I was willing to bet he was wearing an exploding vest as bulky as his clothes looked.Decisions, life and death decisions, I put one round into the hea... of the man holding the knife at the woman's throat aiming to sever his motor functions. I figured I had 15 seconds at the most to kill the other two before bullets would be coming my way maybe another 5 seconds to deal with the camera man as close as he was.When I directed my attention back to the gunman they were turning my way. They were not. We’re going on to Staggard’s Green, not back to Berg’s Keep. I didn’t get to see the fireworks. Aubrielle was all leaderly and stuff: she went to speak privately with Beckett as soon as we got up. He was professional enough that whatever he had to say didn’t carry loud enough for me to hear. They come back and she tells me we will be going onto the village. I just nod.It’s only the three of us and the driver. The guard who was crawling along with his guts hanging out was dead by the time. Then there was her face in general. It was an ok face, he admitted, butthere was something about the features that were strikingly familiar. Hernose was small but still curved out like his own. Her jawline was angularlike his but more refined. Even that crazed mouth of hers, red lipstickor not, had the same shape as his. It was a softer, more feminine versionof his face.But it was the rest of her that disturbed him. Despite her endowedfeatures, the woman's bone white skin seemed to shimmer. "You're lucky I found you, and that I'm the compassionate type. Drink this, it's fresh."A scent filled his nostrils, raw and red. She was pressing a cup to his lips. He tried to turn away. "Drink!" she said again. "You need it. You're dying. You won't last until dawn." Don't...want," he said, with difficulty.The voices in the dark laughed. Erica's reply was gentle but firm: "Don't be stubborn. You won't save anyone by turning it down." We won't let it go to waste," said one of the voices. There.