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“You stand before me, making jokes?” His voice sounded surprised, nearly outraged. Good, I think.

“I don’t have a master,” I said. Master vampires can smell truth or lies.

“If you truly believe that, you are deluding yourself. You bear two master signs. Give me the name and I will destroy him for you. I will free you of this . . . problem.”

I hesitated. He was older than Jean-Claude. A lot older. He might be able to kill the Master of the City. Of course, that would leave this master vampire in control of the city. He and his three helpers. Four vampires, one less than were killing people, but I was willing to bet there was a fifth vamp around here somewhere. You couldn’t have that many rogue master vampires running around one medium-size city.

Any master that was slaughtering civilians would be a bad thing to have in charge of all the vampires in the area. Just call it a feeling.

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

“You want free of him, do you not?”

“Very much.”

“Let me free you, Ms. Blake. Let me help you.”

“Like you helped the man and woman you murdered?”

“I did not murder them,” he said. His voice sounded very reasonable. His eyes were powerful enough to drown in but the voice wasn’t as good. There was no magic to the voice. Jean-Claude’s was better. Or Yasmeen’s, for that matter. Nice to know that not every talent came equally with time. Ancient wasn’t everything.

“So you didn’t strike the fatal blow. So what? Your flunkies do your will, not their own.”

“You’d be surprised how much free will we have.”

“Stop it,” I said.

“What?”

“Sounding so damn reasonable.”

There was laughter in his voice. “You would rather I rant and rave?”

Yes, actually, but I didn’t say it out loud. “I won’t give you the name. Now what?”

There was a rush of wind at my back. I tried to turn, to face the wind. The woman in white rushed at me. Fangs straining, hands clawing, spattered with other people’s blood, the vampire smashed into me. We fell backwards into the weeds with her on top. She darted towards my neck like a snake. I shoved my left wrist into her face. One cross brushed her lips. A flash of light, the stench of burning flesh, and the vampire was gone, screaming into the darkness. I had never seen any vampire move that fast. Had it been mind-magic? Had she tricked me that badly even with a blessed cross? How many over-five-hundred-year-old vamps can you have in one pack? Two, I hoped. Any more than that and they’d have us outnumbered.

I scrambled to my feet. The master vampire was on his hands and knees beside the remains of my car. Larry was nowhere in sight. A flutter of panic clawed at my chest; then I realized Larry had crawled underneath the car so the vampire couldn’t make him a hostage again. When all else fails, hide. It works for rabbits.

The vampire’s blistered back was bent at a painful angle as he tried to pull Larry out from under the car. “I will pull this arm out of its socket, if you do not come here!”

“You sound like you’ve got a kitten under the bed,” I said.

Alejandro whirled around. He flinched, like it hurt. Great.

I felt something move behind me. I didn’t argue with the sensation. Say it was nerves; I turned, crosses ready. Two vampires behind me. One was the pale-haired female. I guess the shot had missed her spine; pity. The other vampire could have been her male twin. They both hissed and cowered from the crosses. Nice to see someone was bothered.

The master came at me from the back, but I heard him. Either the burn was making him clumsy, or the crosses were helping me. I stood halfway between the three vampires, crosses sort of pointed at both groups. The blonds peered over their arms, but the crosses had them well and truly scared. The master never hesitated. He came in a rushing burst of speed. I backpedaled, tried to keep the crosses between us, but he grabbed my left forearm. With the crosses dangling inches from his flesh, he held on.

I pulled, getting as much distance from him as I could, then hit him in the solar plexus with everything I had. He made an “umph” sound,