“Your lives were reasonably safe.” With a sound of sliding linen and wool, Cormel sat down across from me, and surprised, I searched the vampire’s expression. He was a hard man to read. I didn’t know. Seeing me staring, Cormel saluted me with his salted coffee. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. The destruction of your church was a warning. A reminder of what everyone’s place is.” His eyes were pupil black when he looked up. “You will do what Landon cannot. You will send the demons back.”

I exchanged a quick look with Trent. I’d give just about anything to be able to read Trent’s mind right now, but I had a pretty good idea of what he wanted. Too bad it wasn’t what I wanted. “Yeah?” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I like them here.”

“Rache!” Jenks protested.

“Well, I do!” I said, embarrassed. “They’ve been stuck in that hole for three thousand years. Maybe if they saw the sun once in a while they wouldn’t be so crabby.”

“Crabby?” Jenks darted over, and I covered my cup so his dust wouldn’t get in it. “That’s not crabby. That’s a two-year-old on a sugar high after missing his nap!”

I frowned at him and his Peter Pan pose on the wilted flowers. “They aren’t that bad. You just need to get to know them.” Trent sighed. I found his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. He didn’t like my decisions, but he’d back them up.

“You have a week,” Cormel said, and I shifted my focus past an angry Jenks to Cormel fitting a lid back on his cup. It was the universal signal that this meeting was over.

An entire week. Wow. “Or what?” I said snottily. “You gonna kill everyone important to me?” Shut up, Rachel. Your mom is in town. My eyes narrowed and I stood, knees shaking. There were at least eight vampires outside, a dozen FIB officers. I didn’t want to risk them. I didn’t want to risk Trent either. “You need me,” I said, pointing my finger at him as Trent stood as well, his calm beginning to crack. “You need me because as soon as the sun rises, every single vampire who gained his soul tonight will commit suncide, and you know it!”

“You will fix this,” he said, hammering each word into me.

Trent’s presence was a whisper beside me. “Ah, Rachel? You’re making some rather large policy statements.”