Elizabeth looked at her twin, challenge sparkling in her eyes. "Let's."

"But according to the histories, a witch has to be present to initialize it and to keep it running. No human can do it," Evangelina said.

"I'll go in with her," Evan said.

My sisters turned to him. The sudden silence was deafening. Little Evan took that moment to bang on his high chair and shout, "Milk, milk, milk, milk!"

"It would have to be an earth witch," Evangelina said slowly. "You're an air sorcerer. You can't make it work, either." As one, they all turned to look at me. I was the only earth witch in the group.

"No," Evan said. "No way."

"Yes," I said. "It's the only way."

At four in the afternoon, my sisters and Evan and I were standing in front of the mine. Jane was geared up in her vamp-hunting gear: a chain-mail collar, leather pants, metal-studded leather coat over a chain vest, a huge gun with an open stock, like a Star Wars shotgun. Silvered knives were strapped to her thighs, in her boots, along her forearms; studs in her gloves; two handguns were holstered at her waist, under her coat; her long hair was braided and tied down. A dozen crosses hung around her neck. Stakes were twisted in her hair like hairsticks.

I was wearing jeans, sweaters, and Evangelina's faux leather coat. As vegetarians, my sisters didn't own leather, and I couldn't afford it. I carried twelve stakes, extra flashlight, medical supplies, ammunition, and five charms: two healing charms, one walking-away charm, one empowerment, and one obfuscation.

Evan was similarly dressed, refusing to be left behind, loaded down with talismans, charms, battery-powered lights, a machete, and a twenty-pound mallet, suitable for bashing in heads. It wouldn't kill a vampire, but it would incapacitate one long enough to stake it and take its head. We were ready to go in when Brax drove up, got out, and sauntered over. He was dressed in SWAT team gear and guns. "What? You think I'd let civilians go after the rogues alone? Not gonna happen, people."

We hadn't told Brax. I glared at Evan, who shrugged, unapologetic.

"What are you carrying?" Jane asked. When he told her, she shook her head and handed him a box of ammunition. "Hand-packed, silver-flechette rounds, loaded for vamp. They can't heal from it. A direct heart shot will take them out."

"Sweet," Brax said, removing his ammunition from a shotgun and reloading as he looked us over. "So we got an earth witch, her husband, a vamp hunter, and me. Lock and load, people." Satisfied, he pushed in front and led the way. Once inside, we walked four abreast as my sisters set up a command center at the entrance. Behind us I could hear the three witches chanting protective incantations while Regan and Amelia began to pray.

We passed parts of several bodies. My earth gift recoiled, closing up. There were too many dead. I had hoped to be able to sense the presence of the rogue vampires, but with my gift so overloaded, I doubted I'd be of much help at all. The smell of rancid meat and rotting blood was beyond horrible. Charnel house effluvia. I stopped looking after the first limb—part of a young woman's leg.

Except for the stench and the body parts, the first hundred yards was easy. After that, things went to hell in a handbasket.

We heard singing, a childhood melody. "Starlight, star fright, first star…: No. Starlight blood fight… No. I don' 'member. I don' 'member—" The voice stopped, the cutoff sharp as a knife. "People," she whispered, the word echoing in the mine. "Blood…"

And she was on us. Face caught in the flashlight. A ravening animal. Flashing fangs. Bloodred eyes centered with blacker-than-night pupils. Nails like black claws. She took down Evan with one swipe. I screamed. Blood splattered. His flashlight fell. Its beam rocking in shadows. One glimpse of a body. Leaping. Flying. Landed on Jane. Inhumanly fast. Jane rolled into the dark.

I lost them in the swinging light. Found Evan by falling on him. Hot blood pulsed into my hand. I pressed on the wound, guided by earth magic. I called on Mother Earth for healing. Moments later, Jane knelt beside me, breathing hard, smelling foul. She steadied the light. Evan was still alive, fighting to breathe, my hands covered with his blood. His skin was pasty. The wound was across his right shoulder, had sliced his jugular, and he had lost a lot of blood, though my healing had clotted over the wound.

I pressed one of the healing amulets my sisters had made over the wound, chanting in the old tongue. "Cneasaigh, cneasaigh a bháis báite in fhuil," over and over. Gaelic for, "Heal, heal, blood-soaked death."

Minutes later, I felt Evan take a full breath. Felt his heartbeat steady under my hands. In the uncertain light, my tears splashed on his face. He opened his eyes and looked up at me. His beard was brighter than usual, tangled with his blood. He held my gaze, telling me so much in that one look. He loved me. Trusted me. Knew I was going on without him. Promised to live. Promised to take care of our children if I didn't make it back. Demanded I live and come back to him. I sobbed with relief. Buried my face in his healing neck and cried.

We carried Evan back to the entrance, where my sisters called for an ambulance. As soon as he was stable, the three of us redistributed the supplies and headed back in to the mine. I saw the severed head of the rogue in the shadows. Jane's first forty-thousand-dollar trophy.

We had done one useful thing. We had rewritten the history books. We had proved that vampires could move around in the daylight so long as they were in complete absence of the sun. That meant we would have to fight rather than just stake and run. Lucky us.

There were six vampires left and three of us. By now, the remaining ones were surely alerted to our presence. Not good odds.

We were deeply underground when the next attack took place. Jane must have smelled them coming, because she shouted, "Ten o'clock! Two of them." Her gun boomed. Brax's spat flames as it fired. Two vampires fell. Jane dispatched them with a knife shaped like a small sword. While she sawed, and I looked away, she murmured, "Three down, four to go," over and over, like a rich miser counting his gold.

We moved on. Down a level, deeper into the mountain. Jane led the way now, ignoring some branching tunnels, taking others, assuring us she knew where we were and where Carmen was. Like me, she ignored Brax's questions about how.

Just after we passed a cross-tunnel, two vampires came at us from behind, a flanking maneuver. I never heard them. In front of me, Jane whirled. I dropped to the tunnel floor, cowering. She fired. The muzzle flash blinded me. More gunshots sounded, echoing. Brax yelled, the sound full of pain.

Jane stepped over me, straddling me in the dark, her boots lit by a wildly tottering light. I snatched it and turned it on Brax. He knelt nearby, blood at his throat. A vampire lay at his knees, a stake through her chest. My ears were ringing, blasted by the concussion of firepower. In the light, I saw Jane hand a bandage to Brax and pull one of her knives. Her shadow on the mine wall raised up the knife and brought it down, beheading the rogues; my hearing began to come back; the chopping sounded soggy.

She left the heads. "For pickup on the way out. The odds just turned in our favor."

I couldn't look at the heads. I had been no help at all. I was the weak link in the trio. I squared my shoulders and fingered the charms I carried. I was supposed to hold them until Jane said to activate them. It would be soon.

We moved on down the widening tunnel. Jane touched my arm in the dark. I jumped. She tapped my hand and mouthed, "Charm one. Now."

Clumsy, I pulled the charm, activated it, and tossed it to the left. The sound of footsteps echoed, as if we were still moving, but down a side tunnel. Then I activated the second charm, the one my sisters and I had worked on all day. The obfuscation charm. It was the closest thing in all of our histories to an invisibility spell, and no witch had perfected it in hundreds of years.