But Cole could see Emma. Why not this woman?

“I gave you my ability to push out streams of power,” she said.

Gave it? Racked my brain, came up empty. “I don’t understand.”

“You have visions with the boy, Cole. You can light up from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. One bite of your spirit, and the zombies sicken.”

True. True. And true. “And?”

“And a spirit doesn’t lose his or her supernatural abilities through death—they spring from the spirit, after all. But those abilities can be passed. Meaning, you can give your abilities to someone else, and other slayers can give you theirs, but what you give, you can no longer use.”

So...she’d given me her ability, knowing she would no longer be able to use it herself. Why?

“Or abilities can be stolen. But that’s a lesson for another day.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Anima knows all of this. Why don’t you?”

Good question. “How did you do it, Sami? Pass it to me, I mean. Why did you do it?”

She squared her shoulders, as if expecting a blow. “My name isn’t Sami. I’m...” Her light blue gaze flicked to Cole. “Helen.”

“Helen,” I repeated and heard several gasps of horror.

She gulped. “What they’ll tell you about me—”

“Don’t worry about them. Concentrate on me. Who’s Sami?” I asked.

A hard hand gripped my shoulder, and before I knew what was happening, I was being dragged across the room. The moment the two parts of me connected, they snapped back together; I sucked in a breath, looked for the woman—Helen—but she was gone.

Who was she? Why was she helping me?

And she was. Helping me. Clearly. I had no doubts about that now.

Slayers lined up in front of me, demanding my full attention. Cut and bleeding, they stared at me with differing degrees of rage.

“What?” I demanded.

“Do not talk to that woman again.” Cole leaned down, putting us nose to nose. “I don’t know how you’re seeing a dead woman you’ve got no connection to and I’m not, but if she visits you again, walk away. Don’t listen to her. Don’t even look at her.”

Wait. “So you know her?” I asked, baffled by the intensity of his aggression.

“Of her,” he barked. “Now, this subject is closed.”

Wow. I’d never seen him like this. Not with me. “Why?”

“Closed,” he repeated.

Fine. For now. But the moment I had him alone...

Frosty scrubbed a hand down his face. “The last time Ali exhibited a strange ability, she almost killed us all.”

Thanks for the reminder. Jerk. I blew him a sugary kiss.

“She saved us today,” Jaclyn announced. “So why don’t you leave her the hell alone.”

I offered her a small, grateful smile.

Frosty held up his hands, palms out. “I wasn’t complaining. Just stating a fact.”

Sure. “Was anyone bitten and not touched with fire?” For years, slayers had been forced to rely on an antidote to combat Z-toxin. But the antidote had one major flaw: with continuous use, it eventually stopped working, which meant, we had to stop fighting. For-freaking-ever.

For me, it had stopped working.

The fire had saved me from more than death.

My question received a denial from each slayer.

Cole snapped, “All right. Let’s get out of here.” He was still like a live wire. “Anima could come back, and we’re in no shape to fight. We should—”

“Wait! What about Justin?” Jaclyn interjected.

“He’s not here,” Bronx said, his voice achingly gentle. “They must have moved him.”

“No.” She shook, shook, shook her head, hair slapping at her cheeks. “He has to be here. I saw him.”

I moved in front of her, holding her gaze. “Remember what I told you. We’re going to find him. We’re not going to stop until he’s with us.” One way or another. “But we need time to recover, or we’ll be no good to him.”

Tears spilled from her eyes, but she nodded.

We left the warehouse and, sadly, left Collins behind. There was no way we could carry him out of the building without drawing unwanted attention. However, we planned to drive the SUV inside the warehouse and load him up. Give him a proper burial.

I know, I know. It wasn’t ideal. His family deserved closure.

Thing was, they’d have to get it another way. We couldn’t call the cops. Maybe they would believe we had inadvertently found him; maybe they wouldn’t. With our fingerprints all over the place, we couldn’t take the chance.

When we reached the back alley, Bronx cursed. Frosty kicked over a trash can. Litter went flying in every direction.

Mr. Ankh’s SUV was gone. Stolen...or moved by a freelance valet.

Karma sucked.

Frosty gave the trash can another vicious kick. “When I catch the filthy piece of sh—”

“We have bigger worries,” Veronica said, motioning to the sky. The sun was going down in a hurry, the horizon a kaleidoscope of ever-darkening colors.

Would zombies walk the streets tonight?

If we weren’t up for a fight with Anima, we definitely weren’t up for another fight with zombies. Not even if I used my cool new ability to push power. Which I’d gotten from the mysterious, and obviously hated, Helen. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to use it. Wasn’t even sure how I’d used it in the first place.