Never the Twain by Lianne Burwell Carpe Noctem Book Three Chapter Eight ac stared down at the body lying at his feet, his chest heaving, even though he wasn't drawing in any air. The last few minutes were still pretty hazy, tinted red with blood. He easily remembered leaving the Agency on foot after the confrontation with Dobrinsky. He knew that under the circumstances, driving wasn't a good idea. Instead, he'd run. Run until he actually started to sweat. Run until he'd finally managed to leave the anger and fear behind, at least for the moment. Then he'd slowed down and taken in his surroundings, only to find himself in one of the worst areas of town. The police weren't willing to go there, even in pairs. If they had to respond to a call—not very often, if only because no one in the area would want to get involved with anything, especially the police —they came as a squad. Anyway, it definitely wasn't a place he wanted to be, so he'd headed for the quickest way out. That was when the moron on the ground had decided to try to hold him up with just a knife. Suddenly the would-be mugger groaned, and shifted slightly. Mac shuddered and said a quiet thanks to God—any god—even though he'd been an atheist since being a child alone on the streets of Hong Kong. He'd killed before, but only in self-defense or the line of duty, so to speak. The idea that he might have killed someone just out of anger was... terrifying. The man had moved up to whimpering now, trying unsuccessfully to curl up into a ball. His clothes were stained, and even to Mac's untrained eye, one leg was obviously broken. He was bruised and battered, which went along with the scrapes on Mac's knuckles. The man needed a hospital, but if Mac called for an ambulance, he'd be asked questions he really didn't want to answer. As for taking him to a hospital himself, that was an even worse idea. Fidgeting in place in indecision, he nearly jumped out of his skin when the cell phone he'd forgotten was still in his pocket rang. It sounded obscenely loud in the silent alleyway. He fumbled and nearly dropped the tiny tech toy before finally managing to unfold it and bring it to his ear. "Ramsey," he said, his voice impressively steady, he thought. "You really managed to do it this time, didn't you, Sport?" Mac hissed, and spun around. He couldn't see anyone, but that didn't mean much. The Agency seemed to have eyes everywhere. "Dobrinsky?" This time his voice squeaked. "Leave him. We'll take care of it. Go home, Ramsey." The phone went dead before he could ask just what taking 'care of it' would entail. Maybe that was just as well, since he wasn't sure he wanted to know. It could mean dropping him at a hospital, sending an ambulance, or just slitting his throat. Knowing the Agency, all three were equally likely. And home was sounding better all the time. If nothing else, the fight had drained away the last of his anger, leaving him just feeling tired. He wanted to go home and cuddle his lover. As he headed away from the alley and the injured thug who was now moaning continuously, he swallowed hard. The taste in his mouth made his stomach clench, and he twisted just in time to try to empty his stomach against the side of a wall. Even in the dim light, there was no mistaking the dark smears in the tiny amount he did bring up. Blood. Suddenly, the memory of sinking his fangs into his attacker's throat was crystal clear. The taste of that blood, tainted by things he didn't even want to try to identify, was enough to make him heave again, even though nothing came up. He was shaking again. In the time since Kata had sunk her fangs into his neck, the only person he'd fed directly from was Vic. Other than that, he'd stuck to the Agency-supplied baggies. Now, he felt no better than Kata. Was this what he was going to come to think of normal people as: prey and outlets for rage? And what would Vic think? In a weird way, it felt like he'd cheated on the man. Suddenly, he wasn't so eager to head home, but where else could he go? He'd promised. He leaned against the surprisingly cool bricks, uncertain of what to do again. If he went home, Vic would know something was up. The man was surprisingly perceptive, despite his deliberate red-neck act. But if he didn't go home, he'd promised to call Vic, and Vic would know something wrong. Either way, he was screwed. Before he could make a choice, the cell phone rang again. "Ramsey," he said once he had it open again. This time he was a little more hesitant, not even sure that he wanted to be answering. "Ah, good. You're still up," a lightly accented female voice said. Mac frowned, wondering who the hell it could be. The voice wasn't ringing any bells. Before he could ask the obvious question, she continued. "I have that information you wanted, Mr. Ramsey. Well, some of it, at least." Brain cells started firing, finally supplying a name. "Sofia," he said. It had been less than a week since he'd met her briefly, but it felt like a year. "What did you find out about my mother?" "Can you come over? I really would prefer not to do this over the phone." Mac looked at his watch, finally registering the time. "It's not that long till dawn," he said reluctantly. "I can provide you with a safe place for the day." He thought about it for a moment. It gave him an excuse not to go home until he figured out just what he was going to tell Vic. Besides, he really wanted to know what she'd found. "All right. I'll be there as soon as I can find a cab." Vic hung up the phone after he got tired of listening to the dial tone. He stood there, not really looking at anything. The apartment was eerily silent, almost depressingly so. He tried pointing out to himself that it was no different than before Mac had moved in with him after his Embrace—Hell, even while they were engaged, LiAnn had insisted on separate apartments, saying she needed her space —but it didn't help. Mac was so energetic that he seemed to fill the rooms, even asleep. Vic hoped that the Director never got around to retrofitting an apartment for Mac. Thankfully, she didn't seem to be in any rush. Vic stuck one of his favorite CDs in the stereo to try to fill the void and heated a mug of bagged blood. He took it over to the living room and sat down on the couch. The new files that Careena had supplied him with were spread out all over the coffee table. Hopefully that it would provide some distraction, although it wasn't quite the same without someone to bounce ideas off of. He'd also had a few other ideas after getting home, and had made arrangements with Dobrinsky to implement them. Despite his best efforts, his mind kept drifting back to the brief conversation with his partner. The mystery person Mac said was going to track down information on his mother had called and he was going to meet her. He had promised that he had a safe place to hole up for the day, since he wouldn't be home before dawn, then he'd hung up before Vic could ask any questions. That worried Vic. In fact, the whole conversation had. He didn't like the fact that he didn't know where Mac was going or anything about this mystery woman his partner was meeting. A more suspicious man would have been paranoid about his lover meeting with a woman, but Vic wasn't that paranoid. Yet. But Mac had been hiding something. He could tell. After more than three years working together, Vic knew that little note in Mac's voice that said he was covering his ass. He'd been telling the truth, but not everything. And Mac had also hung up before Vic could pass on his bit of news. He picked up the cordless phone and hit redial again while flipping over the page. The phone rang four times, then picked up. "Hi! I'm not here. Like, duh. Hopefully I'm out with some really hot hunk. So anyway, leave a message and I'll get back to you. Or not. Bye!" Vic hit the disconnect button before the answering machine could start the annoying little tune it used instead of the basic beep. He'd already left a message. He'd also tried Jackie's cell phone and paged her twice. There was still no answer. Come to think of it, Jackie's reports all week had been brief, uninformative and not in person. Just that she hadn't found anything definitive, but that she was following a lead. Vic let his head fall back with a groan. Ella Fitzgerald's smoky voice filled the room, but it did nothing to sooth him. One partner missing in China, one incommunicado in Toronto and a third keeping secrets and meeting with mystery women. What the hell was he doing wrong? If one more creep tried to pinch her, she was going to go completely postal, Jackie swore. It was so demeaning. What was she, a piece of meat? On the other hand, there was a guy over at the bar in leather pants that hugged an ass that just begged to be groped. Any other time, she would have been over there, chatting him up. Unfortunately, tonight was not the time for that. Time was something that was in short supply. A quick check of her pager told her that Vic had called. Again. Either something big was going down or he'd finally gotten tired of being blown off. One way or another, she needed something to tell him and soon. But the clubs and bars were about to close, and like every other night, she'd come up empty. No Sanji. No LiAnn. No nothing. Crap. The music's volume dipped and the lights started to blink, a clear signal that everyone should drink up and get the hell out. Since it was the middle of the week, the place was already half empty. Jackie glanced at what was left in her own glass, then pushed it away. It was practically tasteless, like everything other than blood was to her. As well, there wasn't enough left to give her anything approaching a decent buzz, based on what she'd already drunk. Instead, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Maybe if she took her time, she'd get home close enough to dawn to justify not calling Vic until nightfall. Outside, it was the same as it had been the last five nights: hot and humid, with the pavement sweating moisture even though it hadn't rained in weeks/ It was almost September, which meant that the weather should be breaking, but the forecasters were calling for the same thing for at least a couple more weeks. The farmers were in Ottawa, already begging for financial aid, and the experts were predicting high food prices come winter. At least Jackie didn't have to worry about that last one. She glanced around, then headed north on foot instead of flagging down a taxi. Maybe it would giver her time to figure out what she was going to tell Vic that wouldn't make it sound like she'd been wasting her time or gone crazy. She was so distracted by those thoughts that it actually took her a few blocks to realize that she was being followed. She wasn't sure what had alerted her, just that suddenly the hair on the back of her neck was all standing up on end. She had to resist the urge to just spin around to see who it was. The streets were pretty quiet—clubbing had become less popular with each murder—but there were enough people around that her stalker could easily disappear into the crowd. Besides, she would look like an idiot, and she hated that. Instead, she turned east at the next intersection, heading away from the stream of foolhardy youngsters and towards the quieter residential areas of town. Darkened restaurants and boutiques gave way to equally dark houses. Here and there, a single lit window suggested someone with a case of insomnia. Those few lit windows and the hazy light of the nearly full moon low on the horizon were the only illumination she had. If she'd been only human, she would have been nearly blind. Instead, she walked as confidently as if it were high noon, the clicking of her spike heels on the pavement the only sound on the street. Well, almost the only sound. There was something behind her, but it wasn't human. No traffic sounds and no more lit windows. If there was ever a time to stage a confrontation, this was it. Jackie's fangs fully extended and she let her fingernails stretch into talons, even though that meant she was going to have to redo her manicure. A minor annoyance. As ready as she was ever going to be, Jackie spun around... And started laughing. "Hello, kitty, kitty," she said, crouching down and holding out her hand, reverting to her regular appearance. She was a little surprised when instead of hissing and running off like most cats would, this little black cat purred and brushed against her hand before sauntering away with that casual sway that only a cat had. Still chucking to herself, Jackie stood up and continued on her way. She was being a real nervous Nelly if she was jumping over a little kitty cat. Maybe the job was getting to her. Still, it had made a lot of noise for something that small. Halfway down the street, she heard sounds from behind her again, only this time it definitely wasn't a cat. She slowed down, listening carefully. The soft padding sound could have been made by a cat, but only if it was a jungle cat. Certainly, one a lot larger and heavier than the little kitty she'd just been petting. She stopped The sound stopped completely. Silence. Jackie chewed on her lower lip, but didn't turn around. As long as she didn't turn around, she could tell herself that she was still being foolish. Of course, that head in the sand attitude was just as foolish. In the end, it was the very female and very familiar laugh that finally made her turn around. "LiAnn?" Even though dawn was still a little more than an hour, Mac felt exhausted by the time the cab pulled to a stop in front Sofia's house. