Stopping to secure the sole book in their possession would cost them an hour, but Darsal was unwilling to risk putting all seven books in the same country, particularly Romania.

Johnis agreed. They were only two or three hours behind Miranda, if their calculations were right. Securing the book would put them into Bucharest four hours after Silvie, assuming Alucard had taken her to the same mansion he’d taken Johnis to.

“Which he has,” Darsal said, spitting to one side on the runway as they boarded the jet. Alucard had done many things in his time, but none of it compared to what he intended to do now in that unholy place.

The jet flew at twice the speed of sound, faster when it climbed out of the atmosphere. This meant little to Johnis, as long as the book was safe and they reached Silvie while she was still alive.

“Tell me, Darsal,” Johnis said. “Tell me everything.”

She sat across from him in a black leather chair, legs and arms crossed. Her eyes diverted to the night sky over the Atlantic. “I can’t.”

There was enough emotion in those two words to strike fear into Johnis’s heart. “You can’t? Why not?”

“Because not everything can be spoken of easily, Johnis!” she snapped. “You’ve spent a month or two of your life frolicking about on this grand adventure. Try ten years and see if you can survive!”

She pressed her fingers together to cover her nose. Closed her eyes. “I’m sorry; that wasn’t called for.”

“Well . . .” Well what, Johnis? You have no clue what horrors Darsal has suffered these past ten years. “We’ve all paid a price.”

She was about twenty-seven years old now, he realized. But ten years without the harsh sun had been kind to her face. Her hair was very dark next to her pale cheeks. Something about her had changed, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Her nose, perhaps? No, it was that she’d lost weight.

Karas had been a child in the other world and had grown up here without the benefit of fighting the Horde. Darsal had been a well-muscled warrior, who’d thinned out in a world without constant battle. In some ways, she was more beautiful than he remembered.

But life here had hardened her in other ways.

He wanted to ask her about Billos. About what she knew of Alucard. The books. Karas. All of it. But Darsal looked distraught, tapped out, nearly ruined.

So Johnis told her about their own journey, starting back in the forest, chasing her and Billos into the desert. Finding the Black Forest. Landing outside Las Vegas. Stealing the Chevy.

Instead of grinning at their antics, Darsal unsuccessfully fought back tears, managing only a smile or two when he described how he’d mastered the Chevy.