, remembering what Sal had said about the first time he transferred his healing power into wood—particularly the gory bit about what happens to vamps who turn human only to find a stake sticking out of their chest.

“Sal, are these going to like, maim?”

He passed me a newly shaved post. “If you’re asking whether these sticks will smoke ’em or stake ’em, the answer is smoke.”

“How do you know?”

He threw his hands up to the sky and did his best impression of a TV evangelist. “Because I didn’t lay my healing hands on them.”

“But—”

“It’s just the gate, kid.” He pointed to the gate, which was hanging a little lopsided after my aggressive homecoming. “No need to charge up the whole fence when just the gate posts will do the trick.”

I had not slowed down for even an instant to really picture what was to come, but I imagined it now and felt a twist of anxiety. I was not thrilled about the idea of vaporizing vampires, but I reminded myself that it was just the Elders, and after what they’d done to us, they could definitely bite it.

“Hey, less talking, more working,” Reg said, pointing to a pile of newly uprooted fence posts. He was sweating through his vampire costume and giving off a very human smell, but he moved with determination and almost seemed to be smiling.

“What happened to your ridiculous plastic teeth?” I asked.