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was the fact that his body was still absorbing the blood taken from the creep who'd jumped him. He'd dry-heaved several times since then, but his body wasn't letting go of what he'd taken. The front of the house was dark, but he rang the doorbell anyway. He assumed that the woman was still awake, since she was the one who had wanted him to come before morning. After a moment, he heard soft footsteps in the hallway on the other side of the door. The door opened, and Sofia smiled up at him. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't show," she said in that light, exotic accent of hers. Mac shrugged, trying to fight the yawn trying to escape him. "I didn't have my car. It's difficult to get a cab at this hour of the morning." Especially in the area of town he'd been in. He'd had to walk ten blocks just to reach a location where a cab company was willing to pick him up. That walk had given him plenty of time to realize just how much of a fool he was, running away like that instead of sticking with Vic. Vic was probably as worried—not to mention as angry—as he was. He had known LiAnn longer, but Vic had intended to marry her. If he'd thought about it, they could have been there for each other, dealing with this latest Agency-caused stress. But no, he hadn't. Instead he'd fallen back on old, bad habits, and had run away instead. He'd done it many times in the past. With his father, he'd eventually gone home, wherever home might be at that moment. His dad had rarely noticed he'd been gone, and never worried. With the Tangs, when he ran away, underlings had been sent to find him, bringing him back to stand in front of the Old Man like a naughty little boy to answer for his foolishness. Vic, on the other hand, was trusting him to come home, and that gave Mac a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, silly as that was. He supposed that was how you were supposed to feel when you were in love. He'd certainly never felt that way with LiAnn, no matter how much he'd wanted to be in love with her. Suddenly, he wanted to turn around, leave the house, and head home. He wanted to go home to Vic. He even wanted to tell the man everything that had happened after he ran out on the man, although he was a little nervous about the possible consequences. Obviously love played havoc with your common sense. But he didn't do it. Much as he wanted to, he wanted to find out what Sofia had found out about his mother more, so he followed her into the house and to the kitchen he'd been in before. It seemed the only room in the house that was lit, a cheery oasis of light in the dark of the night. "Tea?" she asked, gesturing to a pot steeping on the counter. It smelled wonderful, but Mac was too tired to play human, especially with someone who knew exactly what he was, so he waved off the offer. She gestured for him to sit down while she served up a cup for herself. Mac was starting to feel itchy by the time she joined him at the kitchen table. More and more he was regretting not having gone home. With dawn coming fast, this was going to be the first day he hadn't slept with Vic since his Embrace, and it felt weird. "So what have you found out about my mother that you couldn't tell me over the phone?" he asked. "Before I say anything, have you figured out anything more about the draba?" The question, coming out of left field as it was, threw Mac off. His hand came up to touch the pendant hanging around his neck. "Not really," he said cautiously. "Why?" "Your mother's name was Maria Dzabo. She was, indeed, Gypsy, but she was disowned by her family for marrying a Gajo. Apparently her parents intended for her to marry the son of a friend, but she met your father and ran off with him after only knowing him for a week. Terribly romantic, isn't it?" she said with a sly smile. "If you say so," Mac said with a shrug, although privately he agreed with her. "So I have family out there that I haven't met?" She hesitated. "In a manner of speaking, I guess. They disowned her, struck her name from all family records. As far as they are concerned, she never existed." "So they don't even know that she's dead," Mac said sadly. "So what does that have to do with my pendant?" Sofia didn't say anything. Instead, she headed over to the kitchen counter and picked up something there. Returning to the table, she placed it in front of Mac, then sat down and picked up her mug again. Mac picked up the picture and stared at it. The woman pictured was younger than himself, but her face was very familiar. A slim face, dominated by a pair of large, warm eyes—the picture was black and white, but he knew that they were brown—and a bright smile. Her face was surrounded by a cloud of dark curls. She wore no makeup, but she didn't need to. And the only jewelry she wore was a pendant hanging from a chain around her neck. The same pendant that Mac had clutched in his hand at that very moment. "Hello, Jackie." Jackie nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of the other woman's voice. On the one hand, it was the same voice that she remembered, usually sniping at her for some slight, imagined or real. On the other hand, she couldn't ever remember hearing LiAnn speak quite that way. The husky tone of her voice sent shivers up and down Jackie's spine. And what the woman was wearing! Or maybe she should say what LiAnn wasn't wearing. After a year of being told that she dressed like a slut—and what was wrong with that?—she was shocked to see the normally prim and proper LiAnn wearing... Well, actually it wasn't so much what she was wearing as what she wasn't wearing. LiAnn was wearing a pair of leather shorts and something that seemed to be made up entirely of thin leather straps that just covered enough of her breasts to avoid a charge of public indecency, but just barely. Her hair was slicked back tight to her head, gleaming in the moonlight. The makeup she wore would put a Goth girl to shame. She looked hotter than hell, and that was worrying. "See something you like?" LiAnn almost purred, striking a pose that somehow made her legs seem even longer and her tiny breasts more prominent. Jackie's mouth went dry and she felt a surge of heat between her legs. She'd always considered LiAnn attractive in a prim Victorian sort of way, but she'd never had this urge to fall on her back in a bed with her legs open for the woman before. Hell, if she had to she would even pass on the bed "How long have you been back in town?" she asked casually, trying to cover up her reaction. "Oh, not too long." LiAnn stalked forward, her hips swaying in as feline a way as the cat she'd apparently been a moment earlier. And how the hell had she managed that? "Long enough to know that you're playing with fire," she added, circling around Jackie, trailing a single long fingernail along Jackie's shoulders. "But then, you like playing with fire, don't you?" she said from behind Jackie, then blew a soft puff of air across her ear. Jackie actually whimpered at that and was lost. Khalil left Club Z, oblivious to the laughing club-goers around him. He also ignored the fact that lank locks of hair were hanging down in front of his eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd showered, and he didn't care. All he cared about was finding the woman who haunted his dreams and his every waking moment, and yet remained so completely elusive. His friends were ignoring him. They had tried to tell him to get over it, and he had slammed the door in their faces. They said they were tired of him talking about her, so he stopped talking to them. Instead, he devoted himself completely to his search, ignoring everything else, including the classes that had once seemed so important. And yet, despite all his efforts—growing more and more desperate as time went by—she still remained out of reach. He had questioned every bartender in town until they had started pretending not to see him. The club-goers giggle when he asked them if they'd seen her, and the answer was always no. He was beginning to despair. A familiar sound broke through the cloud of gloom that seemed to have taken permanent residence above his head. When he looked to the side, he was unsurprised to see the raven there, hopping along the roof of a car. The raven had become one of the few constants in his life the last week, other than his hunt. Every night it showed up to mock him, either on the street or outside his bedroom window. And yet, he found himself anticipating its arrival, more and more each night. The raven was the only thing, the only one, who hadn't abandoned him. The bird moved from car to car, flapping its wings just enough to make the jump between vehicles. It kept pace with Khalil that way. Or maybe it was Khalil keeping pace with the bird. He wasn't sure anymore. Suddenly the bird took flight, heading into one of the dark alleys between the neon-lit buildings. Puzzled, Khalil followed, pulled by the unexpected change in behavior. The river of people following the sidewalk parted without comment before him. He stopped in front of one girl, curious, but even though her path swerved to avoid walking into him, she showed no sign of even being aware of him. He hesitated briefly at the mouth of the alley, unsure and not quite willing to take that final step into the darkness. "Khalil." The voice was soft and smooth, and he couldn't see where it came from. Then his eyes widened. Only one woman had ever said his name in that soft but confident purr. He pushed forward and was rewarded with the sight he'd been working towards for the last week. "You!" he breathed, more prayer than statement. "Did you miss me?" she asked teasingly, stepping backwards, deeper into the shadows. Her hips swayed, like a serpent preparing to strike. Mesmerized, he followed. "How could I not?" he said, reaching for her. She seemed to hover, just out of reach. "I've been searching for you ever since that night. Every night I dream of you. Every day I yearn for you." Relief gave wings to his words, and he almost wished he had pen and paper in hand to write them down. "And now, here I am," she said, finally stopping. Her smile flashed bright in the darkness of the alley. Khalil took her in his arms, holding her tight against him. Every curve of her body fit against him as perfectly as he remembered. It was as if they were made for each other. Her skin was smooth and cool against his cheek. Her perfume made him think of dark jungles and exotic temples. "Don't leave me again," he begged shamelessly. Tears prickled in his eyes. "I promise," she purred in his ear. "We will be together, until death do us part." Khalil turned his head, searching for her mouth. Her lips were as sweet as he remembered. His knees were weak by the time she started to nibble her way along his jaw to his throat. An alleyway seemed like the wrong place to be doing this, but he couldn't seemed to find his voice to suggest that they go someplace more private, less... sordid. She nibbled lightly at the sensitive skin below his ear, and he gasped as sparks shot through him. He could feel her smile against his throat as her hand slipped inside his pants. Her other hand tilted his head back for better access. Then he found his voice again, but all he could do was scream. Chapter Nine For a moment, when Mac woke, he had to fight off a feeling of vertigo. The bed he was in was covered with a gingham-print comforter in a pastel color that definitely wasn't his style or Vic's. There were no windows in the tiny room, and the bed was the only piece of furniture, other than the straight-back chair that his folded up clothes were sitting on. His dreams had been disturbed, but he couldn't remember the details. He did remember his mother's face looking down at him with a proud expression, clapping her hands as he did... something. He wasn't sure what. It was after that that the dreams turned dark and muddy, full of shouting voices and violent crashes. Mac sat up, stretched, and scratched at his shoulder. It was probably just the story Sofia had told him, combined with the violent run-in with the mugger. A young gypsy woman, promised to a man she wasn't interested in, eloping with a handsome stranger she'd just met only to have her family turn their backs on her. Like something out of a romance novel. Of course, knowing his dad, she'd gotten the short end of the stick. Nah, that wasn't fair. His dad might have been a conman and a not great father, but he'd loved her. He didn't talk about her often, but Mac remembered a few times when his dad, tongue loosened by liquor, had described her to him. The words he'd used had almost glowed, and the tears in his eyes had been genuine. No, his dad had loved her dearly. Maybe that was why after she died, he never seemed to take anything seriously, least of all his own safety. At least the last time his dad had popped into his life, he'd regained his zest for life, even if he had proved it by sleeping with Mac's boss. Mac glanced at the photo sitting on top of his clothes and wondered where his dad was. He'd received a couple postcards, a Christmas card, all of them without a return address, since