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I broke the kiss, the way you’d break the surface of a pool, fast and hard, when you’ve been too long under water and you need to breathe. It brought me gasping away from his mouth, and left me inches from his face, so that we were left staring into each other’s wide eyes. If I’d been thinking clearly, I’d have tried to get the next question answered the same way I’d asked the rest, by touch and vampire trickery, or would that be necromancer trickery? Whatever, staring at his face from inches away, and seeing something close to devotion on a stranger’s face, threw me. Jean-Claude might have been used to it, but I wasn’t, and so I did what I always do when I’m scared by some new bit of metaphysics. I resorted to something human and ordinary. I spoke, out loud.

“Is there anyone in the church tonight that joined Nellie and her master?”

“Yes,” he said, in a voice that was still whispery from the kiss, “Jonah, Nellie said, Jonah had met her master and liked him. She offered a three-way with Jonah and me and her. I said no.” I was still hooked up enough to know that he said that last defensively. The idea being, of course, he wouldn’t go to bed with another man, not even with a woman in the same bed at the same time. If he thought that was going to win points with me, he was wrong. I liked men who were secure enough in their manhood to share me with another man, in fact, lately, it was damn near a prerequisite for dating me.

Avery was frowning at me, as if he’d gotten some of what I was thinking. But I didn’t have time to worry about it, because Zerbrowski was yelling, “He’s running for it!”

I was on my feet in time to see one of the vampires bounding over the backs of the pews. His feet barely touching the wood, using it to bounce himself farther away. Almost levitation, but not quite. He didn’t know how to fly yet. I like the young ones, they’re easier to catch.

He couldn’t fly, so he wouldn’t try for the tall windows. I didn’t chase him. I ran to the aisle against the far wall. There was a door that led into their parish hall. He couldn’t fly. He needed a door.

I had my gun out. I hit the safety with my thumb and chambered a round as I ran. The vampire leapt off the back of the last pew and landed light as air on the floor. He took one step toward the far door, and I yelled, “Stop, or I shoot.” I had the gun aimed at him two-handed. It’s hard to walk forward and keep a bead on someone, but I was farther away than I wanted to be in a crowded church. Yeah, the innocent people were nicely to one side, but bullets are determined little things, once you pull the trigger they will hit something. I wanted to be close enough to be secure enough to pull that trigger, and not endanger anyone else. Of course, once the guns came out, people panicked. Usually they panic sooner, but for some strange reason I was in the far aisle and had a clean shot, before the crowd started screaming and scattering. Some of them scattered the wrong damn way. I suddenly had civilians screaming and hesitating between me and the vampire I was chasing.

I yelled, “Get down, damn it, get down! Catch him, damn it!” He made the door, because I couldn’t risk the shot.

But there were two vampires just behind him. They were two of the ones that had been in the aisle. Had I done that when I said, catch him? Were they being good citizens, or was it my fault? Shit.

I started through the screaming crowd with Zerbrowski at my back, and Marconi and Smith just behind. My gun was pointed at the ceiling, as I tried to get through them. They screamed at the guns, they screamed at me. They screamed because they could.

I heard Zerbrowski behind me giving the uniforms at the back door a heads-up and a description of our bad vamp. We’d almost waded through the panicked civilians. I heard different yelling over the high-pitched screams. Men yelling, but not screaming. I brought my gun up as I cleared the side of the door, with as little of my body showing as possible. No, I did not stand