“That’s a lie!” I hoisted the heavy sword, my left arm trembling, and charged.

Difethwr leaped to my right, and I missed it entirely. I spun as fire erupted from its eyes. I tried to block with the sword, but it was too unwieldy, my left arm too slow. The twin flames sped toward my face. This was it. I was going to die in excruciating agony, just like my father.

Then, so close that they singed my eyebrows, the flames stopped. I stepped back. Difethwr groaned and muttered something. I heard it say, “No, Master. The shapeshifter is here.” Then it growled. Slowly, as if the effort caused it pain, the Hellion reeled the flames back into its eye sockets, inch by inch. Again, the eyes glowed dully.

The Hellion raised its slime-dripping arm and pointed at me. A flame danced at the end of its clawed finger. “It is not yet thy time, daughter of Ceridwen. But soon. Soon we will destroy thee and reduce this city to ashes and rubble. And thou wilt have no power to stop us.”

As if to confirm the demon’s taunt, the flame along the blade of my sword dimmed. Difethwr laughed, throwing back its head. Huge, slime-covered blue warts covered its neck and jaw. I spoke the spell frantically, whispering the words too fast, slurring them. It did no good. The sword’s flames faltered, then went out.

Difethwr’s laughter cut off abruptly, and the demon cocked its head, as if listening. Rage twisted its face. “Yes, Master. We obey,” it said, each syllable yanked out like a tooth being pulled. The Hellion wavered, fading, becoming transparent.

“Who bound you, Difethwr? Whose call do you answer?”

It regarded me with scorn. “One far stronger than thou, foolish daughter of Ceridwen.” It was almost gone now, like night fog touched by dawn.

“Too strong for you, though, huh? So the Big Bad Destroyer can be forced to bow to a human master. Who’d have thought it?”

The demon’s howl of rage was muted, its body a dim blue haze. “Thy time is coming soon.” Its voice was all that remained now, like the stink of cold ashes after a fire. And even that was fading. “Soon.”

11

I NEEDED A DRINK—AND I’M NOT MUCH OF A DRINKER. BUT part of me felt like downing a lot of shots of . . . well, something , and in rapid succession. What I really needed was to sit down, get my nerves steady, and figure out what the hell was going on.

So I headed for Creature Comforts. I’d told Kane I’d try to meet him there, anyway. Maybe he could help me make sense of what had just happened. Somehow, a Hellion had breached the shield and invaded normal reality.

I drove home like a maniac, parked the Jag, and left my duffel bags locked inside. Then I ran toward Creature Comforts as fast as my stilettos would carry me. Calm down, Vicky. You’ll figure this out. The Hellion isn’t coming back tonight. I slowed my pace. In a few minutes, I was there.

Creature Comforts, like most bars in the New Combat Zone, didn’t look like much on the outside. But once you pushed open the heavy oak door—well, it didn’t look like much on the inside, either. It was dim, like you’d expect a monster bar to be, with sticky linoleum floors and dark wood paneling on the walls. To the left of the door stretched the longest bar in the Zone, with stools spaced haphazardly along its length. Square tables took up the main floor area, and four-seater booths lined the right and back walls. Above each booth hung a single light fixture with a black shade and a forty-watt bulb; the seats sported ancient red vinyl cushions zigzagged with cracks, some patched with duct tape. The air smelled of beer, cigarettes (no one tried to enforce any smoking bans here), and, underneath it all, the vaguest whiff of human blood.

There was a rumor that Axel, the owner and bartender, pumped in a special blood-scented air freshener to attract the vampires—just enough to get them feeling kind of edgy but not go all blood-crazed predator on the norms. I didn’t believe it. Most of the vamps seemed to show up with blood already on their breath. Whatever. Creature Comforts was definitely the place to be for vampires, their junkies, the occasional werewolf, and a few human thrill-seekers.

I liked it because it felt like home. And that’s why I’d come here now.

A quick glance around the room failed to find Kane. It was already half past midnight, but because of our crazy schedules, we were each used to the other one showing up late.

Axel loomed behind the bar. Nobody knew for sure exactly what Axel was. Few would even hazard a guess—mostly because, if you guessed wrong and offended the guy, Axel looked like he’d eat you for an hors d’oeuvre. The guy was huge—too big to be human—and regulars said the more you drank, the bigger he looked. Not a bad quality in a bartender who doubled as bouncer. Axel had a sort of caveman vibe going on: shaggy beard, big nose, long arms so hairy there were whispers he was part bear. Since his lair—er, apartment—was in the cellar below Creature Comforts, the whisperers might not be too far off.