his visit to Toronto, but that was it. Maybe the next time they ran into each other he'd sit the old man down and have a long, serious talk with him. Maybe. Of course, considering there'd been an eight year gap between the last two times they'd been together, it could be a decade or more before they were in the same room again. Carefully setting the picture aside, Mac got dressed. The clothes were wrinkled, and in a few places there were stains that that he shied away from examining too closely knowing exactly what had made the rust-colored spots. Finally as presentable as he was going to get, he left the room. The tiny guest room he'd slept in was in the basement of the old house, damp, but reasonably comfortable. It made him wonder just how much contact Sofia had with the world of the Kindred, since not many people put a spare room in the basement. The stair creaked loudly underfoot as he headed up to the kitchen, giving the woman plenty of warning that he was on his way up. He found Sofia sitting in the kitchen, sipping on yet another mug of tea. Outside the window he could see the fading red glow of the sunset. The weather still hadn't broken, and the heat was oppressive. The hair of Sofia's bangs were plastered to her forehead with sweat, and he wondered why she insisted on drinking hot tea instead of something cooler. He also wondered why she didn't invest in an air conditioner, but that was a different matter. "Good evening," she said, smiling over the rim of her mug. "There's a package of blood in the refrigerator. Help yourself." Turning, Mac pulled open the door of the bright yellow appliance. The baggie was right in one of the door shelves. He pulled it out and sniffed it. It was hard to tell through the plastic, but it smelled okay. It also smelled human. He raised an eyebrow. "Mugs are in the upper cabinet behind you. If you prefer it warm, the microwave is over there," she said with a wave. He followed her directions and pulled out a mug stained by years of use. A nip with his teeth punctured the baggie and he poured it into the mug. He decided to forego the microwave though. Out of the plastic, the blood smelled better than good. "I must say, this is the best stocked kitchen I've ever come across," he said lightly, sitting down. "Not exactly," she said, the corner of her mouth quirking up, not missing the implied question. "But I have very good contacts, so I arranged to get you some breakfast while you were asleep." "Thank you." He sipped in silence, after discretely checking to make sure that the blood hadn't been drugged or otherwise tampered with. If it had been, it was too discretely done for him to notice. Then a thought occurred to him. "Did your checking cost you anything? I mean, I can pay you for your time..." She waved him off. "All it cost me was a little time. Do not worry. Besides, it is always good to be on a Prince's good side. By helping you, I do that." Mac's eyes narrowed. "Princes don't like Ravnos," he pointed out, something he'd heard more than once. As well, he knew he'd never mentioned being associated with the Prince of the city. "Unless they work for her," Sofia said, but didn't seem inclined to explain just how she knew that. The hairs on this back of his neck were starting to prickle. He set the mug down. "Well, in that case, I really should be going," he said, standing up, trying not to look as nervous as he suddenly was. Sofia's dark eyes seemed to be laughing. "If you insist," she said, standing up as well. "But before you go, there's one last thing..." Her hand darted out too fast for him to duck, and she had his pendant—draba, she'd called it—held tightly in her fist. Mac shifted slightly, fangs dropping and a low growl in the back of his throat, but she didn't try to yank it away from him. Instead, she closed her eyes and started chanting softly in a language that was vaguely familiar, even though he didn't understand a word. For a moment her hands seemed to glow. Then a shock ran up the leather cord holding the pendant around his neck, rocking him backwards, almost knocking him off his feet. Almost as quickly as she'd grabbed him, Sofia let go and he staggered back a couple steps until he ran into the counter. The pendant fell back against his chest and he hissed. It felt almost burning hot, even through his clothes. Luckily, that quickly faded, and he tucked it back inside his shirt almost protectively once he thought it was safe to touch. "What the hell was that?" he spat. "You need to know what that can do, but it is too drained by time and disuse. I simply... recharged it, so to speak." She looked a little drained herself. Her skin was pale and there was a faint sheen of sweat on her face, although that was probably the heat. Still, Mac kept his distance. He wasn't sure just how far he trusted her anymore. She knew too much, about him and about his boss. After a moment, Sofia seemed to be recovering, and she turned away from him. "I'm expecting visitors in a little bit. You're welcome to stay—" "No thanks," he said quickly. "I need to get going anyway. But thanks for the information." She nodded. "If I learn anything more, I'll call you." "Right." Mac quickly drained the mug, then rinsed it out and set it on the drying rack. All of the sudden, he couldn't wait to get out of there, but it didn't hurt to be polite. As soon as he was done, though, he headed for the door. Sofia accompanied him, but stopped at the door. "Watch to see what the draba does, now that it has new power. Call me if you have any questions." "Yeah, right." Mac waved and headed down the street at a brisk walk. There was a corner store at the end of the street where he could call for a cab. He could have done that at the house, but he was feeling increasingly uneasy. Something was wrong. He had just reached the parking lot of the convenience store and was flipping through the phone book hanging from the pay phone there to find the number for a cab company when his cell phone rang. He let the phone book drop and pulled it out. "Ramsey." "Mac, where are you? We've got another one." The sun went down and Jackie woke in slow stages. For a while, she wasn't even sure just where she was, although she quickly realized that she was home, in her own bed. She shifted over onto her side, and groaned as severely strained and well-used muscles made themselves felt. That was enough of a surprise to make her eyes fly open. She couldn't remember ever being this sore before, even before her change. Not even this sort of sore. Even with Kindred healing, every part of her body was making itself felt, but especially the area between her legs. Shifting again, she heard something roll off the bed and hit the floor, and she had a pretty good idea what it was. Now she remembered the encounter with LiAnn. She also remembered coming back to her apartment with the woman, even though LiAnn had refused to answer any of the questions she'd managed to ask before they'd ended up in bed. Then LiAnn had uncovered Jackie's not so little box of toys, and after that she hadn't had the opportunity to do more than scream. Jackie rolled onto her back and stretched, no longer caring about the aches and pains, a big smile on her face. Oh yeah, she'd screamed all right. Especially after LiAnn had taken that strap-on and used it in every possible way, including a few that Jackie had never heard of before. She'd screamed, and she didn't care who might have heard her. She assumed that the item she'd just heard hit the floor was that well used piece of equipment. She sat up in bed gingerly and looked around. She was alone in the room. "LiAnn?" she called out. Silence answered her. The feeling of sated satisfaction was starting to fade, replaced by a sinking feeling. She left the bedroom to check the rest of the apartment, and wasn't really surprised to find herself alone in the place. She almost might have thought that she'd imagined everything if it weren't for the well-used feeling. In the living room she found a piece of paper addressed to her, folded into precise quarters, sitting at the exact center of her glass coffee table. The paper looked like it was handmade, a mottled green in color, and she could swear that the ink had been applied with a brush. She wondered where LiAnn had found the materials for it, since there was no way that she'd hidden a stationary set in the outfit she'd been wearing. She picked it up and unfolded it. Down one side of the sheet were delicately drawn Chinese characters. She had no idea what they meant. She could always ask Mac for a translation, but she wasn't sure about that. Not yet. The rest of it was, thankfully, in English. "You really should be more careful. You never know what you're inviting in. I'll see you again, when you least expect it." There was no signature. Jackie was frowning at the note when the phone rang. Still running her thumb over the rough texture of the paper, trying to identify what it was made of, she picked up the phone. "Jackie," she said, sniffing the paper. There seemed to be some sort of perfume on it, but she couldn't identify it. Not quite floral. Definitely exotic. "What the hell is going on?" The words, nearly shouted in her ear, made her drop the paper. "Dobrinsky?" "The security system in your apartment isn't responding, you haven't been answering your phone, and an operative with a key couldn't get your door open. What the hell have you been doing?" Jackie recovered the note and set it down next to the phone, shaken. "I don't know. I just woke up." "Nearly two hours after sunset?" Jackie twisted to see the clock in the kitchen only to find that the man was right. It was well past sunset. "I... I don't know what happened," she stammered. "Well, get your ass downtown. We've got another one." Vic pulled up to the curb about three blocks from the crime scene. He would have preferred closer, but he also didn't want to attract undue notice. "Ready?" he asked Mac. Mac finished tucking his shirt tails into his pants. He'd asked Vic to bring him a change of clothes when he picked him up, and had proved himself amazingly flexible by changing in the car while Vic was driving without attracting more than the occasional second glance from people passing by. Of course, it helped that his new car had tinted windows that kept anyone from getting a good look in. Mac hadn't said why he needed a change of clothes, though. The wrinkles were expected, since he'd been wearing them for more than a day, but there were a few stains that made Vic's nose twitch. There was also something else hanging around the man, something electric. The air around nearly crackled with it. Whatever it was, it actually seemed to be interfering with the radio, resulting in only static. Vic had finally given up, shutting it off. "So, what do we know?" Mac asked. "Not much. The kid, Khalil Armen, was a student at U of T taking evening classes during the summer. He's been ditching classes lately. According to what his friends told the police, they haven't seen much of him lately. Apparently he went gaga over some girl. Was even writing poetry about her." Mac nodded. "The arts link. Do we know anything about the girl?" Vic snorted in disgust. "Not really. The cops didn't bother getting a description. The friends never met her, didn't know her name, so they didn't bother asking any further." Mac rolled his eyes. "Even I would know enough to ask them if he'd described the girl to them." "Yeah, but would you really consider a girl to be a suspect if you were a cop?" Vic had to point out. "Of course not. But what if he was with her before he got killed? She might be a witness. She might be a potential victim." "That would have been my take, but not everyone thinks that way," Vic said. What he didn't say was that he wasn't surprised by the lapse. Even back when he'd been a cop, he hadn't exactly been the standard. They headed down the block to the main strip. It was only an hour past sunset, a faint glow still in the western sky, but the neon lights were flashing and the music was blaring. He did notice, though, that the people—mostly in their late teens and early twenties—were walking in even larger groups than before. He also noticed several cops moving along the sidewalks, but he ignored them. The alley where the body had been found was a little way from the main strip. It was still blocked with yellow crime-scene tape. He could have jumped it easily, but the chances of being notices were too high. Instead, they stopped at the mouth of the alley and looked. Mac's nose was wrinkling. They could both smell the slightly rancid tang of dried blood and fear, and underneath it, something else. Something... Vic shook his head. For a moment he smelled something dead. Long dead. But not quite dead. Something definitely not human. "Let's go," he told Mac, heading back towards the strip and the clubs. The police report that the Agency had accessed said that the YooHoo! was the last place Khalil had been seen. They had to pay a cover charge to get it. Once inside, they made their way to the bar. At a club, the people who were going to know everything were the bouncers and the bartenders. The bar was going to be the best place to start. Vic waved over the bartender and ordered them a couple a drinks that they probably wouldn't taste. When the kid—he looked barely old enough to drink the liquor he served—brought