The Panamanian militia returned just after midnight. Their boots rustled the leaves and their AK-47s were held low. Their eyes were dark and cold. They weren’t on a patrol, they walked confidently like a hit squad.

  Ashley felt it before she saw them. She turned her head frantically. Her pupils thinned into sharp black pinpricks. Sawyer straightened from the bench they’d been sitting on. He wiped the last of the blood from his wrist, the taste of it still lingered behind his teeth like rust and honey.

  The magenta vest emerged from the mist; It was the same officer as before he wore a more sadistic face. His eyes were black and cold.

  He stepped toward them like he owned the jungle, followed by six soldiers all lean and hard eyed with weather worn gear. The magenta vested officer chewed on his cigar and then flicked it into the dirt. It hissed. The air smelled of sweat. He and the others stopped ten paces away.

  “You lied to me,” the officer said, raising a gloved finger to Ashley. Her fingers twitched. “You said you were going to kill him.”

  “Forget about this.,” Ashley said. “He means nothing. He’s just a tourist. There’s some cash in the—”

  “No. I was given orders from Harland if you messed up again.” He nodded at one of the soldiers, who exchanged an evil grin with him. When he turned back to Ashley and Sawyer, he said, “Silver rounds. They were hard to find, but money can buy anything in the Mercado Municipal.”

  Apparently, that was all Ashley needed to hear.

  In a single smooth motion, she drew her nickel plated Glock from beneath her jacket. She raised it and fired three shots.

  Crack—crack—crack.

  The officer’s skull popped open like a gourd. He dropped before the last echo faded. Two soldiers who flanked either side of him choked on bullets, gurgled blood, and collapsed.

  Sawyer launched himself forward. His body reacted before his mind could logically process the situation. He acted on pure animalistic instinct. He launched himself at the nearest soldier and wrestled his AK-47 free with a violent twist. He positioned the barrel up under the man’s chin and pulled the trigger.

  The rifle bucked in his hands. It felt good. The man dropped, dead. He leveled the AK-47 and dumped the magazine toward the remaining soldier. The bullets tore through bodies in a brutal rhythm. They screamed, briefly. Red mist splattered across the tree trunks. Ashley darted between targets like a demon. She planted rounds close quarters while Sawyer reloaded.

  Then it hit Sawyer’s skin. The pain was like a firecracker popping against his back. He didn’t flinch. He sucked in air.

  “They aren’t using silver!” Ashley shouted, laughing hysterically. “They were bluffing! Time to die, amigos!”

  Something happened to him. It wasn’t just instinct. It was something deeper and darker. His blood pulled him in a rhythm of movement fueled by hunger.

  He aimed his rifle down at the man on the ground and emptied another magazine. The blood splattered against his neck and forehead. He licked his lips. It tasted like syrup. He loved it.

  Ashley noticed. She formed a dark smile.

  One man remained, bleeding heavily beneath a tangle of roots. He groaned and clawed at the air. Blood leaked from his abdomen.

  Ashley crept toward him like a panther with its prey in sight.

  She crouched, eyes gleaming. Her fangs were barely visible. Her smile stretched wide, twisted in delight. It wasn’t with a sense of cruelty, not exactly, but something more dangerous. She craved it. She leaned down and whispered something in Spanish that Sawyer couldn’t hear.

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  Then she sank her fangs into the soldier’s neck.

  The man spasmed. His mouth opened in a silent cry. She sucked once, long and deep. His face went pale in seconds. His hands stopped moving.

  When she lifted her head, her mouth was soaked in crimson nectar. She tilted her face to the moonlight, eyes shut, savoring it, dripping from her lips.

  Sawyer couldn’t look away.

  Her chest rose with satisfaction. She exalted in something primal. Some awful part of him understood, something he learned a long time ago fighting alongside the other Green Beret’s in Kabul. Even before he turned into a vampire, he knew about the deep satisfaction that came from destroying your enemy.

  Ashley exhaled. She turned cold again. “We need to go.”

  Then she vanished—she actually disappeared. One moment she had been there and the next she was a blur of shadow and vanished down the jungle trail. Sawyer stared. His instincts screamed at him before his mind could process the situation.

  He took off after her.

  It wasn’t running, it was something she later called fleeting. All vampires could do it instinctually.

  The ground blurred beneath him. Each step covered meters. His breath synced perfectly with his motion. The leaves blurred past him. His heart purred. The soundscape sharpened into layers, feeling the wind, hearing the distant honking of traffic, the barking dogs, and the shifting rainwater through the gutters.

  Then an awful pain slammed into him.

  Crack!

  He slammed into a tree at full speed.

  The bark exploded into splinters.

  Sawyer tumbled through the brush like a test dummy. He groaned, laying in a pile of leaves and dirt. He blinked, completely dazed.

  Ashley reappeared beside him. She crouched like a wild cat. “Tree,” she said, smirking. “Practice makes perfect.”

  He spat out a leaf.

  She reached down, grabbed his arm, and yanked him up with one hand like she had the strength of a linebacker. “Try again, but pace yourself. Stick to open paths, the best you can, and use your instinct.”

  He inhaled sharply and nodded.

  That time, it clicked.

  The jungle blurred. The wind howled past his ears. He dodged trees before he could see them. The muscles in his legs tightened like drawn wire. Then, the road opened like a tunnel of momentum. Together, they fleeted across the asphalt, around cars, motorcycles, and trucks. Time was difficult to judge going those speeds, but after what must have been a couple of minutes they found themselves fleeting through the urban sprawl of Colón.

  At night, Colón was a patchwork of rot and concrete. They broke into a side street. Time slowed. The light stretched. The city was silent and unaware.

  They moved too fast to be seen.

  A pack of wild dogs barked at something invisible. Another dog yelped as Sawyer and Ashley fleeted by. Sawyer spotted an old woman on a porch who muttered prayers. He saw a prostitute in heels, who must have felt the breeze and looked around confused. One man dropped his cigarette.

  Sawyer couldn’t stop laughing.

  It was pure and feral.

  He was flying. And every one of his senses screamed to life. Colors were brighter, sounds sharper. He felt untouchable. He turned a corner before thinking. He hurled over a dumpster without trying. Ashley kept pace beside him, barely winded, eyes glinting like mercury.

  They took a final corner.

  Sawyer’s hideout came into view, the abandoned apartment alongside the crumbling coastal road half hidden behind barbed fencing. Their boots skidded across wet pavement. They stopped in tandem alongside the ocean. He smelled the salt water and heard the crashing waves.

  Sawyer panted. His mouth was still stained with blood. So was hers.

  Ashley looked out toward the surf, the wind blew her hair across her face. Sawyer opened his shirt, remembering he’d been shot more than a few times. But as he quickly inspected his wounds, he realized there were none. There was some light bruising, but even as he searched for little dark spots, they merged with the natural color of his chest and stomach and he healed completely.

  “What’s Cormac going to think of this?”

  Ashley didn’t answer.

  “What if he shoots us?”

  “If he’s planning to kill us, I hope he uses silver.”