“You did your best. And don’t worry, we’re going to find him and we’ll get the Book. This is nothing that’s going to change our outcome. Come on, let me help you up.”

Balz continued cursing for a whole lot of reasons as he got onto the vertical, and he had to rely on Xcor’s shoulders to limp out of the apartment. Out in the corridor, he had to rest as the Brothers provided cover, casing the hallway.

Please don’t let that brunette show up, Balz thought. And then he shut that down real quick. The last thing he needed to add to this shit show was placing a mental phone call to the bitch.

“Manny’s downstairs waiting,” Xcor said.

“Can we use the elevator? I can’t dematerialize.”

“Of course.”

He had an all-armed escort down to where the arrowed buttons were, and by the time they came up to the bank of double doors, he was getting dizzy from the pain. When their elevator arrived, they shuffled into the mirrored confines. Well, three of them did. He, Xcor, and Butch made it inside. There wasn’t enough room for Z and Phury.

“We’ll meet you down there,” one of the two of them announced.

“Roger that,” Butch said.

As the panels slid closed, something moved in the corner of Balz’s eye. Jerking around, he only saw his reflection, the image of his pale, pain-etched face refracted back and forth, ad infinitum. And Xcor’s. And Butch’s—

There. There it was again, something moving around in one of the sets of reflections, a shadow, jumping up a level. And another level. And another level . . . closing in on reality.

“What is it?” Xcor asked.

“It’s coming for us—”

The lights flickered overhead. The car bumped to a halt.

Somewhere, an alarm went off.

“Close your eyes,” Balz commanded—even though he didn’t know why. “You have to close your eyes or she’ll get into you! Close your eyes!”

He tightened his hold on his leader and grabbed the front of Butch’s dagger holster, pulling the Brother in close.

“Don’t look, don’t open your eyes—”

A sound, like the hiss of a snake’s tongue, came to them, surrounding them, getting louder. And through his lids, he could tell that the lighting was blinking again. Panicked, all he could do was pray the other two males were as eyes-wide-shut as he was. But there was no checking—

Something brushed his bad ankle and seemed to probe his foot, like it was searching for, and had identified, his weakness. Then Butch moved against him, like he was trying to get away from a touch. Xcor growled.

But no one said anything.

With a squawk, all three of their communicators went off at once. “Engagement! Engagement, repeat—”

The snake-like hissing got louder and snapped up to Balz’s shoulder, like the entity, whatever it was, was checking out the noise.

Balz moved his hand up and silenced the emergency. As the others’ units went quiet as well, he assumed they had done likewise.

It sounded as if all of the fighters had suddenly been attacked. At once.

Fuck.

• • •

It was fine. She didn’t need him.

As Mae dematerialized back to her house with the Book, she was totally resolved and absolutely refusing to think about Sahvage ever again. Re-forming inside the garage, she walked right into the back hall, through the kitchen, and out the other side.

“I have what we need.” She ignored how her voice broke. “I’m going to take care of everything.”

Opening the way into the bathroom, she caught her breath for a moment. The ice from the night before was mostly melted, nothing but a cold pool surrounding her brother’s body.

“It’s going to be just fine.”

She had a feeling she was crying. She didn’t know why else her cheeks would be wet, but she didn’t care and that was the good thing about obsessions. They were utterly clarifying. Nothing else mattered, which made it all so much easier. Especially when your emotions got messy.

Kneeling by the tub, she put the Book down on the bath mat and stared at her brother’s face. Then she looked at the ancient tome. Its cover was so ugly, and every time she breathed in, her nose revolted. But beggars, choosers, and all that.

“It worked,” she said to the thing. “I didn’t believe in the summoning spell, but here we are.”

Reaching down to open it, she felt a surge of nausea as her fingertips made contact. And then, when she tried to lift the cover, she could have sworn there was resistance, as if the thing didn’t want the intrusion. But it was an inanimate object, right?

As one of her tears fell on the old leather, the droplet was absorbed as if consumed. And then, abruptly, the Book opened itself, the cover thrown back without any help from her. While Mae jerked in surprise, pages started to flip of their own volition, the parchment rifling through faster and faster, until all of a sudden, the movement stopped.

Like a page had been chosen for her.

As her heart started to pound, she looked down. And prayed that whatever ingredients were required for the resuscitation, she had them in the house—

What the . . . hell?

“Oh, no . . . no, no, no.”

There was some title at the top of the page, and there were many, many lines of brown and black ink below it . . . there was even a drawing, archaic in nature—as if from the Middle Ages—illustrating a corpse rising from a grave.

So she had the right section.

But she couldn’t understand the language. Whatever the spell was written in . . . was nothing she had ever seen before.

“Shit!”

When she tried to see if there was a translation she could read somewhere farther along in the chapter, the pages refused to be turned, the Book becoming like a frozen block.

Mae started to breathe heavily. Then she fumbled with her phone. Her hands shook as she dialed.

“Hello?” came the elderly voice.

“Tallah, I have the Book. IhavetheBookbutIcantreadit—”

“Dearest, dearest—please.” The elderly female’s voice was worried. “I cannot understand you. You have to slow down.”

Mae was panting, but she forced herself to get control. “I have the Book. I’m here, with Rhoger, at my house. But I can’t read what it says. Can you come here and help me?”

“The summoning spell worked . . .” Tallah’s voice drifted off into wonder. “And of course. As you know, I was trained properly in the traditional fashion for females so I am fluent in many languages.”

“I have no car to come pick you up in.”

There was a pause. “Dearest, what happened to your—”

“It’s not important. Are you able to dematerialize to the house?”

“Yes, yes. Dearest, I shall be there right away.”

“Thank you. Just come through the garage, the door’s unlocked and one of the daytime shutters in the back has been cracked. There’s nothing where my car is supposed to be so it’s safe.”

“Worry not. We shall work this out together.”

As they ended the call, Mae sagged with relief. But she worried about whether Tallah was capable of—

Knock, knock, knock.

Her head whipped around. Getting to her feet, she stepped over the Book and got her gun out—not that she was confident about using the damn thing. She’d managed to nearly shoot herself in the heart back in that furnace room with Sahvage—