them over, Vic showed him his PI license. The kid didn't look impressed. "You know anything about the kid killed last night?" Vic yelled over the din of the music. Next to him, Mac was restraining himself. Mac loved to dance. Vic wasn't about to tell him, though, that he was a pretty lousy dancer. Whatever made him happy. "I don't talk to anyone but the police," the kid said, his jaw sticking out belligerently. "I just want to..." The kid turned his back on him. "Any ideas?" Mac said. "Maybe a bouncer." Mac snorted. "They're probably all under orders not to talk to anyone." "Maybe, but we better try." Unfortunately, the bouncer wasn't any more help. Vic was starting to get frustrated. Finally, he headed for the back hall where the bathrooms were. There, he called Dobrinsky. "You got anything yet, Sport?" were the first words out of Dobrinsky's mouth. "Hello to you too. Nothing yet. We're being stonewalled. I don't suppose the Director has anything to do with a club called the YooHoo?" He winced as he spoke. It was probably the stupidest name he'd ever heard for a club. "As a matter of fact, yes. The owner is Kindred. Give me a couple minutes, and I'll see what I can do." The line went dead, and Vic put the phone away, making a note to recharge it as soon as he got the chance. It was getting a little low. "Kindred owner," he told Mac who was waiting with a curious expression. Mac blinked. "That's convenient. I wonder how many other clubs are connected like that." Vic glanced around. The killings might have thinned the crowds, but there were still plenty ready to go out and party. Night clubs were prime hunting grounds. "Probably quite a few," he said as an over-ripe young woman winked at him. If he'd been inclined, he could have had her in the back alley, his fangs in her neck, before she realized she was in trouble. No wonder a Kindred would own a place like this. They made their way back out to the bar where the bartender continued to ignore them. After a few minutes, a well-dressed man, his bearing almost screaming 'not human,' emerged from a back office and held a quite conversation with the kid, nodding towards Vic and Mac. After he left again, the kid came over, a sour expression on his face. "What do you want to know?" he asked grudgingly. "Khalil Armen was in here last night." The kid rolled his eyes. "Yes, he was." "Was he with anyone?" "Hell, no. He's been making a nuisance of himself the last week, in every few nights, looking for some girl." "Who was she?" The kid shrugged. "Hell if I know. Some chick he met, fucked, then couldn't find again." "Did he describe her?" Vic asked, feeling a little exasperated. "Tall, oriental, knock-out. Like I'd recognize her from that." Vic thought about it for a moment, then pulled a picture of LiAnn out of his pocket. "So she might look like this?" The kid glanced at the picture, and his eyebrows went up. "Maybe. If it is her, he's not the only one looking for her." That caught him off-guard, and he exchanged glances with Mac. "Really? Who else is looking for her?" "Some girl. Short, blonde, really stacked. Talked like an airhead, but who cares when she looks like that?" Vic's eyes narrowed. "Thanks," he said, and slid over a twenty. The kid sneered, but he made the bill disappear quickly. They made their way out of the place quickly. Vic's ears were ringing, and it felt like he was listening to the world through a cotton plug, but the feeling quickly faded. "So," he said to Mac. "We can tentatively connect the new victim to LiAnn or a look-alike." "And Jackie's looking for her too." "Right." Vic pulled out his cell, but the battery light was flashing. "Shit. Can I borrow your phone?" "Sure." Mac pulled his out of his pant pocket and handed it over. Vic dialed Jackie's number from memory. It rang three times, then was picked up. "Hello?" Jackie sounded unusually tentative. "It's Vic. We need to talk." "Ah, I..." "Now, Jackie. About LiAnn." "All right," she said, sounding resigned. "We probably should do it in person. Where do you want me to meet you?" Chapter Ten There was a parking space right behind Vic's car, conveniently enough, and Jackie pulled into it. Vic and Mac were waiting for her, and Vic didn't look happy. He was leaning against the side of his car, his arms folded over his chest and a dark expression on his face. Mac looked pretty grim too. She'd known this moment would be coming, but she'd really hoped to have more to tell him when it came. "Hey guys," she said brightly, getting out of her car. She got along well with Vic, and Mac was kind of like the brother she'd never had, assuming you forgot about little details like the time she'd slept with him. Incest was definitely not her thing. "What's up?" "Other than another death?" Vic said in a calm tone that was setting off her flight instincts. "Um, yeah?" "We asked around at the club that the victim was at last night. He was looking for an oriental woman. When we showed them a picture of LiAnn, the bartender recognized it." Jackie straightened up. "He'd seen LiAnn?" But Vic was shaking his head. "No, but he'd seen a stacked blonde with a picture looking for the same woman. So, Jackie. Why are you looking for LiAnn?" Busted. Jackie sighed, and sat down on the still warm hood of her car. "Because I've seen her." She spent the next ten minutes telling them everything, starting with the sighting of someone she thought was LiAnn long before the killings ever started. She then went on to describe her attempts to locate the woman, the mysterious phone message, the security system failures, the suspicious Sanji, and her run-in with LiAnn the previous night. "You had sex with LiAnn?" Mac said in disbelief, unsurprisingly focusing in on the last part. "The best I've ever had," Jackie teased. And it had been, which was pretty damned weird in itself. Mac seemed to think so too. "But... LiAnn is straight," he protested. "She told me once that two women together was... icky." "Are you sure it was LiAnn?" Vic broke in. Jackie shrugged. "It looked like her, sounded like her, smelled like her. Sort of. I mean, she didn't smell exactly the same, but close enough. But she sure didn't act like her. And what she was wearing—" Jackie waved a hand to fan herself. "I mean, she was dressed totally hot. Leather, and not much of it." "Which really doesn't sound like LiAnn," Mac said, a stunned expression on his face. "Tell me about it," Jackie said. "But I'm sure it was her. Don't ask me to pin down why, but I'm sure." Vic was frowning, but this time he was thinking, not pissed. "But if you saw her for the first time a couple months ago, then she wasn't in the other cities when the killings happened. At least, not the last few." "Unless she's commuting," Mac pointed out. The look that Vic shot him said he wasn't in the mood to joke around. "Fine. Well then, maybe she was in the cities, but the killer followed her." "We've got several of the victims linked to her, possibly sexually," Vic said thoughtfully. "If she didn't kill them," he ignored the protest from Mac, "and someone else did, then that someone is following her, targeting people she encounters." "There was a theory about shape-shifters," Mac said, making Jackie's ear prick up. "Maybe the killer wants to make people think it's LiAnn?" "Stalking and a frame job?" Vic said. "It's a working theory. It's certainly as good as we've got so far. Of course, it still leaves us in the same position: Looking for LiAnn and for the killer." "Hello," Jackie said, raising her hand. "And what about Sanji?" "What about him?" "Well, duh. He's really weird, I don't remember what happened while we were together, although I apparently told him I was a secret agent, he wanted me to go off with him, and no one at the club remembered seeing him with me. It's all just a little too weird for a coincidence," she said. Vic looked a little dubious, and Mac... Jackie stared at Mac. For a moment it looked like he was having a seizure or something. His entire body went stiff and his eyes rolled back in his head. Then the moment passed and he sagged against the side of the car. In fact, he might have hit the ground if Vic hadn't caught him. "You okay, Mac?" Jackie asked, moving forward. Vic was asking pretty much the same thing. "Yeah, I'm fine. And she's right. This Sanji guy is key." "Huh?" Jackie was just as puzzled as Vic by the statement. Mac straightened up, adjusting his clothing. He looked a little pained, but at least he was steady on his feet. Jackie couldn't remember ever having seen the man that shaken for no apparent reason. Hell, even when he did have reason, he tried to keep from showing it. "Please, trust me on this," Mac said to Vic. He was rubbing his collarbone with one hand, like he'd been hit or something. Vic looked hesitant, then nodded. "Fine. Jackie, you go back to the Agency and do up a description of this guy. I think we've gotten to the point where we need more bodies on this. We'll get Dobrinsky to assign a few operatives to go around, see if they can find this Sanji person." He still didn't sound sure, but at least he was going to do it. "What's going on, Mac?" Vic whispered hoarsely to his partner. Mac still looked like a strong breeze could blow him over. "I..." Mac stopped and shook his head. "It's hard to explain." "Will you try?" Vic felt a little guilty about asking, but Mac was behaving very strangely. Of course he wasn't the only one. LiAnn definitely wasn't acting like herself, from the sound of it, and Jackie was looking a little strange too. In a way, he was still in shock at the idea of the Jackie and LiAnn... "I'll do my best." But Mac still sounded hesitant. Vic used Mac's cell phone to call Dobrinsky to ask for the extra manpower. The Director's right hand man was a little reluctant to agree, but the fourth death was upping the pressure. If they were going to find LiAnn or this Sanji, they needed more bodies. As well, there was the other matter, and the answer had been better than he could have hoped for. After he hung up, one thought finally occurred to him. "You slept with LiAnn." Jackie rolled her eyes. "Like, can we get over that? Yes. I did." Vic's eyebrows went up. He could almost swear Jackie was blushing, and Kindred didn't blush. "And from what we know, so did at least three of the victims," he pointed out. Mac, at least, was picking up on what he was saying. "If the killer is going after LiAnn's... um..." He looked as uncomfortable about the idea as Vic was. "Well, that kind of paints a target on Jackie's back, so to speak." The shocked expression on Jackie's face said that she hadn't considered that possibility. "So, what? I'm a target now?" "It's a possibility," Vic told her. She seemed to be thinking it over. Finally she nodded. "Good," she said decisively. "Good?" Mac said, his eyebrows just about hitting his hairline. "You call being next in line for... that," he waved in the rough direction of where the latest victim had been found, "good?" "Yes, I do," she shot back. "Because if nothing else, I can be bait." It wasn't an idea that Vic was comfortable with, but she was right. "Starting as soon as you get back to the Agency, you wear a locator and a wire, twenty-four, seven. Got it?" "Hello. If LiAnn can muck with the Agency security systems, what makes you think those will do any good?" "Maybe they won't, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I mean it, Jackie. No unnecessary risks. Got it?" She looked like she was going to protest, but she finally sighed, and nodded. "All right. No unnecessary risks. I wear the wire. I wear the locator." "And if you get any more phone calls, you let me know. None of this keeping secrets anymore, right?" "Right." "Good. That gives us a backup plan. In the meantime, I had a thought last night. If the killings take place in the alleys where the bodies are found, then why don't we stake them out?" Both Jackie and Mac were looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. Mac was the first one to put the thought into words. "Staking them out would take a lot of people. Really obvious people." "Unless you did it with cameras. I told Dobrinsky to set cameras in every alley in the area. Apparently, they actually made it as far as this particular alley before the kid's body was found, so we might actually have the killing on tape." "Cameras..." Mac muttered to himself, then smacked his forehead. "Why the hell didn't we think of cameras before?" he said a little louder. Vic shrugged. He'd done all his self-recriminating the night before when the idea had occurred to him. What really surprised him was that their camera-happy boss hadn't thought of it first. Of course, the Director was also acting a little strange, when they could find her, that is. The whole bit with Cash showing up, and giving Vic permission, sort of, just to leave, was weird. Sure, she would have known that Vic would say no, but still, it was a risk. And now she was refusing to even see them. In fact, right now, that was his biggest question. Where the hell was the Director? Two men and one woman climbed into their cars and drove away, and McKenzie emerged from the shadows. As soon as he'd heard that another body had been found, he'd known that Mansfield would show up on the scene, so he'd waited. The only thing that surprised him was that he'd had to wait until after dark for the man to show up. He should