weight resting on her left leg, right leg bent and pointing forward. It was a position that allowed for swift
and unrestricted movement in any direction. Her bokken was beside her; she could spring and draw at a
second's notice.
The abandoned building was quiet. Steve and Vicky were outside, scouting the street. Nyala seemed
lost in her own thoughts.
Suddenly Nyala reached out and touched the bokken's sheath. "What's this?"
"Hm? Oh, it's a kind of Japanese sword. They use wooden swords for fencing practice because steel
would be too dangerous. But it can actually be lethal even to humans. It's weighted and balanced just like
a steel sword." She pulled the sword out of the sheath and turned the flashlight on it so Nyala could see
the satiny green-black wood.
Nyala drew in her breath and touched the graceful curve lightly. "It's beautiful."
"It's made of lignum vitae: the Wood of Life. That's the hardest and heaviest wood there is-it's as dense
as iron. I had it carved specially, just for me."
"And you use it to kill vampires." "Yes."
"And you've killed a lot." "Yes." Rashel slid the sword back into its sheath. "Good," Nyala said with a
throb in her voice. She turned to stare at the street. She had a small queenly head, with hair piled on the
back like Nef-ertiti's crown. When she turned back to Rashel, her voice was quiet. "How did you get
into all this in the first place? I mean, you seem to know so much. How did you learn it all?"
Rashel laughed. "Bit by bit," she said briefly. She didn't like to talk about it. "But I started like you. I saw
one of them kill my mom when I was five. After that, I tried to learn everything I could about vampires,
so I could fight them. And I told the story
at every foster home I lived in, and finally I found some people who believed me. They were vampire
hunters. They taught me a lot."
Nyala looked ashamed and disgusted. "I'm so stupid-I haven't done anything like that. I wouldn't even
have known about the Lancers if Elliot hadn't called me. He saw the article in the paper about my sister
and guessed it might have been a vampire killing. But I'd never have found them on my own."
"You just didn't have enough time."
"No. I think it takes a special kind of person. But now that I know how to fight them, I'm going to do it."
Her voice was tight and shaky, and Rashel glanced at her quickly. There was something unstable just
under the surface of this girl. "Nobody knows which of them killed my sister, so I just figure I'll get as
many of them as I can. I want to-"
"Quiet!" Rashel hissed the word and put a hand over Nyala's mouth at the same instant. Nyala froze.
Rashel sat tensely, listening, then got up like a spring uncoiling and put her head out the window. She
listened for another moment, then caught up her scarf and veiled her face with practiced movements.
"Grab your ski mask and come on."
"What is it?"
"You're going to get your wish-right now. There's a fight down there. Stay behind me... and don't
forget your mask."
Nyala didn't need to ask about that, she noticed. It was the first thing any vampire hunter learned.
If you were recognized and the vampire got away... well, it was all over. The Night People would
search until they found you, then strike when you least expected it.
With Nyala behind her, Rashel ran lightly down the stairs and around to the street.
The sounds were coming from a pool of darkness beside one of the warehouses, far from the nearest
streetlight. As Rashel reached the place, she could make out the forms of Steve and Vicky, their faces
masked, their clubs in their hands. They were struggling with another form.
Oh, for God's sake, Rashel thought, stopping dead.
One other form. The two of them, armed with wood and lying in ambush, couldn't handle one little
vampire by themselves? From the racket, she'd thought they must have been surprised by a whole army.
But this vampire seemed to be putting up quite a fight-in fact, he was clearly winning. Throwing his
attackers around with supernatural strength, just as if they were ordinary humans and not fearless vampire
slayers. He seemed to be enjoying it.
"We've got to help them!" Nyala hissed in Rashers ear.
"Yeah," Rashel said joylessly. She sighed. "Wait here; I'm going to bonk him on the head."
It wasn't quite that easy. Rashel got behind the vampire without trouble; he was preoccupied with the
other two and arrogant enough to be careless. But then she had a problem.
Her bokken, the honorable sword of a warrior, had one purpose: to deliver a clean blow capable of
killing instantly. She couldn't bring herself to whack somebody unconscious with it.
It wasn't that she didn't have other weapons. She had plenty-back at home in Marblehead. All the tools
of a ninja, and some the ninja had never heard of. And she knew some extremely dirty methods of
fighting. She could break bones and crush tendons; she could peel an enemy's trachea out of his neck
with her bare hands or drive his ribs into his lungs with her feet.
But those were desperate measures, to be used as a last resort when her own life was at stake and the
opposition was overwhelming. She simply couldn't do that to a single enemy when she had the jump on him.
Just then the single enemy threw Steve into a wall, where he landed with a muffled "oof." Rashel felt
sorry for him, but it solved her dilemma. She grabbed the oak club Steve had been holding as it rolled
across the concrete. Then she circled nimbly as the vampire turned, trying to face her. At that instant
Nyala threw herself into the fight, creating a distraction, and Rashel did what she'd said she would. She
bonked the vampire on the head, driving the club like a home runner's swing with the force of her hips.
The vampire cried out and fell down motionless.
Rashel raised the club again, watching him. Then she lowered it, looking at Steve and Vicky. "You guys okay?"
Vicky nodded stiffly. She was trying to get her breath. "He surprised us," she said.
Rashel didn't answer. She was very unhappy, and her feeling of being in top form tonight had completely