An iron grip clasped my ankle, and then somehow he was up over the top of me, snarling and using his weight. Steel glinted off ceiling lights. The blade was coming down.

Just like Maggie.

But it never connected. As though he could fly, his body floated upward. For a moment I thought I was already dead or hallucinating. Then Philip's bare arms shifted into view as he finished raising Dominick and threw him against the hallway wall.

Relief flooded my brain until I got a good look at Philip. The recently opened veins of his throat had closed off, but his chest and shoulders were covered in blood. Our regenerative powers work quickly, but how much life force had he lost first?

Dominick bounced off the wall and landed with a gasp. Dropping the machete, he grabbed the gun again.

"Shoot me," Philip hissed.

The dark ex-cop aimed for his neck and fired again, but Philip jumped up to catch the bullet square in the chest. "You're empty. I've been counting."

Anybody-anybody but Dom-would have slobbered and groveled and begged. Maybe he knew we possessed no mercy. Maybe he was just more like us than I cared to admit. But he grasped the machete again and said, "Then come and get me."

His right leg wouldn't hold him. I must have shattered his kneecap. The whole scene reminded me of this T-shirt Edward once gave me, depicting a hawk swooping down on a cartoon mouse with its tiny middle finger up. The caption read, "Last Great Act of Defiance."

Dominick wasn't a mouse-far from it. But he was already dead, and I'm sure he knew it.

Philip moved so fast nobody even got cut. He slapped the machete out of Dominick's hand and then grabbed him, lifting him into the air. Stepping forward, Philip threw his heavy burden over the banister.

"Just kill him," I whispered. "You promised you wouldn't do this."

A dull thud sounded from below as Dominick hit the floor. Philip hopped over the banister himself, and I moved up to see him land in a comfortable crouch. Dominick tried crawling on one elbow toward the front door.

Something in my voice must have gotten through to Philip. He could have kept this horror show going another hour, but he didn't. After breaking a leg off one of the living room chairs, he walked over and rammed it through Dominick's broad back, into his heart, as a peasant would stake a wounded vampire. The broken, crawling form on the floor didn't even cry out. It just stopped moving.

I turned away from the railing and went downstairs, feeling no relief now, no sense of triumph, only a dim ache that hadn't quite registered yet. My handsome, blood-covered friend stumbled about the room, staring at his mangled victim. Maybe no mortal had ever fought back like that before.

"I did try to warn you, Philip, to tell you."

He looked up at me with liquid eyes-no pleasure, no triumph either. For some reason that pleased me. Perhaps Philip might have wept over Thorne's grave, too. Perhaps he was beginning to understand the sorrow of needless waste.

Instead of answering me, he just kept weaving back and forth like a jack-in-the-box.

"What's wrong?"

Then I noticed patches of flesh peeking through the blood on his chest. It wasn't just pale anymore, but nearly white. Reaching out, I caught him before he fell.

"Try to get your arm around my neck," I said.

The basement bedroom wasn't far, but I couldn't carry him. He shouldn't have jumped off the banister. It was a waste of energy. It seemed to take hours to drag him downstairs through the cellar, his head bobbing up and down with weakness. Would this ever be over? Would we ever get on a plane and just leave this nightmare behind? Was he dying?

No, I pushed that thought away while finally laying him on the mattress in Maggie's basement. He couldn't die. We weren't destroyed by mere wounds.

"Can you talk? Tell me what to do?"

"Blood," he mumbled.

Long ago Edward told me that vampires who refused or were unable to hunt fell into agonized paralysis, forever immortal, forever starving. Half of Philip's throat had been blown away. That he could speak at all amazed me. Maybe he'd simply lost too much life force.

"What do I do?"

"Like Edward."

My own shoulder wound had sealed itself and was regenerating slowly. But I'd been bleeding, too. "Don't go to sleep. Keep your eyes open."

I ran up the stairs and down the hall. Dominick's body was in the same broken position as before-like a filthy G. I. Joe. After pulling the stake from his back, I turned him over. Dead eyes stared up into nothing.

Would this even work? I'd never fed on a corpse, but he'd only been dead a few moments. Maybe I could still draw residual life force.

I drove my teeth into his neck. No pictures or visions or scenes from his life touched me. Nothing. But I felt something, some strength flowing from his blood… though it was fading fast.

After a few minutes I couldn't take any more and left him lying there.

His empty gun was still upstairs, and his ID was in his pocket. I didn't bother taking either one. Maggie was missing, and he'd recently gone rogue. It could be a while before anyone even found him, and then the police would be lost attempting to unravel what happened. Philip and I would be long gone by then.

Even in death, Dominic had lost. And who would mourn him? Would Wade?

Hurrying back to the cellar took only seconds this time. Philip's eyelids fluttered. He looked so pale lying there. I moved to the mattress and crawled over beside him. Opening my wrist savagely, I put it in his mouth.

"Bite down."

Having long since put aside the feeling of Julian's lips burning and crisping my neck, pain stunned me blind when Philip drew down. It hurt far worse than being shot. After about thirty seconds, he suddenly lashed out with his right hand and grabbed the back of my head, pulling me down beside him, still sucking hard on my wrist. His amber eyes were wide… wild. I didn't struggle. I knew he was just hungry and desperate. Then slowly, the fire evened out and grew bearable. Had my body still been human, I might have stroked his cheek and comforted him. Those memories lingered, but not the ability to enact them.

Instead, I whispered in his ear, "Like Edward."

The next night, my eyes opened to the sight of Philip's red flaked chest. Where were we? Peeling my hair off his body, I felt brittle and light, like Chinese paper. Maggie's cellar surrounded us.

I must have passed out on Philip's shoulder. He was a mess.

Dominick lay dead upstairs.

"Philip?"

Amber eyes flickered faintly. "Where…?"

"The basement. Your throat looks better." I smiled weakly. "It's really over."

He pushed himself up off the mattress, lost and disoriented. "Are you hurt? Your skin is too white."

"No, I'm okay. The bullet went through my shoulder. I just couldn't get you to stop feeding once you'd started."

"Once I…?"

Recent events must have flooded back because he suddenly grew embarrassed and turned away. "We should get cleaned up."

Nodding, I tried to follow. My bones made hollow cracking sounds.

"I'm going to need to hunt pretty soon," I said.

"Can you walk?" he asked, turning back.

"Maybe. Give me a sec."

Struggling up, I limped after him for the stairs. We both ignored Dominick's cold body and headed for the nearest bathroom.

"We don't have to look perfect," Philip said. "Just good enough to get around in public."

"You're the vain one, baby, not me."

"Get in the shower."

Pulling my shirt over my head seemed an effort. "Could you go to Maggie's room and find me something to wear? I'm not up to climbing more stairs."