Don’t have a panic attack now. Luce wouldn’t bail on you.

But, oh, her body wouldn’t listen. It was bracing itself for something terrible.

Outside, the night was clear and cold, and the wind brushed the back of her sweating legs. It was too hot inside the club, and hypothermic outside. What a choice. Her glasses fogged briefly and cleared. Her breathing eased a little, and the tight knot of squirming panic inside her dialed back a little bit.

There was a group of smokers in a knot around a parking meter, all laughing easily. One of them was a college-age boy, doing some sort of jig to the beat coming through the walls for the enjoyment of his buddies.

But no sleek dark head or jingle of gold bracelets. Sophie stood, irresolute, on the pavement, and someone bumped into her from behind.

She thought it was Lucy, and turned around, opening her mouth to scold her. Instead, her jaw dropped even farther as she looked up—and up…he was at least six feet tall—at the man who had jostled her at the bar.

Oh, for Christ’s sake. “Watch where you’re going,” Sophie snapped, and took two nervous, skipping steps back. Leave me alone. Go away.

“Sorry.” He smiled, showing incredibly white teeth, but the expression was like a grimace. “You okay?”

She didn’t have to reply. A scream punched the night, a high feminine note cut sharply off the moment it reached full-throated terror, and Sophie almost leaped out of her skin.

I know that voice! She was already moving, her heart hammering and her heels clattering. The bouncer at the Paintbox’s door had his head up, staring down the street as if trying to figure out where the sound had come from.

“Lucy!” she yelled, and paused for the barest moment before plunging into the alley. “Lucy!”

The alley ended on a blank brick wall, and there was a crumpled pale shape moving weakly in the gloom. A hand closed around her naked upper arm, hot fingers like steel bands driving in. Whoever had Sophie’s arm yanked her back as another shape—slim, male, with a blotch of blackness down its white shirt—looked up from its crouch, eyes running with crimson hellfire and darkness smeared across its lips.