have expected that, though. Scum only came out at night The woman was a surprise, though. The pretty boy who'd been with Mansfield before was obviously the man's bitch, so why the woman? Of course, the way she'd dressed, she was probably a whore too. He'd heard about the types Mansfield prefer to associate with. He was going to enjoy taking care of both the sluts out. Them first, then Mansfield. McKenzie turned and walked away, heading for his own car. All he needed was the opportunity to strike. And when the time came, he knew a few others who would love to be in on it. Oh, yeah. Mansfield was going down, going down hard. And this time he wasn't going to be going to jail just to get out again. That gleeful thought was so distracting as he walked that he didn't even notice when a piece of shadow detached and followed him. The three of them were clustered around the TV set in one of the media rooms, watching the feed from the security recorders. The image on the screen was black and white, grainy the way that all footage from security cameras tended to be. The angle was also awkward, and Mac distracted himself for a moment by trying to figure out where the camera had been placed. He also couldn't help wondering just who had placed the cameras so quickly if Dobrinsky was bitching and complaining on putting more agents to work canvassing the bars for their two targets. But the mental exercise didn't distract him for long. Vic was still giving him strange looks, and he wasn't sure what to tell the man. His hand snuck up to touch the pendant tucked safely inside his clothing. He wasn't sure what the hell Sofia had done to it, but he was sure it was the cause of what had happened. His skin still twitched at the memory. Vic and Jackie had been arguing over whether or not finding the Sanji guy she'd met was important to the case, when he'd felt like he'd been hit by lightning, or something. He'd barely managed to keep from collapsing. And the shock had been accompanied by a flood of images, short and disjointed, most of them gone before he could even take them in. A few stood out, though. Jackie and LiAnn, Jackie and some Indian looking guy, LiAnn and a kid—their victim, he guessed. And then a final lingering image of the Indian guy, blood dripping from his hands and mouth, eyes glowing an eerie red, bodies at his feet, and something hovering behind him that made Mac think of all the stories he'd ever heard of hell. Mac shuddered at the memory. The man had stared straight at him, then smiled before reaching down and picking up one of the bodies. The kid had turned out to still be alive, and had screamed as he was tossed towards the... thing behind the man and vanished. The guy's face had wavered, first Cash, then Vic, then the Indian face again. Then the man, Sanji for lack of a better name, had walked towards him, his body shifting and twisting until it was LiAnn reaching for him, dragging him towards the vortex. Then Vic had touched him and he had sagged. Jackie and Vic had been hovering over him, looking concerned. All he knew was that this Sanji person was the key, but the last thing he wanted to do was to find him. And he still hadn't a clue what the juiced up pendant had done. Was it a vision of the future? Was it even right? Maybe it was just picking up on Jackie's certainty and translating it. He just didn't know, which was going to make explaining it to Vic tricky. And he wanted to do it alone with the man, since he was going to have to explain everything else to him as well, especially if he was going to beat Dobrinsky to the punch. Hell, he was a little surprised that Dobey hadn't already told Vic— the bastard was always making life hell for him—but Vic would have said something if that was the case. "Okay, here we go." His partner's voice pulled him out of thoughts that were getting darker and darker, drawing his attention back to the screen. There was a figure moving, but it was hard to make out in the shadows. There was something about the way it moved that didn't seem quite right. Then it seemed to... shift. The vaguely human shape became more distinct, and definitely female. "What time is this?" Mac asked. Vic checked the index. "About a half-hour after the clubs closed," he said. Then a stray bit of light from the mouth of the alley fell on the woman, and they all leaned forward. "Okay, it looks like LiAnn, but there's no way she could have made it to where I was after killing the guy," Jackie said. "Shape-shifter," Vic said confidently. For a brief moment, Mac was hit by a wave of vertigo. It wasn't the pendant, or anything like that. Instead, it suddenly hit him that just a year ago, the thought of shape-shifters would have had him rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter. Now, it was just a fact of life. Then the world steadied and he was able to concentrate on the screen again. A little more than a minute after the LiAnn look-alike appeared, someone stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, just barely in the view of the camera. "Our victim?" Jackie asked. "I assume so," was the reply. The newcomer, a young man, probably still a teenager, stepped into the alley. The brief shot of his face before he was out of the light told them that he was Arab. Since the victim's name was Khalil, it seemed pretty likely that it was him. If there were audio pickups, they weren't working, since they could see the kid's mouth moving, but there was no way to tell what he was saying, and the picture wasn't clear enough to get someone to read his lips, especially with his face partially shadowed. But the expression on his face said volumes: Confusion, hope, elation, and more confusion. Whatever the shifter said, it obviously reassured him. A moment later, the kid was in her arms, kissing her passionately. Even knowing that it couldn't be LiAnn—at least, he kept telling himself it wasn't her—it was still weird seeing what looked to be his ex in a clinch with a complete stranger, especially one that was about to end up dead. Hell, it had been weird seeing her in clinches with Vic, and she'd been engaged to the man at the time. Then there was another one of those weird shifts, and Khalil's head fell back, a horrified expression on his face, his mouth open in a silent scream. No one came rushing to see what was wrong, even though he had to be making enough noise to be heard out on the street. Then, thankfully, the boy slumped in a boneless way that implied death. The... thing holding him followed him down. For the next two minutes, they watched as something that looked like their partner calmly dismembered the kid, pausing from time to time to... Ewwww. Finally, she stood again, slowly and very deliberately turned to look at the camera, and smiled. Mac recoiled at the expression on her face. The image was so much like his earlier vision that he was dizzy for a moment. Blood dripped from her mouth, which was twisted into terrible, gleeful expression. It was hard to tell, but her eyes definitely seemed to be glowing, and he didn't want to even try to identify what she was holding in her hand. Then she dropped it, and there was a twisting, almost a vortex, around her. A burst of static obscured the picture and when it cleared, she was gone, although they had a brief glimpse of something feathered disappearing from view. For a moment there was dead silence. "Okay, that was special," Jackie finally said in a shaky voice. "That's one way of putting it," Vic said, sounding almost as off- balance. In a way, it was almost reassuring that the man wasn't as casual about this world of darkness they'd been dropped into as he seemed. "So, you think that was the Sanji guy you told us about?" Vic said, shaking his head as if to clear it. "It is," Mac said, drawing their attention. "How can you be sure?" Jackie asked, more in curiosity than disagreement. Mac chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then turned and rifled through the drawers of the room's one desk. There wasn't a lot to find, but he did finally find a few sheets of paper in the back of one drawer, and a pencil in definite need of sharpening. Art had always been a hobby with him, one that was useful for a thief to develop, and after a couple minutes' work, he handed the sheet over to Jackie. She looked down at the drawing, and flinched. Vic looked over her shoulder, then back at Mac. "What is that?" he asked. "When Jackie was telling us about this Sanji, earlier—You know, when I nearly collapsed?—I saw that." Mac looked around the room, anywhere but at the quick drawing. It was crude, but very definitely recognizable. The image from his vision. "That's him, isn't it?" "It's not exactly a photograph, but yeah, that looks too much like him to be a coincidence." "You saw it?" Vic pressed. Mac glanced around the room, easily picking out the locations where cameras would be hidden. "Later?" he suggested. "Count on it," Vic said ominously, although his expression was concerned. "So, we've got a shape-shifting assassin running around town killing anyone that slept with LiAnn. Only thing is, we aren't any closer to catching him. Her. It. Whatever," Jackie said, her eyes still fixed on the screen. Despite her earlier calm suggestion that she be bait, she looked a little more nervous now. Mac was glad to see that. Based on what they'd seen, she'd have to be crazy not to be nervous. Well, crazier than the rest of her clan, and they tended to be pretty wacko from what he'd heard. "Sanji. LiAnn. We hunt for them. And not just in the clubs. If they aren't human, then they probably need someplace to stay during the day. We need to find that." "Shit, that could be anywhere," Mac said. "It's not like they have to stick to hotels." "Yeah, but we're running out of options, other than waiting for one of them to find us," Vic pointed out. Mac sighed, then frowned. "That might work too. I mean, Sanji's going after LiAnn's... you know." Jackie snorted. "That word isn't going to bite you, you know. Lover. Come on, say it." Mac reached over and smacked her on the shoulder. "Whatever. Anyway, you're not the only one who fits into that category. We split up and go trolling for a few nights. Ask lots of obvious questions, show pictures, and generally try to attract as much attention as possible." "Sounds dangerous," Vic said reluctantly, although he looked like he was considering it. "Of course it's dangerous," Mac said, rolling his eyes, even though his stomach was tying itself into knots. "But the three of us are better prepared to defend ourselves that the next poor shmuck who gets caught up in this." "Earpieces, mics, and tracers," Jackie suggested, almost pleadingly. Vic looked back and forth between them, then finally sighed. "Constant contact," he said in capitulation. "But not until tomorrow night." Mac didn't like that, but Vic was right. Between everything, it was only a few hours until the clubs closed. Not enough time to do much. "So what do we do in the meantime?" he asked. "Check the vic's apartment?" Not that it had done them much good up until now. Vic shook his head. "The cops will be watching it. No point in going tonight. We'd just attract the wrong sort of attention." "McKenzie," Mac said sourly. Vic shuddered lightly, while Jackie just looked confused. "So, what do we do?" "I check the police database to see what they found at the crime scene, while the two of you collaborate on a more detailed drawing of this Sanji person. We'll fax it to the police departments in the other cities there were killings, see if there are any sightings. We'll also send it to the Agency office in Vancouver, have them do some checking," Vic said, glancing at Mac with a wry expression that Mac returned. They'd met for the first time, just after Mac was 'recruited' by the Director, in Vancouver. More to the point, they'd met in LiAnn's apartment, after Mac broke in, and they'd tried to beat the crap out of each other. Mac still wasn't sure why they'd been moved back to Toronto, though. It would have made more sense to keep them in Vancouver, far from Vic's ex-brothers in blue and closer to his and LiAnn's Asian field of expertise. Instead, even though both Vic and LiAnn had been in Vancouver since their respective recruitments, the moment Mac had been added to the team, they'd been shipped west. Almost like they'd been waiting for him. Maybe he'd ask the Director the next time he saw her. She might even answer. In the meantime, if he was going to be doing a portrait, he wanted some better supplies for it, and even after nearly three years he didn't have a clue where the stationary cabinet was in this place. Chapter Eleven Jackie peered over his shoulder and whistled. "Wow. I never knew you were an artist. That's good." Mac pursed his lips as he considered the portrait, then added a bit more shading to the area under the eyes. "Maybe, but the question is, would you recognize Sanji based on it?" Jackie took the art pad—not something he'd expected to find in supplies, but a welcome surprise, along with the collection of art pencils—from him, looked at it closely for a moment, then nodded. "Yep," she said decisively. "De-fi-nite-ly," she added, enunciating each syllable carefully. Then she reached over and smacked him on the shoulder, not very gently either. "So, since when are you Pablo Picasso?" "Please," Mac said in disgust. "Picasso was overrated. And