Dutch was leering down at him, saying, “Remember me, boy?” and then, just as suddenly, he was gone from Stiles’s view. The soldier’s ears were still ringing from Larson’s blows, so he didn’t hear the shotgun blast that dispatched him, nor the second that snatched poor Ladonna from her feet and pitched her atop her thrice-dead husband. Stiles didn’t see anything but night sky until an even darker face leaned over him. “C’mon, Mr. Stiles,” Hubert Ranall said as he pulled him to his feet. “I don’t know how long we can keep them back.”

“You just get moving,” Jessie said, brandishing the deputy’s smoking Mossberg. She picked up the weapons Stiles had dropped and followed them up the steps, keeping a wary eye on her neighbors until they were inside and the door shouldered back into place behind them.

Stiles all but collapsed onto the couch that Bean had vacated for him. It was as if that last beating had finally convinced his stubborn mind how injured he really was. His head pounded and his groin as well, and his arms and legs were leaden. Jessie immediately began dressing his newest wounds.

“Mr. Stiles?” Hubert was looking over the back of the couch at him, cradling one of the Remingtons against his chest. “What do we do now, Mr.—”

“Stiles!”

The soldier started. It was a young, forceful voice, and it made Stiles’s spine shrivel. He did not need anyone to tell him where it came from or who it was. He already knew.

He waved Mrs. Shively away and motioned for Hubert to help him to the window.

There were more of them than ever, even after Stiles’s assault. And Nathan Danner was standing out in the lead, now dressed in a bright red Adidas sweatsuit and coming up the walk. Stiles blinked twice in disbelief. This was not the same man he’d been chasing all night. . . it couldn’t be! This one did have Danner’s mocking face, but it was even younger and stronger than before and completely unmarked. He stood tall and straight on uncrippled legs, and he was no longer missing an arm. And his cheeks were flushed with color, with blood.

Stiles was dumbstruck. It was Danner—completely regenerated in less than a single night!

“Son of a bitch,” the soldier whispered. He was too far for the scatterguns to be effective, so he motioned for the H & K and flicked its setting to autofire and activated the laser sight. When he aimed, the dot danced along Danner’s cheek, just as it had several nights past. But the vampire had obviously learned nothing from the experience. He just smiled. Even as the rifle burped to life. Even as the rounds ate up the side of his face.

He still smiled. Even as he healed himself.