There was, on some distant shore, the sense of his world fracturing—of his manufacturer in custody, his canary empire in ruins, and his name potentially being defiled. These concerns were mere whispers, though, beneath the cacophony of voices in his blood. They energized and inspired him. They blanketed his pain. Here he was, in a derelict hotel in the heart of the Mojave, but he might as well be on a blood-drenched field in Mercia, the cries of his Viking brothers and sisters surrounding him.

After the battle, he could regroup. He would stand behind his father’s money and defenses. But for now, he needed blood.

Kitty careened through the hallway, screaming. She appeared so small to him. He could pick her up by one ankle and thump her body against the wall until every delicate bone broke.

“I see you, Kitty.”

She slipped on the smooth floor, went down on her knees, then bumbled back to her feet and pushed through a set of double doors. Johan followed soon after. There was a short, broad hallway on the other side, with several rooms opening off it. Kitty was nowhere to be seen.

“You want to play, Kitty?” Johan stalked forward, dragging his ax behind him. It made music across the tiles, like a needle in the grooves of a record.

“You want to play with me?”

His blood roared and sang.

Xander crackled on the inside, like an overloaded circuit. He planted his feet and pushed backward. Luke fought to keep the belt around his throat but couldn’t. Both men floundered, then the ground disappeared beneath them and they fell into the pool—a seven-foot drop to the hard tile below.

Luke—who’d landed on top of Xander—moved first. He had dropped the belt, his one weapon, and spent several fruitless seconds feeling around for it. Deciding escape was a better option, he crawled the incline to the shallow end of the pool. Xander had slipped the other way, down to the deep end. He coughed and groaned. Maybe he had a broken spine to go with everything else.

The poolside lights flickered overhead. Far beyond them, the desert stars were constant, brighter. They were all Luke had and he followed them. He reached the edge of the pool, found the ladder, and heaved his body up one rung at a time.

“When you don’t got nothin’,” he wheezed. He’d lost his mind—he was certain of it. “You got nothin’ to—”

A pistol shot split the air. Luke thought he’d been hit, but it was only shrapnel—fragments of tile spraying him from where the bullet struck six inches away. He fell backward off the ladder and another round pinged off the rung he’d been holding.