I took art classes as part of my training with the Tangs. Don't want to get fooled by a forgery, after all. I enjoyed them," he added with a shrug "Yeah, well you're really good. Totally a second career if you get out of the secret agent business." "Like that's ever going to happen with her running the place." "Oh, you never know." Something about the way she said that made his eyebrows ride up, but her expression said that he shouldn't bother pursuing it: She wasn't going to talk. Jackie might have a reputation as a blabber-mouth, but the Malkavian knew how to keep a secret. Not exactly standard for her clan. Didn't stop her from making cryptic hints, though. After giving the portrait one last go over, and making a couple final alterations, Mac put the pad face down on a scanner. A minute later, he had a high-resolution image on the screen, ready to be printed out or faxed electronically. He stared at the screen blankly, the eyes of his portrait seeming to glow eerily back at him. The image from the vision he'd had flashed through his mind, making him break out in a sweat. Then he shook it off and saved the file. He printed off a bunch of copies for the agents who would soon be scouring the town—discretely, of course. Then he entered the command to start faxing it, along with Vic's cover letter and a photo of LiAnn, to all the police departments with murder cases they thought were related. "All done," he told the blonde bombshell, leaning back with a tired sigh. Sketches were one thing. Doing a detailed portrait that they both agreed was easily recognizable took time and effort, and the muscles in the back and neck were feeling the strain. "Think it'll do any good?" Jackie blew a lock of hair out of her face, the bright smile fading. "Doubt it. I mean, several months of searching, off and on, and I couldn't find a trace of LiAnn. After the weird stuff started, I started asking about Sanji, and couldn't find anyone who'd seen him, even the bartender who remembered serving me at the bar where I met him. Both of them are turning out to be damn good at covering their tracks. Kinda creepy, in fact." Mac laughed. "Creepy? We drink blood, haunt the night, and you call being good at covering your tracks creepy?" He shook his head. "When the hell did my life get so weird?" he muttered to himself. "Finally sinking in, is it?" she said sympathetically. "What?" "I'm kinda surprised it took so long. Me, I was weirded out about a week after I got turned. Vic, him I don't know about. Didn't see him much while he was training with the Gangrel, so who knows when it hit him. But sooner or later it always does. Some can't handle it, and they go for a walk in the sunlight and poof... Instant bonfire. Others can't handle the blood thing and starve themselves to death. Others just go out of their way to piss off an older Kindred and get themselves killed. You've been handling this pretty good." "So what did you do?" Mac asked, honestly curious. "I mean, I don't even know how you got Embraced in the first place." Jackie sat on the edge of the table with her legs stretched out in front of her. "Not much to say. You guys took me down and sent me to jail, but my lawyer decided to try an insanity plea. I mean, as if," she sneered. Mac wisely didn't say anything. He didn't think that his opinion that the new head of the Janczyk Family had been seriously unhinged would go over well with the woman, even after working together for more than a year. "Anyway," Jackie continued, tossing her long hair over her shoulder, "he got them to send me to a nuthouse to be checked out. One of the night guards thought I showed potential, and she Embraced me. Good thing my rubber room didn't have a window. Two nights later, the Director showed up to offer me a job. Not being totally stupid, I said yes." "And your Sire?" Jackie shrugged. "Not a clue. Never saw her again. I got the same sort of ad-hoc training that you did." They both knew that her Sire was probably dead then, but neither said it. Mac knew, after San Francisco, that if the older Malkavian hadn't gotten permission to Embrace Jackie, her life would have been forfeit. Jackie's life could have been also, but obviously their boss had seen some potential. The computer pinged to let them know that it was done. Mac retrieved his drawing from the scanner, then shut down the machine. "So," he said, balling up the portrait and tossing it at the recycle bin in the corner of the room. "What did you do to get past the weirded out stage?" Jackie shrugged. "Went for a workout at the gym. Went dancing all night. Picked up guys and got laid without thinking once of feeding. Basically did normal things that I did before, and didn't think about the weird stuff. After a few days, the feeling went away." Mac stared at her in disbelief. "That's it? Go out and party until the feeling goes away." "Hey, it works. You just need to remind yourself of all the reasons why you want to stick around. Doesn't have to be the same sort of thing, as long as you do something. Heck, go home with Vic and fuck him blind, then tell yourself that if you want to be doing the same thing in a year, you have to keep going. It's as simple as that. You need a reason to live." Mac thought about it for a few minutes, then nodded slowly. "It makes sense, in a weird sort of way." "Which brings up back full circle," Jackie said with a laugh. Then she sobered up. "But going back to the original question, no, I don't think this is going to do any good. We might find a little evidence of Sanji and LiAnn in the other cities, but it isn't going to do us any good for finding them. If I couldn't find them, I don't even think Dobbie's people are going to get anywhere." "That's kind of what I expected," Mac said, resting his chin on one fist. The more they investigated this case, the less they seemed to have. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that the more they learned, the more they had to face the fact that traditional investigative techniques weren't going to get them anywhere. When one target could fry Agency security systems from a distance, and the other could change shapes and make sure that no one remembered seeing him, the chances that basic legwork would find them... well, Mac didn't put much hope in them, although he wasn't going to tell Vic that. No, their best chances, much as he hated to admit it, was going to be trying to attract this Sanji person's attention. That meant setting someone up as bait. "So, what you going to do now?" he asked casually. Jackie stood up and stretched, checking the clock as she did so. "Too late to do much tonight," she said with a pout. "Besides, we've been going non-stop for more than a week now, and I'm exhausted. I thought I'd just go home, relax a bit, catch up on what's going on in the rest of the world. You know, pretend I have a life. Or unlife." Mac chuckled. "Sounds like an idea to me," he said. Based on the pattern, they had a few days before finding their killer became urgent again. "But don't forget to pick up your wire and locator before you leave," he said, sounding disgustingly adult to his ears. Since when did he get to be the responsible one? Since Vic wasn't around to say it, he told himself wryly. The guilty look on Jackie's face told him that it was a good thing he had. "Okay, okay. Stop one is the toy shop. Then I go home. Happy?" "Delirious," he drawled. "And Jackie?" She stopped at the doorway, but didn't turn around. "Yeah?" "Call before you head out tonight." "Fine," she almost spat out. "Are you through being parental, or can I go?" "Ewwww. That would be gross. And yeah, have fun." She left, but at least she was laughing as she went. Mac slumped back in his seat, staring at the black screen, his mind going deliberately blank. It was a trick he'd picked up from years of martial arts training. It was intended as a way to find inner calm, but right now, it was just a way of avoiding thinking. His eyes drifted shut as he slipped from trance to light doze. Daytime or no daytime, he hadn't slept well at Sofia's place, too aware of being in a strange place and not quite willing to trust it. As his mind drifted, images teased him. Cats fighting over him, a dream he remembered from the trip to San Francisco nearly a year earlier. Then the cats were gone, replaced by Vic and Katya, the Ravnos that had brutally Embraced him. A dream that had been brought by the draba? He opened his eyes and pulled the pendant out. He held it up and examined it carefully from every angle. It looked the same as it always did, a silver color with deep grooves cut into it, dark with something that wasn't enamel, and hadn't come out when he'd cleaned the piece, making a variety of strange patterns that didn't look like anything he'd ever seen. The same thing he always saw when he looked at it. And yet, at the same time, it seemed to sparkle a little brighter in the fluorescent lights. The dark spaces deep in the grooves seemed to absorb the light, while the silver... Mac shook his head, suddenly realizing that he was well on his way to hypnotizing himself. On the other hand, that gave him an idea. If he could have a vision while standing on the street without trying, what if he tried deliberately? A light meditative trance, while deliberately trying to provoke a vision, maybe even a vision of where they could find their killer. It was a crazy idea, but at this point, anything was better than what they had. Maybe he should call Sofia and ask her for advice. "Mac?" The unexpected voice jolted him upright in his seat, and he quickly hung the pendant back in place around his neck. For a moment it was warm against his skin, and even felt like it was vibrating ever so slightly. Then it was cool and inert, the same as ever. Vic was staring at him from the doorway with a puzzled frown on his face. "Yeah?" Mac said, standing up and straightening his clothes. "You okay?" "Just peachy. Why?" Vic's frown deepened. "Well, for one thing, I stood here for five minutes and you never even noticed. You were just staring into space with a blank expression. And you've been acting strange all night." It looked like it was finally time to face the music. "Wanna go for a drive?" Vic's eyebrows scrunched up, then he nodded. Mac took a deep breath and stood up. Mac stayed silent through the drive. Vic was starting to get really worried: Mac was never silent. Vic was starting to get really worried. Mac was really weird. Had been ever since this case had started. Or maybe it was more accurate to say, he'd been acting strange since Cash had shown up, which was pretty close to the same thing. Vic hoped it was just that he was brooding over that, or maybe about LiAnn, but he had a feeling that there was more to it. Mac obviously didn't want to talk anywhere where the Agency might have ears, and Vic didn't really blame him. Sure, they worked for the Agency, but that didn't mean that he trusted them. Sure, the Director seemed to honestly like them, and she treated them better than most Agency employees, but that didn't mean that she would hesitate for a moment to sacrifice them if it was in the best interests of the Agency or her city. And aside from that, she seemed to delight in spying on them, so it was difficult to keep secrets. There was a small park that Vic knew, not too far from downtown. It was too small for most Gangrel, not that there were a lot of them in town. While training Vic for the Director, Moira'd been talking about leaving town with her people. She hadn't liked having the Prince of the city order her around. Having four of her top supporters chased out of town for trying to kill Mac had been the final straw. Two days later, the number of Gangrel in town could practically be counted on one hand, and they tended to stick to the larger green spaces, the ones with wild growth still. Vic parked in the tiny parking lot attached to the park and headed over to the play structure. At three in the morning, the place was empty of course. He sat down on one of the swings and waited for Mac to catch up with him. Mac took the other swing and started pushing back and forth. For a while, the just hung out, silent. A comfortable silence, the sort you could only have with a brother, a partner, the right kind of lover. "I nearly killed someone last night," Mac said softly, breaking through the creak of the chains holding up the swings. It wasn't what Vic had expected to hear. "Who?" Mac shrugged. "I don't know. A mugger who decided that a guy on foot in the wrong area of town was fair game. I don't really remember much. I was kind of in a haze. Then I came to with him looking nearly dead, and..." he stopped, and when Vic looked over, he thought the younger man was going to be ill. "And blood in my mouth," Mac finally choked out. Vic shuddered sympathetically. "That's what you were hiding when called last night?" "Yeah." Mac snorted. "Hell, I almost didn't call 'cause I knew you'd know something was up." "Then why did you?" Vic asked, curious. Mac still wasn't looking at him. "I promised." Then he glanced over briefly, a small smile flickering across his face. "By the time I got to Sofia's, though, I just wanted to go home, tell you everything." Mac wasn't looking at him again. His shoulders were hunched, like he was waiting for a blow. A blow from Vic, physical or otherwise. Vic chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. "What happened to the moron?" he asked. Mac twitched slightly. "I don't know. I was trying to figure out what to do when Dobrinsky called me on my cell-phone and told me to leave, that they'd take care of things. I don't know what they did with him after that. He was moving, but his leg was broken, and he was pretty battered." "I'll ask Dobrinsky," Vic said, although to be honest, he didn't really care what happened to the creep. He should be shocked, and a year ago he might have been, but right now, all he cared was that the man had attacked his lover, so he got what he deserved. Mac seemed a little more upset about it than him. "You aren't disgusted?" Mac asked, sounding surprised. "Hell no! He attacked you, not the other way around. He just picked the wrong person in the wrong mood. Besides, if you hadn't pounded him into the ground, he might have gone after someone else, someone who wouldn't do as good a job defending themselves." "But I fed off him," Mac protested, although he was finally meeting Vic's eyes fully. Vic shrugged. "Mac, what do you think I did during my training?" "I thought... I mean, the Director supplies all those bags..." That made Vic laugh, a little bitterly. "Do you really think Moira would let me get away with that? Gangrels are hunters, she said. I had to hunt down and kill a meal." Now it was his turn to wait for a reaction. Mac's eyes went wide. "What did you do?" Vic grinned, and he knew the expression was nasty. "Let's just say that there's a couple less rapists in the city." "Wow." He was relieved to see that Mac didn't look disgusted. In fact, he looked almost awed. "So, if I killed a rapist, I'm certainly not going to get upset about a mugger. We okay?" Mac shook his head, openly grinning now. "Yeah. I feel like an idiot, though, worrying all night about what you were going to think." "Well, next time, don't worry until after you talk to me. Okay?" "Okay." "Good. Well, now that we're all okay, what the hell was going on earlier? Since when do you have visions?" Mac took a deep breath, then started to explain. Jackie was in a pissy mood as she left the Agency. She hated wearing a wire; she swore she could feel the damned thing buzzing against her skin. And no matter how many times she'd worn one, the surveillance department insisted on treating her like an idiot who didn't have a clue how to look after the tiny electronic devices. Besides, they ruined the line of her blouse. But she'd promised both Vic and Mac, and she was on thin enough ice with Vic at least that she wasn't going to risk not following orders. Thing were definitely getting weirder, though. For one thing, Mac was nearly the last person she would have expected to start having mystic visions—Vic would have been the last person. But Mac... Mac was just so... Mac. Of course, she'd never thought of him as the artist type either, but he was damned good. The portrait he'd done was almost like a photograph of Sanji. Too bad it probably wasn't going to do them any good. And that was why she felt so damned frustrated. They'd been working every night for a couple weeks now, and they weren't much further along than they'd been at the start. Sure, they had a suspect, but he was impossible to find, and probably impossible to stop, the way things were going. Jackie stopped at her car and briefly banged her forehead against the barely cool metal of the roof. It wasn't as good as a brick wall, but it was the best she could come up with at the moment. Then the smell caught her attention. Liquid and metal and the slight odor of rotting flesh. Jackie opened her eyes and looked down, through the car window. "Ewwww!" She didn't have a clue who the guy sitting behind the wheel of her car was, but he was definitely dead. Of course, that was a no-brainer, since he was missing his throat. She looked a little lower, and her nose wrinkled. Okay, he was missing a lot more than just his throat. It was going to take a lot of cleaning to get the blood out of the upholstery. The question, however, was, who was he and what was he doing in her car? Jackie pulled out her cell and dialed Vic's number. She could hear it ringing, and she tapped the toe of her shoe against the pavement impatiently. "Come on, boss man. Answer the damned phone," she muttered to herself. "It won't make a difference if he does," a voice said from right behind her. Jackie whirled around, but before she could react, her cell hit the ground, and she followed it. "What's the matter, lovely lady?" she heard as she blacked out. "Don't you like my present?" The last thing she heard before she completely lost consciousness was Vic's voice calling her from the cell before it was cut off with a crunch. "Jackie? Jackie!" Vic pulled the cell away from his ear and double-checked the display. It did say that it was Jackie's cell that had called him, and the line was open. But he didn't hear anything from the other end. Nothing, that is, except for a faint noise that sounded like... something being dragged? "Shit. I've got a bad feeling about this," he told Mac, heading for the car at a run. Mac drove while Vic kept trying to reach Jackie. By the time they'd reached the car, the connection had gone down and every attempt to call her cell had come back with an error message telling them that her cell was either out of range or not turned on. After this, Vic started dialing different numbers. Unfortunately, Dobrinsky had stopped answering *his* phone, although it did ring. The Director also wasn't taking calls. He finally called the surveillance weenies. "Did Jackie Janczyk get wired?" he said as soon as the phone was picked up, before the person on the other end could get a word in edgewise. "And hello to you to," an irritated voice responded. "Yes she did. Bitch." The last was muttered, and Vic decided to ignore it for the time being. "Well, fire up your equipment and tell me where she is." "What, she get lost on the way home?" The tone in the woman's voice was downright nasty, and Vic found himself rolling his eyes, wondering just what Jackie had done to piss her off. Of course, sometimes it seemed that Jackie did that just by breathing. Talent. And looks, probably. But they didn't have time for that. "Just do it," he said through gritted teeth. "Fine, fine. Sheesh." There was silence for a few moments, other than the clicking of keyboard keys that he could hear easily through the phone. "Well, if she's lost, she did a good job of it. She's out in the parking lot. Shall I send someone to lead her to her car?" The sarcasm almost dripped from her voice. "No thanks," Vic snapped, and turned the phone off. "You heard?" Mac took a corner at speeds that would have gotten them pulled over if it wasn't the wee hours of the morning. Instead, the streets were deserted, and there wasn't a cop around, so he could drive like a maniac if he wanted, just as long as he got them where they were going as fast as possible. Vic wasn't about to complain. "I heard," the younger man said tersely, not taking his eyes off the road or his foot off the gas. It was only a few minutes later that they were screeching into the tiny parking lot outside the Agency office's entrance. There was only one car there — most employees of the organization used public transit and the tunnels that connected the transit system to the Agency's lower levels. It was Jackie's. She and Mac had the same taste in cars, Vic thought to himself. Red and sporty, with no space for more than one passenger. Mac pulled into a spot close to Jackie's car, but not too close, and they got out. Almost immediately, the smell of blood and rotting flesh was overwhelming in the warm night air. "Shit," Mac said, walking towards the car, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Vic took advantage of the fact that he didn't really need to breathe "Oh, yuck," Mac said, looking a little green. Yuck was a good term for it. The dead man behind the wheel of Jackie's car looked like he'd been dead for the better part of a week. Part of that was the heat, but still, the decomposition was too advanced for it to be natural. Especially since they'd spoken with the man only a few days earlier. Vic pulled out the cellphone yet again and hit the speed dial for a number he didn't use much, but which was programmed into all agents' cellphones. "Housekeeping? There's a dead cop on our doorstep. You might want to clean it up." He hung up before the Agency's cover-up staff could protest. They usually dealt with making sure that no one paid to much attention to the Agency's people or equipment. They didn't normally deal with dead bodies, but they didn't have much choice. If he was left for the cops to find, it would attract all the wrong attention. "I gotta say, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Mac said, the dark humor in his voice at odds with the strained expression on his face. Part of Vic agreed with him, but the rest of him was sick at the sight of Detective McKenzie's mutilated body. Between the blood and the decay, it was almost impossible to recognize him, but the size and the suit were right. Ditto for the oversized ring on his pinkie. The only thing was, what the hell was he doing in Jackie's car at the Agency? And where was Jackie? Vic turned, scanning the small lot. Their car and Jackie's were the only ones around, and there was no sign of life. On the ground next to the driver's side of the car was a tiny smear of blood, but it wasn't enough to be a serious wound. He dropped to one knee next to the blood stain and bent down to look under the car. There he found a jumble of items, and he fished them out. Jackie's purse. A crushed cellphone. A mess of wires that was obviously the equipment Jackie was *supposed* to be wearing so that they didn't lose her. It hadn't done any good. "Why kill McKenzie?" Mac asked, still staring at the car. "Who knows," Vic replied, standing up again. Outwardly, at least, he tried to maintain his calm. "Maybe he got too close." "Then why dump him in Jackie's car? It doesn't make any sense!" A small group was emerging from the Agency's doors, and Vic pulled Mac away from the car. The items he had found, he stuffed into Jackie's purse to bring with them. "Do you think it was Sanji?" he asked. Mac looked at him like he had grown two heads. "What do you think?" Mac said, each word cut off sharply as it came out of his mouth. "Exactly what you think. He grabbed Jackie and left McKenzie. That means McKenzie's body is probably a warning. He's been watching us. He probably saw the confrontation outside of the Ceramic Arts co-op." "The killer was *watching* us?" Mac said, swallowing hard. "I don't think I like that idea." "You and me both," Vic muttered, leaning against his car while the housekeeping team quickly and efficiently removed the body from the car and took it away. The car itself was probably going to end up at the bottom of Lake Ontario, well out from shore. McKenzie would no doubt go in the books at the PD as a missing person, case never solved. The only real worry was that McKenzie might have told someone about talking to Mac and Vic. That could make them suspects, which would be a pain in the ass. "So now what? We have to find Jackie!" Mac took a deep breath. "Shit. I mean, we knew she was a target, but it was supposed to be a week between victims. What changed things?" "I don't know," Vic said, staring into the distance, suddenly wishing for a cigarette to calm his nerves, even though he hadn't smoked since LiAnn had insisted that he lose the disgusting habit. Then he straightened up. "But we better figure out fast. Only problem is, I'm all out of ideas." Mac was silent for a moment, then elbowed him. "I've got one, but it's a long shot. Let's go." Mac drove quickly, heading for the house he'd only been to twice. The streets were nearly dead, only an hour before sunrise, but it was an eerie feeling, like the world was holding its breath. He didn't really believe that they were going to find Jackie before sunrise drove them inside, and Vic knew it too, but they had to hope that the change in pattern meant that they had time. Otherwise, they were going to wake up to find out that her body had been dumped in an alleyway, assuming that it didn't end up a pile of dust from sun exposure. His stomach turned at the thought, and he pushed any images of Jackie being dead aside. Think positive, he told himself. Sofia's house was dark when they arrived, but it had been that way when he'd arrived the previous night. Any lights in the kitchen wouldn't be visible from the front of the house anyway. He pulled up to the curb and headed for the door at a run. Vic caught up with him as he knocked on the door. There was no answer. After a moment, he knocked a little louder. No matter how much he strained, he couldn't hear any indication of movement inside. "Damn," he muttered to himself, pulling out his wallet. Tucked into a hidden pocket were his lock picks. He extracted them carefully and used them to get the door open. Surprisingly, there were no horrified comments or demands for explanations from Vic. Vic had definitely loosened up since they'd first met. Inside, it was pitch black. He tried the light-switch, but either there was no power or there were no light bulbs in the fixtures. He had a bad feeling about this. He headed for the kitchen. The room was exactly as he