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He adjusted his grip on the spear, then jerked it up over his head.

He threw it––hard––without waiting so much as a fraction of a second after he landed.

It slammed into the other vampire’s chest, going all the way through.

The other vampire roared.

Nick leapt forward, grasping the wooden handle a second time, and slamming it forward as hard as he could. There was a loud THUNK as the end of the spear went through the wooden door, pinning the vampire to the thick wood.

Nick twisted the handle, changing the angle of the heart-shaped spearhead so it would lock the other vampire to the door.

Nick knew it wouldn’t hold him forever.

It might hold him long enough, though.

Nick didn’t wait to find out how long the spear alone would control him.

He slid forward along the spear’s handle.

He reached the vampire in three gliding steps.

The other Nick had already started to pull himself up along the handle, to try to pull himself off the spear by moving away from the door. Nick knew he’d break the handle and yank himself off the splintered end of wood if Nick gave him half a chance.

Kicking forward, he drove the other vamp backwards and back into the door.

Nick kicked out his legs.

The vamp let out a furious cry as he lost his balance, scrabbling and hanging from the end of the spear. Nick knew he’d break the door next, so he closed the gap between them entirely, pinning the other vamp to the door.

He landed hard on the other vamp’s chest.

The other Nick started to kick him off, but whoever this asshole was, and however much he might look like Nick, Nick’s doppelganger hadn’t been fighting other vampires professionally for the past few years, not successfully at least.

He definitely hadn’t been fighting them in a ring, where there was limited space.

Maybe he’d fought in the wars a few hundred years ago, but he didn’t know how to grapple another vampire, not well enough to keep him down.

Nick got a flash of battles, of fighting out on the tundra of a decimated Earth.

He saw that other version of him fighting seers, humans.

Not other vamps.

Nick shook his head, grimacing.

Was that his memory? The other Nick’s?

Was the fucker still trying to convince him thathewas the other Nick Tanaka?

Forcing it from his mind, he jammed the spear deeper into the other seer’s torso, widening the hole in his chest. Leaning against one of his arms with his side, he pinned his legs with his, then wrapped his free hand around the other vamp’s lower arm.

Positioning his weight, including his other elbow, Nick used his legs and feet and body to pin his vampire doppelganger’s lower torso and legs to the heavy door.

Thank the gods itwasa heavy door.

If it had been one of the particle-board things Nick grew up with, they’d be grappling on the rug in the corridor, and Morley might already be dead.

Nick never took his weight off the spear, or his awareness off the other vampire’s fangs, or the position of every one of his limbs.