An anxious look back showed Stiles still down on the ground, wrestling and pummeling his assailant but not getting loose. Three more were moving in from behind him. Danner tried to be satisfied with that. “Make him suffer,” he wished silently under his breath, but he did not wait to see further. He had learned better this night. He hobbled back along the side yard till he reached the chain-link fence that separated it from the neighbors to the rear and tore it aside with a groping hand. Another yard and another fence and a driveway later and he was crossing Cedar again and running along it to the next block, heading toward the main road. The gunfire was intermittent behind him and ceased altogether within the next five minutes but he would not slow. Instead he sent every vampire he came across back in that direction. “Two men,” was all he would have to say before their hungry eyes would light up and their lips peel back from their canines in primal anticipation. They loped off into the night at the slightest mention, barely giving notice to Danner’s condition or displaying any trepidations about what caused it.

They would find out, he thought. If Stiles were still alive, they would most certainly find out.

Danner stopped when he reached the small brick building of Isherwood High School and caught himself flattening against the wall for cover. The soldier couldn’t possibly have kept up with him, he knew. Still . . . He closed his eyes and felt for him, reached out for his scent, his presence. But he couldn’t find him. The vampire sagged against the brick in relief. It meant the man was dead, or at least out of range. Danner’s confidence grew. It was only a matter of time, he reassured himself. Stiles and his cohort could only fight so long before running, and with all the vampires that Danner had set on their trail, they would not run for long. He regretted that he could not be the one to kill them. He would have relished it.

He almost slid to the ground and had to haul himself back to his feet. The pain was pervasive. For the first time he began to doubt his chances of getting home. But Katrina’s face was suddenly there in his mind, that lovely form strapped to the table in the cellar, that soft young throat untouched save for that first nip he’d given upon finding her. What nectar. The image sent a ripple of anticipation through him. The thought of his lips on that neck, of her warmth flowing into him might have given him stirrings of excitement had there been anything left between his legs. At the very least it gave him purpose to leave that crutch of a wall and forget the pain, or at least ignore it.

The fountain beckoned.