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front.”
    He didn’t question, just stood back, letting me board the car without him. I punched M for the main floor and counted the seconds as they ticked by. The elevator wasn’t slow, but by the time it reached the main floor and I managed to haul ass outside, it felt like I’d spent a thousand years locked in the car.
    A thousand years of memories, a thousand years of wanting freedom, a thousand years of wondering if we had another Dredge on our hands.

CHAPTER 2
     

     
    Chase followed me outside. “You okay?”
    I slowly looked up at him, letting my fangs show. “No, not totally, but I will be. Just . . . some memories you never shake. Some deeds are never undone. Dredge was a horror beyond anything you can imagine. Karvanak might have come close, but Dredge—he thrived on the pain of others. On humiliation and degradation. He laughed as I screamed, Chase. He laughed like he was watching some stupid sitcom. And then he . . . when he . . .”
    I was awash in the sudden memory of his laughing face as he mounted me, raped my bleeding body, tore at the lacerations that he’d spent hours carving into my skin, and for a moment everything shifted beneath my feet. I wanted to hunt, to chase, to kill—but he was dust. I’d already toasted him and there was nothing left I could do to him.
    “Menolly, Menolly—snap out of it. Listen to me!” Chase’s voice cut through my bloodlust fog like a razor, slicing the veil of hunger so quickly it felt like I’d been ejected from a womb.
    Blinking, I shook my head and stared up at him. “How did you do that?”
    “Do what?” He looked puzzled. “What did I do?”
    “You yanked me out of bloodlust. When I’m in bloodlust, very little can penetrate the hunger, let alone shake the crazies off me. Camille can do it, but she has the force of the Moon Mother behind her. An older vampire can do it—and once in a great while, someone comes along with that ability, but seldom an FBH.” I regarded him quietly, wondering just what powers had woken within our detective when he’d been given the Nectar of Life.
    “I have no idea how it happened, but I’m glad it worked. I don’t carry a straw and I’m not up for being a long cool drink.” He frowned. “What happened?”
    “Flashback. I still get them once in a while, but it’s been far less since we dusted Dredge. Before then, almost every day I relived Dredge’s torture in my dreams. And I couldn’t stop them—couldn’t wake up. But when it happens during the nights, I go into a bloodlust and my predator surfaces, seeking an outlet for the pain of the memories. The past few months, it’s only happened a few times.”
    “That’s good, right? Do you think you’ll ever be free of it?”
    “You can kill the source, but some sins are never washed clean. Whatever Karvanak did to you—can you easily forget that?”
    He shook his head. “And that was just my finger and some . . . light torture. What you went through . . . yeah. I get it.”
    “Let’s change the subject. Give me the locations where you found the bodies. We can find out if they’re on a ley line, or if they’re near any known vampire nests.” My head had already cleared from the panic and hunger, and I suspected that Chase had somehow had more to do with it than he realized.
    “Come on back in the building. I’ll have Yugi get the information for you.” He paused at the door. “Thanks, Menolly. I know you don’t have to help out with things like this—and I realize it takes you away from your real work—but you have to know, I appreciate the assistance.”
    For what was not the first time since we’d met, I looked up at the detective and saw yet another facet of his personality shining through. He was human and fallible, but even the gods had their faults. Johnson had taken more than most FBHs could handle and still walked through with his head held high. He’d undergone demonic torture and managed to come out relatively unscathed. He’d