“Pull up slow, stay on your bellies,” I whispered.

They did as I asked, and I did the same. From our bellies, there wasn’t much to see. I looked up to the sky, but there was no sign of Beth or Sandy. Then again, their dark feathers weren’t going to show up well in the night.

“Stay here.” I eased into a crouch, climbing over the cement barrier in front of us while still keeping as low as possible. The stadium opened up in front of me, the green grass churned to mud by a thousand pairs of hooves. Three-quarters of the stadium was full of humans, the hum and warble of their voices rising through the air at a low drone. In front of me, the stadium section was bare, without a single human sitting in the stands.

Jensen hadn’t been exaggerating about the Bull Boys. There were easily a thousand of them. Some stood out, though, larger than their buddies. Bull Boys on steroids. At the center of the stadium was a huge platform with two stakes standing in the middle of it, a man tied to each. Tad was on the left, and Jensen on the right.

Ernie floated between them and Achilles paced the front of the platform, a microphone in one hand and a sword in the other. His voice echoed up to me perfectly. “Where is she?”

“She’ll come. I’m sure of it,” Ernie said. “But you’d better be careful, Achilles. She’s stronger than we all thought she was going to be.”

“Pah. Merlin handpicked her.”

Handpicked . . .

“I mean, he even convinced her brother to infect her! And now they’re both going to die.” Achilles strutted across the platform, his hands spread out to the sides. He did a slow spin and brought the mic back to his mouth. “Am I not a hero? Have I ever failed in killing a monster? This Drakaina will be no different.”

The humans clapped, but the sound died out almost as soon as it started. He was losing their attention.

They were used to monster-truck rallies, baseball games, and huge concerts. Not a man wearing a skirt talking to them about a monster they couldn’t see.

I slid back to where the vamps waited. “Spread out close to the mud. If the bird girls can get Remo and Dahlia in and out, we may not even need you. Can any of you defuse the bomb on the doors?” I should have thought to ask that before.

Max nodded. “I can. I think.”

“Do it. Otherwise when the fighting starts and the humans try to get out, there’s going to be a real mess.”

He nodded and slid back down the side of the stadium. I slipped back over the cement, keeping low but still watching Achilles. I spared a glance for the night sky. A flicker of bright wings caught my eye for a split second before they appeared, dropping from the sky in a breathtaking dive. Remo and Dahlia clung to their claws, legs swept straight back with the speed at which the four of them fell.

Achilles looked up, some instinct preserving him as the first feathers shot forward on a flick of one of the girls’ wings. He dove to the side, right off the stadium and into the mud. The feathers rat-a-tat-tatted into the wooden platform like a machine gun.

“Stymphalian birds! They were just turned!” Ernie yelled. Remo and Dahlia dropped from the birds and ran to the two men at the stakes. Their movements were too fast to follow, but the ropes dropping were enough to know they were getting the job done.

The crowd went wild, cheering, and the Jumbotron came to life, projecting exactly what was happening in minute, horrifying detail.

Tad slumped into Dahlia’s arms and Jensen into Remo’s. I couldn’t take my eyes from the scene as Achilles stood up, a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. With a roar he leapt to the stage and rushed them.

There was no way they’d make it away from him carrying the two men.

“No!” I screamed, and bolted down the stairs.

Achilles spun, saw me, and grinned. “There you are, Drakaina.”

The crowd oohed, like they’d been prepped for me too.

I was halfway down, the people around me twisting in their seats. “I’m the one you want.”

“I want all the monsters dead, fool. I care not what breed of evil they are, only that they end their lives on the tip of my sword.” He whipped his sword hand around, the blade shining in the stadium lights, as it swept toward the one closest to him.

The crowd began to chant his name. “Achilles, Achilles, Achilles.” He held up his hands, asking for more.

Tad’s eyes lifted to mine as Achilles drove the blade through my brother’s stomach and out his back. The crowd gasped, Achilles’s name stilling on their lips as the moment stretched. I could not believe what I was seeing. It wasn’t possible that Tad was run through.

“Alena. Run. Get away.” His words were not loud, but I knew him. I knew his heart and how he would have fought for me. That even now, he would try to protect me.

“Tad!” I screamed his name, and the crowd nearby turned away from my grief-stricken cry. The cameras zoomed in closer on me, and I saw the smoke begin to curl around me.

The uncoiling of my snake ripped through me and carried with it a second scream that arched from my throat and into the night air, the stadium acoustics throwing it high and wide. Around me, the vamps slapped their hands over their ears and fell to the ground. The humans closest to me scrambled away, leaving a large swath of stadium below me wide open.

The mist wrapped up around me with the speed of a lighting strike, and in a split second I rose in the stadium, my coils moving me toward Achilles at top speed.

Ernie spun. “Alena! Don’t let the rage take you, it’s what he wants!”