Paxton moved through a cone of headlights bearing across the parking lot. He abruptly turned and limped faster.

The car aimed for him. Paxton's aura burned in panic. The car was a BMW coupe. Lara.

Paxton yelled for help. From whom? The BMW smashed into him and he disappeared under the bumper. An instant later he flopped from behind the coupe and lay still.

The car raced past me and skidded to a stop a hundred feet away. It backed up and swung the headlights upon me. I could barely make out Lara's aura in the dazzle of the headlights.

I brought my pistol up and sighted down its stubby length. My silver bullets splattered against the windshield and grille. The car swerved around the Lincoln and circled back to the road.

I ran after Lara and got as close as fifty feet. Holding my pistol before me, I squeezed the trigger until the magazine was empty. My bullets plunked against the BMW's trunk lid. I shoved the pistol into its holster and sprinted faster.

The BMW pulled away, bounced over the sidewalk, and careened onto the road.

I angled my path to catch Lara. I leapt as hard as I could and windmilled my arms and legs to keep the momentum.

Slamming across the trunk, I stabbed my talons into the metal to hang on. Lara swerved across the road. Four bright headlights were on me. A large truck blared its horn. The BMW fishtailed to the left. My talons slipped loose and I was flung aside.

The grille of a semi smashed into me, and I was sent flying like a soccer ball. I crashed into a field and rolled into a ditch.

I lay for a moment, flat on my back and blind with agony. Points of starlight bled through the inkiness above me. I wiggled my fingers and toes. The worst of the pain came from my left leg. I propped myself on my elbows and examined the wound.

Blood soaked my trousers from the knee to the cuff. A white splinter of bone poked midway from my shin. I patted the leg and felt a compound fracture of my fibula.

A man in a plaid shirt appeared on the edge of the ditch. "You alive?"

I let the pain ebb before answering. "Not quite."

A siren approached and a car stopped. Flashing blue and red lights flicked across the grass above me. The man went away, and seconds later, a deputy sheriff in a khaki uniform loped into the ditch and knelt in the weeds beside me.

"Hold on," he said. "An ambulance is on the way."

He noticed my eyes. "What the?"

I balled his shirt collar into my hands and yanked him closer. I mustered the strength for a good stare and zapped him.

"Help me up," I said.

He pulled me upright. My leg felt like it was getting broken again. I supported myself against the deputy, took his baton and my belt, and fashioned a splint against my leg.

Once the pain cleared from my head, we hobbled out of the ditch to his patrol car. Torn, muddy clothes hung from my limbs.

The semi truck was down the road, its emergency lights flashing. I had no idea where that murderous bitch Lara had gone. Besides, I was in no condition to hunt her down. I felt like, well, like that semi truck had drop-kicked my hairy vampire ass into a ditch.

I needed to recuperate. Someplace with lots of human blood for the asking. A chalice parlor. The Majestic Lanes.

I levered myself behind the steering wheel and carefully rested the splinted leg to keep from jarring the fracture.

I looked over the parking lot where I had last seen Paxton. He was gone, for good, I hoped, as was his chalice and the Lincoln. I knew getting flattened by the BMW wouldn't finish him. But it would be a while before Paxton did the mattress tango with his chalice.

I drove into Los Angeles, halted outside the Majestic Lanes, and hobbled out of the deputy's cruiser, leaving the motor running and the lights flashing.

Inside the darkened bowling alley, a lobby card read: SORRY! LANES CLOSED! BUT TRY OUR EGGS! COFFEE SHOP OPEN 24 HRS!

Crockery rattled from the opposite end of the building. Who would eat at this dump at 2 A.M… other than the undead?

I found the maintenance door leading to the secret passage for the basement. At first I tried to ease my broken leg down each step of the stairway. No matter what I did it hurt like hell, so I held on to the banister and staggered to the bottom of the stairs as best I could, the wooden splint clanging against the metal steps.

I knocked on the door of the chalice parlor. The little window in the door slid open. I recognized the red vampire eyes of the bouncer from my previous visit. He let me through.

I shuffled in, dragging my broken leg. The bouncer's aura brightened with alarm.

"A little help, please," I said.

He stood behind me and lifted me by my armpits. With one foot he pushed a chair away from a table and sat me down. He knelt and removed the splint. He extended a talon, which he used to slice away the lower part of my left trouser leg.

The bouncer grimaced at the sight of my swollen leg. "Hope you kicked the other guy's ass."

"I might have dented his fender." Except for the bouncer and me, the parlor looked deserted. "What gives? Last time, this place was a goddamn circus. I've seen more life on an autopsy table."

"It's the news about Cragnow."

"What about him?"

The bouncer's aura telegraphed his skepticism with my question. Like you don't know? "Don't bullshit me. You're the enforcer from the Araneum."

"Take a look at me. I'm not enforcing anything."

"Maybe not now." The bouncer stood and unfolded a tablecloth from a stack on another table. He tore a long strip and knelt again by my left leg. "Hold steady now. This might hurt." He grasped my knee and ankle.

As he pulled my leg and reset the fracture, it felt like a thousand scorpions were stinging me at once from the inside. My vision dimmed and a rush of noise echoed within my skull. When my eyes focused again and my brain quieted, the bouncer was standing before me, admiring my bandaged leg.

The pain now seemed like only a hundred scorpions were at work. I moved the leg, and it hurt less.

"Why are you helping me?"

"I got a business to run. I don't care which vampire is in charge of the nidus, they're all the same to me. The sooner this nonsense stops, the sooner I can go back to making my payroll."

I whisked dust from my shirt. Clumps of dirt and grass fell out of my hair. I had to wash up and change clothes. But first I had to eat and rest. "What's on the menu?"

"Not much. Let me see what I can scrounge."

The bouncer went through a door behind the bar and returned with a steaming plate of Transylvanian lasagna-no garlic, extra ricotta cheese, and drenched with whole human blood. He uncorked a bottle of shiraz. "On the house."

I thanked him and forked helpings into my mouth and cooled the portions with gulps of wine. The pain in my leg now felt like only a dozen scorpions.

A barefoot female chalice in a robe refilled my glass.

"You dessert?" I asked.

She dropped her robe over an empty chair. "I like to think of myself as the main course." She pushed my plate aside, climbed on the table, and lay naked with her nipples and toes pointing to the ceiling. I scooped her head under one arm and curled the other around her waist.

I sank my fangs into her neck. Her aura rose to a low boil.

I took my time feeding. She ran her hands over her breasts, across her flat belly, and cupped her vagina, rubbing her fingers in slow circles. She moaned and shuddered in orgasm while I feasted.

Her blood warmed me, and the kinks and knots in my body melted away. I awoke slumped across the table with the chalice curled around my head like a big hairless cat.