"There's something wrong with your face," Thomas said.

"Ah, just what every woman wants to hear from their fuck-buddy," I said flatly. "Your face looks weird. I think I'll just orgasm on the spot."

Though if his Hunger kept up, I just might. It didn't matter that my face had settled into an expressionless mask, he could still make me scream if he wanted to. Whatever had happened while he was away had taken a lot out of him. He'd had a quickie with the rental sales agent before waltzing out of the lot with a free car, and it had barely taken the edge off. His every instinct was screaming at him to drag me into the backseat and take whatever was left. I wasn't strong enough to stop him. And honestly, I wasn't sure I really wanted to. It'd be great if at least one of us was well enough to rescue Daniel.

He blew out a breath. "It's not that. And it's not the bruises or cuts, either. I've seen you worse off. It's the...zombie look."

"Ah," I said, getting it.

"Ah?"

"Blunted affect. Lily says it's a decreased ability to express emotion through your facial expressions, tone of voice, or physical movements. It's common with some mental or developmental disorders. It also happens after severe psychic damage."

He took his eyes off the road for just a second. He looked almost concerned. "So you can't feel anything?"

"Oh no, I can feel it, I just can't express it well. Imagine scalding your tongue while drinking coffee. Everything else is sort of...muted, but it's not the same as being numb. It was a lot worse the last time I saw Lasciel's true form. She was careful not to bungle the job this time. Lara did more damage, honestly. It'll clear up in a month or two. You know, if Lasciel doesn't find and kill me first. You've never had this happen before when you fed deeply?"

Thomas shifted in his seat, mentally curling inward around a sudden well of emotion. He didn't want me to feel whatever he was hiding, and I didn't press the issue. I was in enough pain already.

"She...she wasn't...vacant. Not like this. She was..."

"Blissed out?" I guessed. "Hooked on a Feeling and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds?"

He grimaced. "That's one way to put it. She came back from it too. It took her over a year. But she doesn't have magic or access to the kind of healers you have. I'd say you're about as badly off as you were when you first arrived in Summer."

"So with only half the marbles out of the bag?"

I'd been expecting worse. My head had gone through so many changes in management recently that the place was sure to be fraught was code violations. Good to know that it wasn't bad enough to have the place condemned. Yet.

Thomas didn't dignify that with a response. He checked the road behind us in his mirror, scanning for any cars that could be tailing us. He'd done it so often in the hour I'd been conscious that I'd begun to do it too. There were a few cars behind us, but the rural shortcut he was taking us on meant we'd largely avoided traffic. He hadn't said much in the meantime, letting me sort out the wreckage on my own. There was too much to deal with all at once, so I'd cordoned off the worst of it, walling what I could behind the blocks Lasciel had taught me how to build. I was functional, at least. With more sleep and a meal or two, I would be as close to normal as I was likely to get.

I sighed. 'As good as it gets' was getting old. There was going to be a point where I took a dozen steps forward and didn't immediately have to do a game of hopscotch backward the very next day.

"Alright then. Hit me."

"Don't you want a safe word first?" he drawled.

I glowered. "Not funny."

"It's a little funny," he argued. "Because you'd be into it. If that had just been Hannah back there with a little whip and some cuffs you wouldn't have complained. You'd have liked it even better if I'd been there to watch, not rescue you. But I agree, this isn't the time for that."

Thank God (or maybe Lasciel in this case) for blunted affect. My face couldn't twist into an expression of abject mortification at those words. I knew on a purely academic level that he was a sex demon, but it was still embarrassing to have him pluck every lurid thought and fantasy out of my head. It was like having a friend find the dirty dream entries in your journal or stumble across the sex toys you hid under the bed. No, it was worse than that, really. He'd been standing by idly when I'd been with Lara. When we'd been doing God only knew what.

"Did I have sex with your sister?" I blurted before I could stop myself. "Before all the screaming and sobbing and heart-stopping stuff?"

Thomas chewed his lip. "Define sex."

"Oh dear Lord..."

"I'm not giving you a blow-by-blow if that's what you're asking."

