It hadn't occurred to me I'd been bumbling around the room under my own power. A grin lit my face. "Hellz yeah." I patted her hand again and let go. "Guess I better go visit the troops."

"I'm going back to sleep. I haven't had a decent day's sleep yet and I'm bushed."

I turned off the light and slid out of the door. Elyssa sat at a small table, her side to me as she talked to Meghan. Smith and Shelton were doing something with Dad—hopefully blocking the tracker. Ryland and Stacey were nowhere to be seen.

I strode to Elyssa. Meghan looked up at me. Elyssa turned to follow her gaze. Her eyes brightened when she saw me and she got to her feet. I engulfed her in a bear hug. I kissed her cheeks, then pulled her against me for a real kiss, one hand pressing against the small of her back while my other hand smoothed her hair back from her face. When we came up for breath, I noticed Meghan's bright red face.

"Get a room," Shelton said with a snort.

I ignored him and stared into Elyssa's sparkling violet eyes. "Man, that felt good."

"It was kinda fun when you were helpless," she said, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "I could do anything I wanted to you."

"Where are the others?"

"Stacey said she needed to attend to a few things, and Ryland said he'd escort her in case more hellhounds showed up."

"Oh, I'll bet she loved that," I said with a laugh. "Those two are like oil and water."

"I think he gets off annoying her. Stacey was making fun of his haircut on the way out."

"And nothing more from Vallaena?"

Elyssa shook her head. "No. But I really don't like the way she gave you a time limit."

I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. "Seems everyone is giving me deadlines these days." My conversation with Felicia popped to mind, so I pulled Elyssa across the room and toward the tiny kitchen. "I had a discussion about vamplings with our favorite vampire girl."

"Felicia?"

"Yeah. She told me vamplings can infect vampires with their virus and actually turn them into one of those zombie things."

"And you're wondering why I haven't tried to eat your brains?" Elyssa said with a grin.

Some of the panic sparking through my system eased when I saw her grin. "Yeah."

"Templars have immunity to most supernatural viruses. The Divinity gives us a few useful perks."

"The Divinity?"

"Yeah. Nobody knows exactly who or what it is, but it's the power source and central core that makes Templars what they are. It can make noms immortal, give them preternatural abilities, and all that, so long as they can pass the Cho'kai."

"The show what?"

"It's a trial all recruits have to pass before becoming a full Templar. If they fail, the Divinity strips them of their gifts and they have to wait a year before they can reapply as a recruit."

"A trial—like doing a hundred pushups and low-crawling through electrified mud?"

She laughed. "Nobody knows. The trial takes place in the chapel and nobody ever remembers a thing about it. That's pretty much the way any interaction with the Divinity is."

"Even your father doesn't know?"

She shook her head. "Not even the Templar Synod, our ruling council, knows, and some of them have been around since before the Roman Empire."

"That's freaky." All sorts of possibilities drifted through my head, most of them having to do with Star Trek and glowing balls of light that killed people or gave Captain Kirk an inexhaustible libido. "Is this thing sentient?"

She nodded. "Yeah, but on a level that makes us look like monkeys."

"We're barely smarter than monkeys without a super being to make us all look dumb." I thought about Nathan and bullies like him and shuddered. The human race was chock full of dummies.

"Speaking of dumb things," Elyssa said with a sideways look and a wistful smile, "Meghan told me what you did for Stacey." Her smile faltered and she looked down. "You scare me to death sometimes, Justin."

I squeezed her to me. "I scare myself. Look, she's my friend. I had to do something to help her."

"Just like when you leapt into the back seat of the truck to protect Katie?"

"She would have died."

"Do you have some kind of a superhero complex? Do you want to get killed?"

"Yes, I do have a complex, and no, I don't want to die. At least not until I've had my way with you, and then I'll die happy."

She blushed. "Don't talk that way. We're going to have a lot of fun before I let anything bad happen to you."

"I could kick Felicia out of the bedroom."

Elyssa laughed. "There is no way we're engaging in hanky panky with your dad, Shelton, and everyone else right outside the door."

"Yeah, that would be kind of icky."

"And Shelton's probably got cameras in his rooms."

"Nasty!"

