Johnis felt his heart slamming against his ribs, but he couldn’t hear it for the sound of the bats. Silvie gripped her sword tightly. Johnis had forgotten his in the scabbard.

“Billos!” Silvie whispered. She started forward.

“Wait,” Johnis breathed. Then louder so she could hear. “Silvie, it’s a trap.”

No surprise on her face. She knew already. But she was too fixated on easing their pain.

A thin, flea-bitten rag of a bat flapped up from his hiding place behind the wheel and streaked to the sky. He had been hurting Billos’s back with the needle in his claw.

Furious at this obscene torture, Silvie screamed after the Shataiki and drew back her blade to slash the ropes that bound Billos and Darsal to the wheel. With a grunt she swung and cut one thick cord.

Billos’s left arm dropped free, and his shoulder slumped forward. But he was unconscious now and made no effort to right himself.

Silvie drew back for a second swing, and the stadium suddenly hushed, as if she herself had signaled immediate silence. She glanced at Johnis, shifted her eyes over his shoulder, and froze, eyes wide.

Johnis felt the Dark One’s presence before he saw him. An oppressive, thick blanket that robbed him of breath was approaching from behind.

Johnis fought a bout of panic and turned slowly. A large vampire beast floated in on oily black wings, huge talons extending down twice the length of his torso, which was three times the size of the other Shataiki. His mouth was a cross between a bat’s snout and a wolf’s jaws. Bloodred eyes bulged below a jutting brow.

This was Teeleh.

Johnis felt his stomach tighten in protest, and for a moment he thought he might throw up. He clenched his fists and stepped back, but inside he felt like water.

The beast landed on the wood with a clacking of talons. He folded his leathery wings, extended his chin, opened his jaws wide so that Johnis could see the back of his throat, and swallowed a small rodent lodged in his teeth.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice low and raspy.

For a long time he just stared at them, but it was hard to see where he was looking because his red eyes had no pupils.

“I can see that you’re both ill,” he said. “We could help you.”

“They’re ill,” Johnis said, looking at Billos and Darsal.

“No, they’re perfectly fine now. But you . . . You have a skin disease. The smell is sickening.”

The beasts thought humans smelled? Their minds were a twisted mess.

“It’s not I who see things wrong, my friend,” Teeleh said. “It’s you.”

If the beast can read my thoughts, we’re dead, Johnis thought.

Teeleh took three slow steps toward Darsal and drew a finger gently down her side, tearing the sleeve of her tunic with his razor-sharp claw.