Apparently, it was.

I gave in and performed the traditional dance to the cell phone gods, holding it up, turning it around, doing the hokey pokey and restraining a strong impulse to smash it against the wall. And nada. Unless you want to count a sad little blip, which I assumed was the electronic version of the finger.

I shoved the useless thing back into my pocket and looked up at the discreet camera hidden inside some elaborate stonework, knowing that someone was getting a belly laugh at my expense. I didn’t bother to scowl back. The problem with being five feet two, dimpled and female is that no matter what your reputation, most people are going to underestimate you.

Even people who ought to know better.

I sloshed back to my car and got in.

There were advantages, I reflected as I backed up, to driving a piece of crap. Like you didn’t have to worry about leaving coffee rings on the dash or getting mud on the carpet, and finding the occasional fossilized French fry was more a source of wonder than a reason to freak out. You also didn’t let the thought of a few new dents bother you. Like when you put it in drive and floored it, spraying water and mud while gunning straight for the lousy security door that nobody had ever bothered to replace. Because who would be crazy enough to break in to a mansion full of vampires?

Guess they found out, I thought, grinning as my ancient Firebird tore through the flimsy wooden shell over the entrance and flew down a corridor, burning rubber straight into the well-maintained interior.

Which for some reason smelled like ass.

I skidded to a halt beside some beautiful old exposed brickwork. As always, the place looked more like the nineteenth-century carriage house it had once been than a parking garage, with dark wooden beams and original tack on the walls. Unlike always, it smelled like the horses were still in residence.

Rotting, diseased horses, I thought, wrinkling my nose as I got out.

The lights were flickering, like the storm was causing electrical problems. But not enough that I couldn’t see that the damage was minimal. And hey, the bumper had been lumpy anyway. I went around and popped the trunk.

And dear God.

It looked like I owed the horses an apology, because I had found the stink and the stink was me. Or, at least my passenger, who had still been more or less frozen when I picked him up, but no more. Slava was sloshing around in his little Baggies, one pale blue eye staring through the film like a goldfish being carted home from the store. And reeking like a three-day-old corpse left out in the sun.

I swallowed, suddenly less concerned about dinner. It looked like my mad dash had ruptured a bag, and something absolutely foul was leaking out. And yeah, vamps decay faster than humans, having a head start on the whole dead thing. But damn.

And now I was going to have to drag him all the way upstairs.

I looked up, hoping for some outraged staff coming to bitch at me about the door, fully intending to pawn Mr. Slushy off on them. But either they were really in a mood or they’d been warned about what I had in the trunk, because no dice. I grumbled something uncomplimentary about their ancestors and leaned in to grab bag #1.

And was grabbed back by bag #2.

For a second, I just stood there, years of experience no match for the sight of a half-liquefied arm trying to choke me to death. But I snapped out of it before it snapped me, and I grasped the slimy surface—only to have the remaining skin slough off like a molting snake. I choked down nausea and staggered back, tearing at veins and sinew and protruding bone, while cold, gelatinous fingers clawed at me.

I couldn’t seem to get a grip on the slimy flesh, so I pulled a knife from my jacket and sawed through the wrist, causing the hideous thing to spasm away from my neck. It dropped like a bloody spider onto the ground, or maybe a hand in a fingerless glove. Because the fleshy tips had come away, leaving only the bare bones sticking out.

Which I suppose is why it made a clicking noise on the concrete when it suddenly lunged at me again.

I pulled the mage’s .45, which I’d reloaded in the car because it isn’t paranoia when shit like this happens all the freaking time. And nailed it straight through palm. And then I shot it again. And again. And then one more time because gah!

I didn’t stop until it was a bunch of tiny, unconnected pieces twitching uselessly on the floor and I was panting and trembling and seriously revolted.

And then I noticed that my hands were on fire.

Not literally, but it sure as hell felt that way, and it wasn’t my crazed imagination. Angry pinkish red blisters were rising from my skin as I watched. And I didn’t need to feel my neck to know that the same thing was happening there, like acid had splattered me wherever that thing had touched.

And not just me. The floor underneath the remains of the hand was blackening, while a nauseating yellow fluid seeped from the flesh and boiled into the air, adding to the stink. And to the whole skin-tightening horror thing we had going on in here.

And that was before my trunk started to spew out the rest of bag #2 in gory chunks.

