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he could.
    Barrett continued the strenuous climb up Nick’s mountain. The trees were short and spindly by now, thinning out or dead. Outcrops of rock appeared in their place. Barrett stopped to rest, stepping to the side of the trail, and nearly lost her footing again. To her left, a hidden canyon sloped down to an unseen spring—it couldn’t be a creek, not this high up. She could just hear a faint gurgling and wished she’d thought to bring water.
    On she went. The uneasy feeling that she wasn’t alone began to bother her.
    Barrett turned around several times, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. She was comforted by the weight of the blade strapped to her calf underneath her pants, a blade that had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. Only here, now, she was more afraid a wild animal or redneck human would jump her than she was of vampires. Just in case, she took out the small pistol in the holster under her arm and stuck it into her waistband. Not a regulation carry, but faster to get at in case she needed it.
    She checked her smartphone to see how close she was to the mountain’s top, frowning. The screen was entirely blank, which was weird. Not so much as the standard No Network Connection message. The usual rows of cute little apps had vanished.
    The gurgling grew louder. She wondered if she was closer to the source of the spring and whether it would be safe to drink from it. She was about to step toward the sound when a twig snapped over her right shoulder. Tensing, she turned—
    Huge hands, unnaturally strong, encircled her throat and squeezed. Barrett clawed at them, choking on a foul smell of decay that intensified as the hands squeezed harder. There seemed to be nobody attached to them. The gurgling was loud, wetting her neck, as if an unseen mouth had opened. She felt the brush of something—fangs?—and twisted frantically against the gripping hands. She strained to reach her knife, but got nowhere near it.
    The fingers dug in.
    A blackness rose inside her brain but she heard a shout before she fell.
    Her name … someone shouted her name.
    She knew that voice …
    Nick recognized the two individuals instantly. Barrett Miles, a woman he hadn’t seen in over a year, and Tim Murphy, a man he knew only from the photographs he’d seen and the file he’d reviewed.
    Murphy also happened to be number two on The List, a turned vampire target who had somehow managed to avoid detection … until now. He was a stinking, diseased mess, suffering the most advanced physical deterioration that Nick had seen thus far. That made sense since those on The List were ranked in order of their “expiration date.”
    Murphy had his beefy hands wrapped around Barrett’s throat, and even as one question reverberated through his brain—what the hell Barrett was doing here—Nick drew his bow back. He couldn’t make the kill by shooting Murphy in the heart, not with Barrett in the way, but he could damn well fire the arrow into Murphy’s head. The turned vampire towered over her.
    He had to give Barrett a fighting chance. She arched in agony as Murphy’s fierce gaze lifted to him. Barrett kicked and jabbed her attacker in the right spots, obviously well trained, but her strength was ebbing fast. Nick aimed, right between the vampire’s blazing eyes.
    Dead center.
    Easy shot.

CHAPTER
THREE
    Barrett regained consciousness with agonizing slowness . She was lying down. Her head banged like someone was hitting it. Hard. Over and over. She willed the pain down but it didn’t go away, interrupting her awareness of the rest of her body and her surroundings. Bit by bit she got it back.
    Her wrists were loosely bound. She was alive but she wasn’t sure why.
    The decaying smell of the unseen creature that had nearly killed her still hovered in the air. It could be near. Watching her. Its captive.
    Waiting to kill.
    Vaguely she thought of working her hands free and running for her life … but … she was someplace inside now,