After our laughter died down, I looked at Smith as he worked away on his tablet computer. The urge to pepper him and Shelton with questions was strong, but I didn't want to interrupt their work. At the same time, I wondered if keeping Dad on lockdown might not be a better idea than letting him loose again. He was just as good at getting into messes as I was.

A knot of worry rolled around in my stomach, followed by sharp stabs of anxiety. Dad was going to die unless I somehow convinced Underborn to call off the hit. That meant I had to find the guy. Which meant I had to ask Smith how to contact him. I already knew what my most precious treasure was and I'd rather die than let Underborn take Elyssa from me.

"You've got that look on your face," Elyssa said.

"What look?"

"The one meaning you've recovered from your last near-death encounter and are about to head out for the next round."

"I need to talk to Underborn."

Meghan, who had walked to the kitchen for more tea, gasped. "Are you crazy? Smith's story was bad enough, but I've heard more and worse about that scum." She took a seat on the brown leather couch against the nearby wall.

"I'm not going to sit around here waiting for that jackass to kill my dad."

"Instead, you're going to rush off and let him kill you too," Elyssa said. She shoved me away. I still didn't have all my strength back and toppled backward onto the couch. Wide-eyed, Meghan scooted away from me without spilling a drop of her tea.

"If it was someone you loved, wouldn't you do the same?" I asked, pushing myself into a less-awkward position.

"What if it was me running off to see him?" she asked. "How would you feel?"

"Angry and scared as hell of losing you. But I'd also know stopping you would be impossible, so I'd go with you and beat the crap out of anyone who tried to hurt you."

A rueful chuckle burst through her frown. "This is by far your worst idea ever." She face-palmed and shook her head. "When do we leave?"

"Soon as I figure out how to contact the guy."

"Are you going to tell your dad?"

"Oh, hell no." I watched as Dad patiently endured the attentions of the two sorcerers while they poked and prodded the tattoo on his neck. "But I need to ask Smith how he contacted Underborn." My stomach growled.

Meghan shuddered. "I think you need to feed, Justin." She pulled out her wand. "May I run a test?"

I nodded.

"It might hurt just a bit," she said, focusing her gaze on my arm and speaking a word.

A needle-like sensation pricked my arm, but it was nothing compared to what I'd felt during Stacey's procedure. A globule of blood emerged from a pore in my skin, forming a half-inch crimson sphere which drifted toward Meghan. A shimmering shield materialized around the sphere, glowing golden and warm. The sphere spun faster and faster until it was a gold and red blur in the air. When it stopped, the red in the blood was separate from a bluish substance with a glow of its own.

"Spawn blood plasma," Meghan said, her eyes full of wonder. "It radiates energy. Very few arcane healers have the chance to study spawn physiology because your kind are so secretive."

"Is it really that much different than humans'?"

"The blood plasma certainly is. I noticed it when making the transfer to Stacey. I'm almost certain this is where your body stores the psychic essence you take from others."

I noticed she didn't shudder that time, maybe because the scientific part of her mind was overriding the part nurturing her hatred for spawn.

"What are you looking for?"

She said a word and a spark of amber light pierced the sphere. After a moment, tiny numbers and symbols appeared in the air next to it, hovering for a moment before Meghan waved a dismissive hand. The entire thing flashed bright, leaving only a tiny spray of mist where it had been.

"Your blood levels are very close to nominal," Meghan said. "But the energy level in your blood plasma is running low, no doubt due to the recovery effort. You should replenish it."

"You don't seem grossed out by it right now."

"Oh, I am, but I'm becoming better at forcing back the urge to vomit. At least spawn feeding isn't as repulsive as drinking blood."

"Gee, thanks," Elyssa said. "Wish I didn't have to but it's not like I have a choice."

"I'm sorry, Templar Borathen. I didn't mean to imply—"

Elyssa held up a hand. "It's fine, Meghan. And please don't get all formal on me. I know how my dad is, but I am most definitely not him."

"I imagine he must be very upset about your connection to Justin."

I laughed. "Upset is hardly the word I'd use." I gave Elyssa a puzzled look. "That reminds me; I thought you were in big trouble. Your parents didn't ground you for life?"

"Oh, I just had a mother-daughter chat and then went looking for you."