“Should’ve taken those off,” she heard Elliott say as if he was reading her mind.

“I would’ve if I’d had time.” She was glad her cellphone was waterproof. Anything else would dry out, though she thought it would be difficult to get the tight black jeans she was wearing off. Thank goodness she hadn’t been wearing a leather jacket. Denim would be salvageable.

The Vampire stood up now, glancing around, looking for an exit. There wasn’t one. To add insult to injury, a few ashes stirred in the breeze, and Cadence glimpsed the remains of the Vampire girl’s friend off in the distance, the one Cadence had shot earlier. He had made it further away from the escalator than Cadence had assumed he would.

With nothing else to lose, the Vampire turned, barring her fangs and throwing herself at Cadence.

“Ah, sure, now she wants to fight,” the Hunter muttered, stepping forward to meet her, no longer amused or thinking mercy sounded like an option. The Vampire was tiny but powerful, and when they collided, the water splashed up around them, rocking all of the gondolas, and grabbing the attention of spectators up on the walkway where Cadence had chased this same bloodsucker only a few minutes ago.

“Dammit,” Elliott mumbled before he stepped out of the shadows. Cadence was barely conscious of what he was doing as the Vampire’s claws came down, aiming for her left eye. A diatribe about the Venetian’s newest attraction, fighting merwomen, hit her ear as her hands slid up to wrench the Vampire’s hand down away from her face, taking her beneath the surface of the water so she could end her where none of the stunned members of the crowd could see.

She wasn’t going down easy. With her free hand, Cadence punched her in the head several times, causing ash to fly out into the water, making it more difficult to see. They sank to the bottom of the pool, and Cadence pinned the woman with her knee. The Vampire continued to buck and fight, trying to get free. Pink tinged the water from the wounds in Cadence’s face and hands, and with each pass of the Vampire’s claws, her skin was further shredded, but she was too hyped up on adrenaline to feel it presently. Grabbing ahold of her right arm, the one doing most of the swiping, Cadence pulled straight up and then out, breaking the limb free. She let it go, watching it float to the surface, hoping Elliott had an explanation for that. When it turned to ash a few seconds later, she prayed no one had seen it when it was in its human form.

The Vampire was shrieking in agony, a burst of bubbles hitting Cadence in the face with the exhale. Her lungs were beginning to burn, and she was tempted to come back to the surface to draw in another breath, but this needed to end now, so she pushed on, propelling her free leg around the monster’s waist so she could better position her hands around the woman’s neck. The creature’s colorful hair billowed around her as Cadence began to unscrew her head. With her newfound strength, since receiving the second round of Transformation serum, it only took her a moment before the head popped off. Cadence waited a second for the body to burst to ash and then shot to the surface, sucking in air as Elliott made an announcement that they had a winner.

She turned slowly to see dozens of people clapping, smiles on their faces. It had always been easy for Elliott to convince people to think whatever he wanted them to, but now that he had the second round of Transformation serum, it was even easier, and she imagined he’d already taken care of the people out by the fountain as well. Cadence gave a small wave to the crowd and proceeded to the side of the waterway where Elliott reached down and offered her his hand.

Tempted as she was to pull him into the water with her, she decided to leave that prank for another time, one where she wasn’t as exhausted, and let him yank her out of the water. “Do you think if I run fast enough I’ll dry off?” she asked, breathing in deeply.

“I’m not sure, but we can find out. Jamie and Ashley could probably use our help.”

Cadence checked her IAC and saw that he was right. She thought it was odd that Aaron and Aurora hadn’t headed that direction as soon as they had their marks, but now that they were done in the control room of the museum, they were actually on their way, too. “What were you guys doing?”

“Taking care of the cameras,” her fiancé replied promptly.

“What about Jamie?”

“What about him? He’s got this,” Aaron said nonchalantly.

Through her IAC, Cadence saw her friend scaling the side of the Eiffel Tower and wondered what in the world made Aaron think the Healer had things under control. She wasn’t about to leave things to chance. With three more Vampires between Italy and France, she took off in a sprint, Elliot beside her, dodging through people strolling down the sidewalk, between cars and around partiers, until she was standing beneath the hot air balloon, gazing up at Jamie and a Vampire several stories above her.

“Ashley’s inside with the other two. I’m gonna go help her,” Elliott said before taking off in a streak.

Cadence checked her IAC and saw Ashley sprinting past a French bakery in pursuit of a stocky, balding Vampire and one that didn’t even look to be a teenager yet. Above her, Jamie made a solid leap from one metallic rung to another closer to the Vampire who seemed to be going back up toward the landing. If she’d seen the interaction correctly before, the same Vampire had been on the landing, making his way down, when Jamie had stepped over the edge in pursuit. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Stay there. In case he comes back down,” her friend replied, his voice showing he was putting a lot of effort into his climbing.

Cadence watched Jamie scale the side of the building, launching from one metal opening to the next, holding her breath. They were on the back side of the structure, so thus far no crowd had gathered to watch them, but she could only imagine the amount of interference it would take to dispel the idea that two men had been chasing each other around the outside of the Eiffel Tower. Her eyes flickered across the street to the Statue of Liberty and she thought of the Luxor as well. Better to end this here than go traipsing across the globe, sliding down the sides of pyramids. Worse yet would be a jump from a building as tall as the Stratosphere.

The Vampire was almost back to the landing. He held onto one rung, swinging back and forth, reaching with the other hand, trying to secure his placement. Jamie was closing in. Like Spiderman, he leapt across the void, landing near the Vampire and grasping one of the spiraling pieces of metal near the leg where the Vampire hung. Through Jamie’s IAC, she saw the monster pull back his lips, barring his fangs, and hissing in a frantic bid to save his undead life.

Undeterred, the Healer closed the distance. Rather than aiming for the building this time, he launched himself directly at the Vampire, grabbing ahold of the man’s waist, and pulling him straight down so that the monster had to let go of the metal. For a few seconds, they were both freefalling. Cadence covered her mouth, wondering if Jamie would be all right from a fall of that magnitude, but after twenty feet or so, he reached out and grabbed hold of the building again, the stop in momentum sending both bodies swinging violently. The Vampire lurched closer to the ground, but Jamie kept ahold of his pants with one hand. The bloodsucker rocketed back and forth like a pendulum and began to attempt to free himself from the article of clothing keeping him from escape.

Jamie was much stronger than the Vampire, however. Still holding onto the tower with one hand, he stretched his legs out and wrapped them around the monster’s waist, hauling him up so that the Vampire’s head was even with his bellybutton. The creature began to slash with his claws and even sunk his fangs into Jamie’s abdomen. Cadence watched in amazement as the physician healed himself instantaneously. There was nothing the Vampire could do at all to harm him. With his free hand, Jamie pulled his Glock out of his waistband and sunk a bullet into the back of the Vampire’s skull. It passed straight through him, landing in the bushes a few yards away from Cadence as bits of ash began to rain down on her. She stepped back now, seeing that Jamie did have it under control, thinking she didn’t need any more ash adhering itself to her soaking wet body.