“How . . .” Stiles stammered, unable to believe his eyes. How could he change, how could he regenerate an entire face? But how he’d done it was now academic. He quickly changed his tact. “Get out!” he ordered, his eyes already searching for the knife he’d dropped or the Uzi and pistols that had fallen from the bed. Anything he could use to fight.

Danner smiled. His movements were still jerky, but he managed to spin a keyring around one long-nailed finger. “The owner was most helpful,” he said, and his voice raised the hackles on Stiles’s neck. “It’s his invitation that counts, you know?” The smile turned to a thin grimace. “You will regret what you did to me, Mr. Stiles. You will curse the day you were even born.” He stood with stuttering movements, insectlike, and stalked forward. His foot brushed the Uzi on the floor and knocked it spinning under the bed.

“Then come on, big mouth.” Stiles dropped into a ready stance, muscles bunched like coiled springs. “C’mon, you fucking pussy. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Danner snarled, his reformed mouth flexing into a startling display of overlarge incisors. He reached for Stiles blithely, unconcerned by what this unarmed man could do, intent only on reaching that muscular throat . . .

Stiles stepped into the attack and drove a punishing front kick past those groping limbs, growling with satisfaction at the sound of breaking ribs. The vampire staggered back a step or two, but the soldier wasted no time. He spun to the right, his leg arcing around to dig a heel into the creature’s jaw, then reversed himself and landed a similar kick to the other side of its face. He pressed his attack like a berserker, bellowing in rage as he pummeled the foe again and again with a barrage of reverse punches and ridge hand blows and two successive backfists that spun the vampire like a top. Danner tried to grab him, but his hands found only empty air as Stiles ducked beneath them and broke one of his elbows, then came up from his crouch and drove both palms into the vampire’s chin. Vertebrae crackled as Danner’s head pitched backward, stemless, then lolled forward onto his chest at an impossible angle. But he still didn’t fall.

Stiles’s peripheral vision told him that he’d fought within reach of the Heckler & Koch on the desktop. He ended his flurry with a battering side kick that exploded into the fiend’s chest, collapsing it like a dented car fender and throwing him all the way to the front of the room. Stiles instantly dove for the rifle and snapped off the safety even as he whirled.