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“Can’t take you anywhere, can we?” Tim chastised.

“Shut up,” Carl snorted.

For reconnaissance, Jackson tried several random doors lining the hallway. All of them were locked. If he wanted to find any specific vampires—or a human in need of rescuing—breaking them down would take a while.Fuck.

A half-acknowledged fear that Dominique might have been moved into one of these chambers evaporated the moment he made the final turn into the throne room. There he was, the Lord of Night, where Jackson had last seen him, hanging by his ankles, still as a corpse. His skeletal torso blazed like a lamp in the heavy darkness when his beam hit it. Then it turned bright pink. Jackson jerked the lethal torch light aside.

“What the fuck,” Terry muttered. “Is this what we’re cleaning up?”

“That’s it,” Jackson agreed.

“Sick,” Tim said.

No argument there. Jackson swept his light around, confirming that the rest of the room contained only furnishings. A few shawls and other pieces of clothing lay scattered on seats, and many of the tables held glasses coated with blood. The hall was frozen in the damp, underground darkness, awaiting the return of its nightmarish inhabitants. One of the bloodstained pitchers sat on a table near him.

“Carl, can you find the end of the rope that’s keeping him up there and get him down?” Jackson said, shrugging out of his backpack and dumping it on the nearest seat.

With his flashlight, the man traced the rope to the rafters and back down, then ambled off toward the far end without comment. The beams of the brothers sliced through the crushing darkness, glinting off dead chandeliers and crystal tumblers.

Jackson grabbed the pitcher. It came off the table with a sickeningly sticky noise. The smell of blood wafted out, making his jaw tighten. He was about to fling the pitcher away when he realized it wasn’t empty. A thin layer of half-congealed blood sloshed at the bottom. He froze for a moment before lowering it. “Terry, see if you can find some cleaning supplies somewhere. We need to get this blood off the floor.” Turning to Tim, he added, “And bins to collect all these filthy glasses.”

“And do what with ’em?”

“I told you. We’re here to clean.”

“Oh. Right.”

The brothers moved off toward the gilded throne and the archways lining the wall behind it.

Dominique swayed and bounced as Carl loosened the line and lowered him into a cadaverous heap on the ground.

Jackson propped his powerful light on his backpack so it wouldn’t touch Dominique, but also glare in Carl’s direction, blinding the man. He ignored the resulting holler of protest, grabbed the pitcher, raised it to his lips, and tipped it up.

The blood tasted of ice-encrusted iron and was about as cold against his tongue, triggering his gag reflex. As the slimy mass slid down his craw, he tried not to think of bloated corpses. Then a muted jolt hit, nowhere near what it was fresh from the vein but enough. Warmth suffused him, and some new strength. The footsteps of the men grew louder in his ears, and his eyes no longer saw nothingness in the far reaches of the hall, but a fuzzy collection of shapes and passageways.

Jackson wiped at his mouth with his shirtsleeve, set the vile pitcher down, and turned his attention to Dominique. He grabbed one bony shoulder and rolled the would-be carcass to his back. The sight before him made his gorge rise. The bastards had bled Dominique as close to death as it was possible for a vampire to get. His body had struggled to compensate, creating the blood he needed to survive at the expense of almost every bit of soft tissue he possessed. By now, his skin stretched over bones and little else. In human terms, he was a famine victim. In vampire terms, he was incapacitated and one blow away from permanent death.

“This is fucking insane,” he muttered under his breath. Pulling the leather case from his vest pocket, he quickly loaded one of the remaining two syringes. He should just stick Dominique in a body bag and hope to God that he could convince the trio that hauling him out of here and driving away with him was following his orders. And if the suppressant didn’t work, he might yet resort to that.

Though much more horrifying was the thought of what would happen if the suppressant actuallydidwork under these circumstances. Jackson didn’t see how it could, but the odds of getting Dominique out of here—to say nothing of rescuing or killing anyone or anything else—were much improved if he could function autonomously.

With his fingertips, Jackson located the weak flutter just beneath Dominique’s sternum where the belly had caved in. Aiming the needle, he jabbed it deep and pressed the plunger.

He filled the wait that followed by pulling the Bowie knife from his pack and cutting the bindings from Dominique’s forearms. There was still no sign of life when the tread of heavy boots approached behind him. “So what’s the plan for”—Carl’s flashlight fell over the vampire’s inert form—“that.”

“I’m hoping he’ll just walk out of here.”

The other man snorted. “Right. He looks to be done walking.”

Jackson stared at Dominique’s blood-smeared skull face, willing him to wake.C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.

More footsteps, Terry’s this time, accompanied by a hollow rattling. The son of a bitch had actually found a mop and bucket. Who knew bloodsuckers could be so domestic?

Dominique’s chest rose and fell with a tiny breath. Jackson swallowed his relief—and his horror. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” he whispered.

The eyelids struggled against the dried blood gluing them shut before opening into narrow slits.

Carl scuttled backward with a gasp. “Holy shit!”