I spotted Juliet at the bar, where she sat with her back to me. The guy next to her leaned in so close he half fell off his stool. He looked like a college kid—baseball hat, baggy jeans, a hooded sweatshirt that read HUSKIES.

“No way,” Husky Boy exclaimed as I approached. “No friggin’ way!”

“It’s true. I swear on my own grave,” Juliet said, stirring her Bloody Mary. She ordered that cocktail not because she liked it, but because it freaked out the norms—they assumed it was made with real blood. Most norms think that vampires can’t eat food, but that’s not true. They can eat whatever they want, but only human blood gives them nourishment. Juliet’s complexion glowed like she was in a cosmetics ad, which meant she’d already fed tonight. But it couldn’t have been much more than an appetizer, or she wouldn’t be bothering with a drunken frat boy.

Unless, of course, he happened to be taking a Shakespeare class. Juliet was a sucker (pun intended) for an English major.

I sat next to Juliet, on the side opposite Husky Boy and his buddy, and waved to get Axel’s attention. When Juliet saw me, she smiled, showing fangs stained slightly red—whether with tomato juice or something else, I didn’t know. “Ah, here’s my roommate,” Juliet said. “She’ll tell you.”

The kid leaned over so far he was almost lying on the bar. “She’s shittin’ me, right? She’s not the real Juliet. You know, like in Romeo and—?”

Axel lumbered over. I ordered a tequila, straight up. He raised his eyebrows but moved silently down the bar. Then I turned to the kid and shrugged. “Her name is Giulietta Capu let. And she’s been a vampire for six hundred fifty years. Sounds about right to me.”

“Yeah, but how—”

“Think about it,” Juliet said. “I died. I was buried in the family tomb. And then I came back to life.”

“Yeah, ’cause that monk guy gave you a potion.”

“Friar Lawrence? And what kind of potion was that?” The kid looked at her blankly. “Your culture has ‘modern medicine. ’ Seriously, do you know of any drug that causes temporary death? No pulse, no breath, rigor mortis setting in?”

“The plague did.”

Juliet tossed back her black hair, then ran a hand down her ivory neck and across her bosom. The kid’s tongue hung out—kind of like a real husky’s—as he watched. “Do I look like a zombie?” she asked.

Husky Boy shook his head, staring.

“Lawrence was no potion-maker; he was a vampire. He turned me. I was dead—truly dead—then I woke up undead.” She smiled again. “Happens every day.”

Husky Boy’s forehead furrowed in confusion. His friend leaned over and whispered to him, making him perk up. “Yeah!” he said. He turned back toward Juliet. “If you’re really Juliet, say, ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? ’ Say the whole thing.”

Juliet snorted, sounding like she’d gotten Bloody Mary up her nose. “The balcony scene? Oh, please. Shakespeare was a hack. He got the story all wrong. For one thing, I was twenty-two, not fourteen. For another, Tybalt—you know, Shakespeare calls him ‘fiery Tybalt’? Well, Tybalt was a wuss who ran away crying when Romeo challenged him.”

“So, what about Romeo? Dying for love of you and all that. Is that part wrong?”

Juliet’s eyes glittered in the dim light. “Only partly. He did come to look for me in the tomb. He arrived just before I awakened.”

“And he killed himself because he thought you were dead.”

“No.”

“You mean he didn’t die?”

“Oh, yes, he died, all right.” She smiled. “When I woke up, I was famished.”

“LIME?”

Axel deposited my tequila in front of me. I shook my head, picked up the shot glass, and downed the drink in one gulp, leaving Juliet to mess with the mind of Husky Boy. The liquor burned my throat, but I managed not to cough. I slammed the glass down on the bar. “Another,” I said, my voice hoarse from the fire in my throat.

Up went the eyebrows again, but he nodded and moved to fetch the bottle. In case you haven’t noticed, Axel doesn’t talk much.

This time, after he poured the tequila, he stood and waited, bottle in hand. I threw the second shot back. This one burned less, and a pleasant warmth rose through my body. Tension seeped out of my shoulders, my neck, my back. Axel looked as sympathetic as a seven-foot-tall Cro-Magnon could, and I motioned to him for another refill.

By now, Juliet had turned on her stool to look at me.

“Axel, how many shots is that for Vicky?”

He held up three salami-sized fingers.

Juliet’s eyes widened. She scrutinized me, looking almost shocked. For a second, I felt proud of myself. It takes a lot to shock a vampire.

“Three shots? What’s up with you?” She paused. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks,” I said. The warm, rosy feeling drained away, replaced by something cold and hard as I considered how to answer Juliet’s question. I fingered my shot glass, but thinking about Difethwr made me feel queasy enough. “There’s a Hellion loose in Boston.”