"Ack, no! I just wanted to know if I..." I took a deep breath, forcing myself to slow down. "You know what? Never mind. I'll sort that out later. Did you find Daniel where she said he'd be?"

"Sort of. The Fomor were meeting in Guadalupe, but she'd set me up to be shot in the back by her lackey. Ray something. I escaped, obviously. His weapons and armor are in the trunk with mine. With yours too. I confiscated most of it so you wouldn't get ideas."

I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes. It was the closest I'd get to outwardly showing the regret that twinged through my chest.

"Ray Underwood," I sighed. "I remember him. He was a hitter for the Fellowship, and he had a fling with Hannah. It didn't go anywhere for the same reasons I couldn't be with Nixon. Too dangerous. He wasn't a bad guy. You know, for a mercenary. Do I want to know what you did to him?"

"No."

I thought about asking anyway and then decided against it. Ray had tried to kill my friend, and that was what mattered. Dead or mentally eviscerated, he'd still gotten what was coming to him. So I settled for a flat, "So you found Daniel. Is he still alive?"

"Yes."

The answer was clipped and underlined with tension that made my shoulders tense. It wasn't so much the feeling. For once I was blessedly free of others and only subject to my own inner turmoil. It was the tone. I didn't have to know Thomas well to read between the lines.

"Is he...insane?"

Thomas' lips thinned into an unhappy line. "It's hard to tell. Someone has definitely gotten into his head. It seems to be a Carpenter family pastime. Eight Fomor Servitors brought him to a mass grave on former Red Court land. He started raising the dead. I don't know how many, because Ray shot me. I had to cut and run before the Fomor could catch up. And I still didn't even manage that. They've been tailing me for two days. I think I finally lost them, but if someone starts shooting, you know why."

I sank even lower in my seat, burying my face in my hands. Damn Lasciel. Damn Lara. Damn Peabody's stupid programming. I should have been there sooner. I could have stopped this.

"Do you know where they're heading?"

"The Amistad Dam," Thomas said.

"You sound sure about that."

"Lara's people have been tracking the situation and intercepting them where they can. She kept her sphere of influence small before the Red Court fell. A city councilman here, a governor there. She's been expanding that influence rapidly, but she doesn't have many connections in Mexico. The White Council is stretched thin trying to protect their own strongholds from Fomor attack, so they're not going to have the resources to respond to a full-scale zombie assault. Forget about sending mortal authorities up against them. Every cop that becomes a corpse is drafted into the undead army. That's happening already. Small towns were overrun, their people killed, and then incorporated into the horde. It's about three thousand strong now. The bloodshed is keeping the whole thing going, or Daniel would have run out of steam by now. He's good, but not thousands of zombies good. It's like your kinetic energy spells, but messier."

My stomach performed a sudden and violent barrel roll. Villages overrun with zombies. How many people had died? Hundreds? Thousands? My brother, the mass murderer. It was almost too horrific to contemplate.

"Why the dam?"

Thomas gave me a level look. "Amistad is a major embankment dam that sits between border towns in Texas and Mexico. That's hundreds of thousands of people between the two. It's responsible for flood control, irrigation, and hydropower generation. You can't think of any reason the Fomor would want it to come down?"

Oh God. I was going to be sick. Put like that, it was hard not to see exactly what the Fomor were planning.

"The flooding will result in the deaths of thousands from the get-go," I whispered. "And even those who survive are going to be displaced. Lots of opportunities to snatch victims, sow distrust between nations, and impose their own version of martial law using Daniel as an enforcer. Not to mention whatever they have in the water will get loose."

"Exactly."

"So what do we do? You're Hungry and I'm completely shot. I don't think I could fight a dozen zombies, let alone thousands. But then again, if we don't, who will?"

He nodded. "I've got some stuff in the back. Some of it's Harry's and some of it was on loan from your girlfriend back there, via Ray. Some kind of fire bomb, mostly. I think they'll come in useful. We're both going to eat, sleep, and then we'll be heading to Reynosa. Lara will have a Black Hawk waiting at an airstrip there."

"To airdrop into a swarm of zombies and deranged Fomor groupies?"

"Yep."

"Fun," I muttered, reclining the seat until I was almost horizontal. "I can't wait."