Rip swung the muzzle of his Tommy gun around and squeezed the trigger, spraying the doorway with bullets.

The trooper who collapsed in the circle chose that moment to run for the door, and he went down in a hail of bullets.

Rip saw others behind Dar Caul duck and cover, but the man himself simply threw his arm across his face and stormed into the room, pulling out a Mauser broomstick.

Rip jogged to the right, trying to find a better angle, while others in the room fired on Dar Caul. The broomstick swung wide, spewing bullets. Rip noted the Dar aimed away from the machinery. His sweeping fire had the desired effect, though, making all the team members seek cover and stop shooting for a moment.

“Get in here!” Caul yelled over his shoulder.

But Rip had maneuvered to a very good angle, now. He pulled out a stick grenade and twisted the top, then lobbed it neatly behind Dar Caul and out into the hallway. The resulting explosion knocked down everybody he could he see out there, and made Caul stumble forward a bit.

Rip yelled, “Aim for the eyes! Ladies, go get him!”

Everyone aimed for the Dar’s head. Liza and Hilda misted and rushed forward, black tendrils of smoke streaking across the room.

They both appeared suddenly, within arm’s length of Dar Caul, gasping.

“He is wearing silver!” Hilda said.

“Vampires are pathetic,” Caul said, striking her across the face with his free arm.

Rip squeezed off a single round, trying to get around the other arm protecting his face. The sisters disapparated, their black mists pulling back.

The twang of a crossbow cut through the gunfire, followed by a resounding thunk!

Everyone stopped shooting and stared at a four-inch bolt suddenly sticking out of Caul’s forearm.

He glared at it in rage for a moment, then searched the room for the culprit. He found Gigi staring back at him, wide-eyed.

“An enhanced crossbow bolt?” Caul snarled at her. “Nice try.”

He aimed the Mauser at her and squeezed the trigger, emptying the magazine. Gigi dove for the floor and rolled toward the tabulator.

Caul swapped out magazines, dropping the empty on the floor.

He yelled over his shoulder, “Get in here!” again.

A gaggle of troopers, those standing far enough from the blast radius to still be able to walk, piled through the door with guns ready.

“Back off, Caul. Or we blow everything up.”

All motion in the room stopped. Rip suddenly felt uncomfortable as every eye focused on him. But he remained firm. He held a stick grenade, the Tommy gun strapped over his shoulder at the moment.

“I will shoot you where you stand before you can get that bomb off.”

“Maybe so. But everybody else has dynamite and grenades, too. You can’t shoot us all before one of us blows all this machinery to smithereens.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Caul backed up to the door, still holding a hand over his eyes with the bolt stuck firmly in his forearm. The troopers who straggled in left before him.

“You will not leave here alive!” he said, stepping out in the hall and slamming the door shut.

“Chance, bar that door. Make it where they can’t come in. Twig, go guard the other one. I want to know if anyone comes around the bend on that side. You know they’ll try it.”

Both men nodded and ran to their respective doors.

Rip looked at the others and said, “We’ve only got a few minutes before they try something, then we’re going to have to fight our way out. I suggest we investigate this equipment and then destroy it.”

“Ah, oui,” Marceau said. “I like the idea. But you said . . .”

“I never promised him I wouldn’t.”

“It was implied, mon ami. No matter. The Dar, they are not to be trusted. We will destroy this device, as you say.”

Gigi said, “I can’t understand why my quarrel did not go all the way through him.”

“I think I can answer that,” Rip said. “Just like the crystal in Ethinium enhances Umbrians to be more durable than those of you using the crystal in Paris, the Dar must have one of their own that is incredibly efficient. We’ve been trying to kill that bastard for some time now, and so far we’ve always come up short. He is very hard to put down.”

“I think maybe, before we destroy anything, we should at least try and see what they were doing,” Blair said.

She approached the tabulator and looked at the card tray.

“Look at this. They have multiple different stacks laid on the table. What are the different parameters for each set?”

Gigi walked along the table, picking the top card off each pile. She smiled and headed for the machine.

In English she said, “There’s only one way to find out.”

She flicked the giant U-shaped toggle switch up. The machine came to life, vacuum tubes humming. The resonance transformer crackled with white lightning, and a beam of green light lit up the circle in the middle of the room.

“Are you sure that’s wise, Gigi?” Blair said.

She watched as the other woman fed her stack of cards into the tabulator’s input slot. The machine quickly sucked them in, one by one.

Gigi said, “The trooper, he was fine until we shot him. I think I will be fine, too.”

She walked into the circle and slung her crossbow over a shoulder before winking at Blair.

“I’ll let you know what I see.”

The green light grew stronger, and with a sudden extra pulse of power . . . Gigi turned transparent.