A chill ran down my spine. We’d gotten lucky only the three had followed her.

Right then, I heard a noise in the rear of my house. Cursing, my gun somewhere in my bedroom, I readied my magic as Scarlett drew her sword. Before we had a chance to do anything else, the door to the spare room burst open.

Katon, DRAC’s resident enforcer and all around badass, leapt into the hall, his sword shimmering in the lead. On his heels rushed Michael Li, the organization’s mentalist and psychic PR guy with a 9mm in his hand. My heart rate thudded back to normal at seeing them, and I let my energy dissipate.

Behind them, I saw the glimmer of fading lights from the spare room and realized they’d come through the dimensional gate my uncle and I’d built. Though I vaguely remember giving them access to it, they’d never used it before. It gave a whole new meaning to the term home invasion. Ice-T could only wish he’d had it so easy.

“Good thing you’re not the pizza guy or we’d be getting it for free.”

Katon grinned, the sharpened points of his eyeteeth visible. “I see you’re still alive, Frank. Scarlett must have arrived just in time to save your ass.” He sheathed his replacement sword with a clack, his dark face creased with relieved amusement.

While he looked like a backup singer for the legendary heavy metal band Judas Priest, dressed from head to toe in black leather adorned with silver spikes, Katon was Hell on wheels. We’d gotten closer over the course of our mutual death-defying adventures in DRAC, but he wasn’t a guy you pushed too far, no matter how good of friends you were.

Though he’d lost his prized sword in our most recent adventure, made from the Spear of Longinus, he’d acquired another magical blade imbued with a powerful, fast-acting paralytic. It wasn’t quite in the same league, but it didn’t make him any less dangerous. His being a vampire only emphasized his threat.

“For once,” Scarlett said, striding to embrace Katon, a sad smile on her full lips, “it was the other way around.”