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Leaving the Fight Club stuff to the vampires, Butch headed over to the tree. Strung up from a thick branch was the body of another lesser. The thing had been worked over but good.

Butch loosened the rope and lowered the body, checking over his shoulder because the smacks and grunts of fighting were suddenly louder. Three more lessers had joined the fray, but he wasn’t worried about his boys.

He knelt down to the slayer in front of him and started going through its pockets. He was pulling out a wallet when a gun went off with an awful popping sound. Rhage hit the ground. Flat on his back.

Butch didn’t think twice. He shifted into firing position and aimed at the lesser who was about to plow another slug into Rhage. The Glock’s trigger never got pulled. From out of nowhere, there was a brilliant flash of white, like a nuke had gone off. Night turned to day as everything in the clearing was illuminated: the autumnal trees, the fighting, the flat space.

As the brilliance receded, someone came running at Butch. When he recognized V, he lowered the gun.

“Cop! Get in the fucking car!” The vampire was hauling ass, legs pumping like he was about to get served.

“What about Rhage—”

Butch didn’t get the rest of the sentence out. V hit him like a piledriver, doing a grab and drag that ended only when they were both in the Escalade and the doors were shut.

Butch turned on the brother. “We’re not leaving Rhage out there!”

A mighty roar split the night, and Butch slowly turned his head.

In the clearing he saw a creature. Some eight feet tall, it was built along the lines of a dragon, with teeth like a T. rex and a slashing pair of front claws. The thing flickered in the moonlight, its powerful body and tail covered with iridescent purple and lime-green scales.

“What the hell is that?” Butch whispered, fumbling to make sure the door was locked.

“Rhage in a really bad mood.”

The monster let loose another howl and went after the lessers as though they were toys. And it…Good Lord. There wasn’t going to be anything left of the slayers. Not even bones.

Butch felt himself beginning to hyperventilate.

Dimly, he heard the sound of a lighter being teed off, and he glanced across the seat. V’s face caught and held the flare of yellow as he lit a hand-rolled with shaky hands. When the brother exhaled, the tang of Turkish tobacco filled the air.

“Since when has he…” Butch turned back to the creature feature playing in the clearing. And totally lost his train of thought.

“Rhage pissed off the Scribe Virgin, so she cursed him. Gave him two hundred years of hell. Anytime he gets too worked up, presto-change-o. Pain can set it off. Anger. Physical frustration, if you feel me.”

Butch cocked an eyebrow. And to think he’d gotten between that guy and a woman he wanted. Never pulling that kind of stupidity again.

As the carnage continued, Butch began to feel as if he were watching the Sci-Fi Channel with the sound on mute. Man, this kind of violence was out of even his league. In all his years as a homicide detective, he’d seen plenty of dead bodies, some of which had been hard-core gruesome. But he’d never witnessed a slaughter in live action before, and oddly, the shock of it removed the experience from reality.

Thank God.

Although he had to admit the beast was a smooth mover. The way it spun that lesser up into the air and caught the slayer with its…

“Does it happen often?” he asked.

“Often enough. That’s why he goes for the sex. Keeps him calm. I’ll tell you this, you don’t screw around with the beast. It doesn’t know who’s a friend and who’s lunch. All we can do is wait around until Rhage comes back and then take care of him.”

Something bounced on the hood of the Escalade with a bang. Oh, God, was that a head? No, a boot. Maybe the creature didn’t like the taste of rubber.

“Take care of him?” Butch murmured.

“How’d you like it if every bone in your body was broken? He goes through a change when that thing comes out, and as it leaves,