One got caught in an oil stain from somebody’s car and writhed around, like an eel in water—except that eels don’t usually set oil on fire. But others were making more headway, leaving blackened, bloody trails on the ground as they wriggled and clawed and slimed in my direction. And okay, I thought, backing the hell up, money was a good and fine thing, but on the whole, I really thought the Senate could have this one.

I turned around and started for the ramp—and the door and the rain-soaked street, which, yeah, was looking pretty good right about now.

Only I wasn’t going to be seeing it anytime soon, as I discovered when I started up the ramp. And smacked straight into something I couldn’t see, but that packed a wallop, sending me rolling back down the incline again, smoking and swearing. And looking up to see an imprint of my body at the impact point, weirdly inverted face, flailing limbs and all, etched on what appeared to be thin air.

It wasn’t. The glowing bluish me faded in seconds, leaving only a ghostly outline flickering in the ominous lighting. But the reason for it remained: someone had turned on the Senate’s wards, which probably explained why the lights were messed up and why my phone hadn’t worked. Wards as big as the Senate’s played havoc with electrical devices.

They also kept things out really effectively.

Like ’89 Firebirds, for instance.

So either someone had just raised them, coincidentally right after I arrived, or someone had dropped them to let me through and then raised them again right after. And for some reason, neither of those options was making me feel all that great. And that was before somebody screamed, a high, ear-shattering sound that sent me back to one knee before I’d finished getting to my feet.

I looked around, dizzy and disoriented, trying to figure out the direction. But it was a little hard when all I could see was a slurry of bricks and cars and impossible horrors all sliding together in a gut-wrenching stream of what-the-hell. And then whoever-it-was did it again.

From inside my head.

“Shut up!” I yelled, smacking my blistered hand down on the floor, hoping the pain would help clear my messed-up brain. It didn’t, but something else happened, although I wasn’t sure it was an improvement.

Because suddenly I was hearing voices.

“Wha—who? Is someone there? Who is that? Who is THAT?”

“Stop. Screaming,” I grated out, because the voice had almost been as loud as the initial shriek.

“Whoisthatyoutellmerightnow!”

“Augggh!” I replied, because a pinkish blur had taken that moment to come soaring at me through the air.

I managed to put a bullet in it, and it flew back, squelching against something out of sight. Which didn’t make me feel much better, because the other things had figured out that they could jump, too—I guess by muscle contraction, although I really wasn’t into analyzing it right then. I was into not letting them get on me, which meant shooting them out of the air while scooting backward through a room that was still fun-housing around me.

And while a hysterical voice demanded that I save its ass.

“Would you shut up until I save mine?” I hissed, and it abruptly cut off.

With the reduction in sound came an easing of the carnival ride in my brain, allowing me to scramble behind a concrete barrier. I crouched there, eyeing the approaching hoard of vamp parts in disbelief and trying to slam home a new clip. It was the second of only two I’d had in my emergency kit, because I don’t use a .45 that much.

Or at all, if I couldn’t get this one in, which was taking forever because of the blisters.

And maybe because a random bit of Slava had just leapt off the floor and smacked against the barrier. And then another and another, splattering the other side like acid freaking rain. Until one missed, flying over my head and taking out the windshield on a BMW.

I stared at the cracks spidering across the supposedly shatterproof glass. And decided I could really live without finding out what that felt like. I slammed the clip home and moved.

Tap, tap, tap.

I swear, it felt exactly like a finger hitting the inside of my skull. I had a sudden vivid image of that annoying paper clip guy that Microsoft created to torment people. It looks like you’re having a nervous breakdown. Would you like some help? I thought wildly, and flung myself behind a car.

“What? What did you say?” The voice was back.

I ignored it, being kind of busy not dying. It was like the damned things knew where I was. I was doing everything right—keeping low, using the cars as cover—but wherever I went, they took out windows, dented doors and sent the smell of molten rubber into the air when they smacked into tires.

It was like being in the world’s grossest shooting gallery.

It was also impossible.

Leaving aside that no vampire could still be alive after that kind of damage, there was the fact that even magical creatures have physical rules. Whacked-out physical rules, but still. And without some kind of sensory organs, there was simply no way for them to—

Tap, tap, tap.

Is this thing on? I thought irrelevantly.

“Stop it! Stop it right now! Oh my God, this is typical. This is so— They finally send someone after me and she’s insane.”