The front door began to squeal as if it was being twisted apart. The guards would soon make their way in.

I grabbed one device, ran my fingers over the cable to the end plug, and hunted for the correct connection. I turned the plug until it seated square, and pressed it tight.

The device, a blue plastic rectangle the size of a wallet, suddenly flashed a row of blinking lights. I fumbled with the device, trying to make it work. Nothing.

I dropped the device and picked up another. Its plug fit into a slot. This device, the size of a paperback book, had a screen that lit up. I tapped, then pounded on the buttons along its side. Again, nothing.

The front door clicked, the sound of metal snapping.

I rested my cheek against the cold metal of the cylinder. Carmen, I was so close. Please hear me.

Suddenly, there was silence. The guards in the hall had quit moving.

They were about to charge in. I had no choice but to escape. I couldn’t fight them forever. With every passing moment, the guards would gather more reinforcements and greater firepower.

I felt like a coward abandoning Carmen, but if I stayed I’d be overwhelmed and either dead or inside one of these cylinders myself. In a final gesture of desperation, I kicked the pile of devices and cables and scattered them across the floor.

I pressed my hands against the glass. “Carmen, I’ll come back and get you.” I wanted her eyes to flutter, her mouth to twitch, anything, but her expression remained distant and serene.

Escape. That’s what mattered now.

I chose an empty cylinder closest to the door the guards tried to open. I tripped the brake on the dolly. I wheeled the cylinder to point one end toward the door.

The door opened with a groan.

I shoved the cylinder and raced behind it.

Ramming speed.

Gunfire started and bullets pinged off the cylinder in front of me.

Men shouted, “Get back.”

The cylinder rolled to the doorway and smashed into the center of the group. Two men tumbled past me. A half dozen more scrambled to get away. I leaped over the cylinder toward the open door of a stairwell beyond. I levitated over the steps and was out of sight before the guards could yell a warning.

At the bottom of the stairwell, six more men stood, barking orders into their radios. They jumped in astonishment and clutched their weapons.

I ran through the center of the group. I grasped the largest guy by his equipment harness and swung him in a circle to knock the others down like nine pins.

I let him go and sprinted at vampire speed down the corridor. A steel blast door lowered and I dove under it, sprang to my feet, and raced out the basement door, up the incline, and out onto the grass.

Guards on the roof shouted and opened fire. The silencers on their weapons muffled the gunshots to fft, fft, fft.

I dodged left and right. I hurtled over the chain-link fence and landed beyond the hedge. I turned south and raced through the trees of the golf course.

A white SUV, lights flashing and siren blaring, charged onto the golf cart path after me.

I reached the resort boundary and vaulted a fence into the garden behind a row of condos. I kept going into the street. A panel truck pulled up to a stop sign.

I slid under the truck. Down here it smelled of hot metal and grease. I hooked my hands and feet into the frame and hugged the drive shaft. The truck rolled forward. The universal joint of the shaft spun inches from my crotch. I hoped the driver took it real slow over the speed bumps.

A quarter of a mile down the street, the truck halted. From this angle I couldn’t see much, except for the bottom halves of cars and the legs and shoes of people.

The baggy black trousers and boots of a guard came up to the driver’s side of the truck.

“We’re looking for a fugitive. About this tall, black hair. He’s wearing a red shirt.”

“Haven’t seen anything,” the driver replied.

“Get out anyway. We need to search your truck.”

The driver stepped out. He and the guard went to the back of the truck. The latch snapped open and the rear panels rattled.

“Nothing but furniture. Wanna look? Be my guest.”

The man in black climbed inside. His boots scuffed the floor above my face, and it sounded like boxes were being shoved around. He hopped out. The driver rattled the rear doors closed.

“If you see anything suspicious, call this number.”

“Why not 911?”

“No. It’ll be easier if you call the number on the card.”

So the hunt for me wasn’t about law enforcement. Surprise, surprise.

The driver got back in the truck. The guard returned to the SUV. The truck started up again and we drove to Highway 278, over the bridge, and into Bluffton. The odor of exhaust, especially the accumulated fart smell of catalytic converters, made me gag.

The truck passed a golf course and made a left off the highway. I craned my neck to see that no one followed. When the truck slowed at a corner to make another turn, I let go and dropped to the road. I kept myself as flat as possible, to let the differential pass and not conk me on the forehead.

The truck pulled away and the bright sunlight hit me full in the face. I jumped off the asphalt and hustled into the shade of an oak.

I was in an older residential section, mostly cottages with sagging fences and kudzu choking everything. The highway was to the north. The chalices’ mortuary should be south, between here and Buck Point.

I dug into my pocket for my contacts, which I put in. Goodman and that extraterrestrial hoodlum Clayborn were on to me. They had Carmen and they knew I’d be back to get her. Plus they knew I wasn’t human. Both of them assumed that I was another species of alien, which was fine. As long as they didn’t realize the truth, that the undead walked among them.

I had to get Carmen soon, as I didn’t know what plans Clayborn had for her. The familiar clammy hand of panic gripped me. I had to act.

Down the street I saw a carnecia and a shopping center catering to area Latinos. Piñatas dangled from the awning. Signs advertising phone cards and music CDs decorated the windows of a mercado. A truck from May River Commercial Laundry sat in the corner of the parking lot. I’d seen this truck before, at the Grand Atlantic.

A banner hung over the side of the truck facing the road: BUSCAMOS TRABAJADORES. PAGAMOS POR LA SEMANO. Looking for workers. We pay by the week.

A rescue plan started to gel. I’d return to the resort and I’d get in right under their noses. And I wouldn’t be alone.

The sound of a big motorcycle engine chugged in front of the mortuary. Gravel crunched under the weight of the machine. The engine quit. They were here.

I fed a stack of e-mail printouts through a shredder in the kitchen. They were the replies my hacker had sent, Marissa Albert’s cell phone records from the day she had arrived at Key West. Her last calls had been with her home office voice mail, her sister, Carmen’s resort, and a listing for RKW. Who else could that have been but Goodman. He had set her up.

Heavy steps pounded up the wooden stairs onto the porch. I’d left the door unlocked because I knew they’d barge in.

The clock on the wall said 9:45 P.M. Less than six hours since I’d called.

Jolie shoved the door open. Her expression looked like she’d swallowed nitroglycerine and was about to explode. Her aura blazed as hot as the jet from a flamethrower. A raccoon mask outlined with grime set off her eyes. Goggles rested on her forehead, across a green do-rag cinched over her scalp. Her muscular, freckled arms jutted from a sleeveless denim vest. Grease-splattered cowboy boots showed under jeans and a pair of black leather chaps.