remembered, but again, the light switch didn't work. The skin on the back of his neck was starting to crawl as he opened cupboards. He found all the dishes that had been there that morning, and the now dead fridge was stocked with food, already starting to turn in the heat. "Mac, all the rooms are empty, full of dust, and there's no one around. Why are we here?" Vic said, appearing at the doorway. Ignoring him for the moment, Mac headed for the basement. A quick check, impossible without Kindred night-vision, found the room he'd spent the day in, exactly as he remembered but smelling musty. He hadn't noticed the smell before. Mac ran his fingers through his hair, trying to order his thoughts. Then he headed back upstairs. "Sun's going to be up in just over half an hour," Vic said. "We better get going." Mac nodded silently and followed him back out to the car, letting Vic get behind the wheel this time. They drove silently, well aware of the several clocks ticking. Sunrise. Jackie. The police potentially coming after them when they realized McKenzie had vanished. All of these things were hanging over their heads. The morning lassitude was already starting to affect him by the time Vic pulled into his parking spot outside their building. Mac could barely find the energy to get inside, but they made it to their apartment before the sun came up. They fed quickly from the blood supply in the fridge, then undressed— Mac needed Vic's help to finish—and climbed into bed. "So why were we at that house?" Vic asked. "Sofia's place. Remember she boosted the pendant?" Mac said sleepily, tugging at the pendant that he'd left hanging around his neck, pretty sure that he'd told Vic about that along with everything else. "Yeah?" "'S giving me visions. Thought maybe could get the right vision. Where Jackie is. Sanji. LiAnn. We aren't going to stop this without help. But don't know how to control it. Thought she might." He wasn't sure how coherent he was, but Vic nodded. "We'll worry about that tonight. Go to sleep." He sounded like he was humoring Mac, which made Mac frown. "Gonna try to dream. Dreamt you fighting Kata in Frisco." "Go to sleep, Mac," Vic said, kissing his forehead. Mac pressed against his lover seeking full body contact, the pendant pressed between them, and let the sunlight outside lull him into unconsciousness. Jackie moaned softly as the darkness slowly receded. She had a pounding headache, and every muscle in her body was pins and needles. She tried to move, and that small motion send shockwaves up and down her spine. Gasping, she went limp again. "Hello, Jackie." The voice was familiar, and when she forced open crusty eyes, she was somehow unsurprised to see Sanji crouched next to her, looking down. She opened her mouth, already planning her words carefully to try and defuse the situation, but all that came out was a strangled sound. She swallowed and tried again. "Where am I?" she croaked through a dry throat. "My home," Sanji said. He tucked a hand under her and levered her up into a seated position. She bit her lip to keep from letting him know just how much that hurt, but the small smile on his face told her that he knew *exactly* what she was feeling. "Or perhaps I should say, my home away from home, since I have no intention of being in this city any longer than necessary." The prickling feeling was already starting to fade, although the headache didn't, and after a moment she was on her feet, although she was leaning heavily on the man. He supported her across the room and sat her on a straight backed chair. Feeling better, she was finally able to take in her surroundings, and what she saw didn't reassure her. The room they were in looked like it had been through an inferno, literally. The walls were stained with soot, and the wallpaper was hanging in long strips, stained by water. The floor was missing in places, and the lingering scent of smoke made her nose twitch. She wanted to sneeze, but held it in, even though she felt like her head was going to explode, not wanting to show anything that might be considered a weakness in front of the other man. "Better?" Sanji asked, standing next to her, stroking her head. Remembering Mac's sketch, she had to fight to keep from flinching. He was as handsome as she remembered, but all she could see was blood dripping from his hands. "A bit," she said reluctantly. "What happened?" She remembered talking with Mac, then getting outfitted with electronic surveillance equipment, although a discrete check told her that the wires were gone, so no one was going to be using them to track her. Then... She frowned. She was heading home, since it was too close to dawn to actually do anything. She'd reached her car and... Her eyes went wide. "There was a dead body in my car!" she said. Damnit, she'd liked that car, but there was no way she was ever getting into it again. Even if they ripped out the entire interior and complete redid it, she wasn't going to have anything to do with it. "I was doing you a favor," Sanji said, smiling, and for a moment she had the impression of pointed teeth. Not fangs, like a vampire, but needle-like. Shark-like. She swallowed hard and tried not to twist in her seat as the man circled around her. Shark metaphors were not good right now. "A favor?" "When you met with the two pretty boys, earlier, he was watching you, all full of malice. I took care of him before he could cause you trouble. Wasn't that nice of me?" Chills were running through her, despite the heat. He sounded like he actually expected her to be grateful. "Yeah, very nice. Who the hell was he?" "Does it matter?" "I suppose not," she replied, biting the inside of her cheek. "So where have you been? I've been looking for you." "I know." He smiled again, this time without showing teeth, thankfully. He slid around behind her, and this time she twisted, trying to keep him in view. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, and the air seemed to crackle. "Anticipation makes the experience more... pleasurable, does it not?" His breath was hot against her cheek, and smelled faintly of... Well, she wasn't sure what it smelled of, just that it made her stomach clench, and not in a good way. Not the way LiAnn had made her stomach clench the night before. "If you say so," she said cautiously. Sanji laughed. "So careful. So beautiful." He stroked her hair ever so carefully, and she twitched with the need to jerk away. "Normally I would have nothing to do with your kind, but for you, I might make an exception." "My kind? What, you don't like blondes?" She tossed her hair back over her shoulders, and he laughed. "Oh, come now. Do you think I didn't know what you are, drinker of blood? And yet, you are tempting. Perhaps my master will let me keep you when I return to his realm." "Master?" she asked, trying to keep cool. If she kept her head, he might tell her more. Sanji's eyes seemed to glow. "The greatest of the lords. The one who saved me. The one who sent me. I do his bidding in everything. And none will stop me from completing my task." He stroked her cheek gently, and this time she did jerk away. "What, am I so repulsive? That's not what you thought before. Or perhaps you prefer..." He straightened, and his entire body seemed to shimmer. A moment later, Sanji was gone and LiAnn stood in his place. At least it looked like LiAnn, but the glow in her eyes was the same as Sanji's, and Jackie swallowed hard. Was he suggesting that *he* was the one she'd been with the previous night? She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Sanji, in LiAnn's form, moved around and straddled her lap. He... she... it settled down, hands on Jackie's shoulder, and leaned down until their lips were almost touching. The smell was even stronger now, and she was certain that no matter what it suggested, it wasn't the one she'd slept with. LiAnn's breath hadn't been anything like that. Sanji grinned, then forced a parody of a kiss on her lips. Jackie reached up to try to push it away, but her hands were quickly pinned to her side, and she had to stay still while it finished the kiss, then ran its tongue along her cheekbone. She shuddered at the wet feeling left behind, like slime or something. Then, suddenly, the weight holding her down was gone, and Sanji stood in front of her again. Jackie was relieved to see it no longer wearing LiAnn's face. "I have things to do, so I will see you later. I recommend you not leave this room. The sun is coming up, night-walker, and the roof of this building is damaged. This room will be safe for you, but that is all I can promise. Besides, where would you go?" Jackie stayed silent as the shapeshifter left the room. An instant later, she was on her feet, prowling the perimeter, checking for any way out. A glance out in the hallway told her that it hadn't been lying about one thing: with the sky beginning to lighten, she could see the holes in what was left of the roof. The building had been gutted by a fire, sometime in the recent past. In fact, the only part of the building that seemed reasonably intact was the room she was in. And since she didn't know where she was, she couldn't risk leaving the place and getting caught out in the sun. Holes in the floor led to a basement, but she wasn't sure she wanted to go down there. She could hear things moving around down there, and she really didn't want to find out what they were. On the other hand, she also didn't want to be a good little girl and wait for Sanji to come back. She found the largest gap in the flooring and checked it. It would be a tight fit, but she could do it. It took a little squeezing, but she made it, although her blouse was going to be a total loss. She'd caught it on a stray splinter, and there was a rip from shoulder to wrist. Damnit, she'd liked that blouse. On the other hand, if sacrificing it got her out of there, she wasn't going to shed a tear. The basement was damp concrete walls and a gravel floor, which made her glad that she was wearing flat shoes instead of her preferred heels. And how old was this place that it didn't have a proper basement? She moved carefully around the space, looking for any exit or hiding space, trying to ignore the sound of scrabbling paws. Some of her brethren liked rats, but as far as she was concerned, that was taking the Vampire myth a little too far. She wasn't *that* crazy. The Nosferatu were welcome to the vermin. The sun was starting to come up, so she didn't have much time to spare. The sky, through a few gaps in the floor above her, was definitely getting brighter. Then, at the far end of the basement she hit possible paydirt. She eyes the gap at the bottom of the wall in distaste. It was barely big enough to let her through, hunched over, and she didn't want to think about what was on the other side, but it was some sort of passage way, and she could hear the sound of water running. Her guess was that it led to the sewer system or something. From what she could see, the passage had been deliberately made, definitely not natural, but by whom or for what purpose she had no idea. Still, if it was deliberately made, then it had to be passable. At least it had been once, she assumed. That it might not be anymore was something she didn't want to think about. It smelled to high heaven and was pitch black, but she took a deep breath, crouched down and squeezed through. Here went everything. Chapter Twelve Mac drove while Vic kept trying to reach Jackie. By the time they'd reached the car, the connection had gone down and every attempt to call her cell had come back with an error message telling them that her cell was either out of range or not turned on. After this, Vic started dialing different numbers. Unfortunately, Dobrinsky had stopped answering *his* phone, although it did ring. The Director also wasn't taking calls. He finally called the surveillance weenies. "Did Jackie Janczyk get wired?" he said as soon as the phone was picked up, before the person on the other end could get a word in edgewise. "And hello to you to," an irritated voice responded. "Yes she did. Bitch." The last was muttered, and Vic decided to ignore it for the time being. "Well, fire up your equipment and tell me where she is." "What, she get lost on the way home?" The tone in the woman's voice was downright nasty, and Vic found himself rolling his eyes, wondering just what Jackie had done to piss her off. Of course, sometimes it seemed that Jackie did that just by breathing. Talent. And looks, probably. But they didn't have time for that. "Just do it," he said through gritted teeth. "Fine, fine. Sheesh." There was silence for a few moments, other than the clicking of keyboard keys that he could hear easily through the phone. "Well, if she's lost, she did a good job of it. She's out in the parking lot. Shall I send someone to lead her to her car?" The sarcasm almost dripped from her voice. "No thanks," Vic snapped, and turned the phone off. "You heard?" Mac took a corner at speeds that would have gotten them pulled over if it wasn't the wee hours of the morning. Instead, the streets were deserted, and there wasn't a cop around, so he could drive like a maniac if he wanted, just as long as he got them where they were going as fast as possible. Vic wasn't about to complain. "I heard," the younger man said tersely, not taking his eyes off the road or his foot off the gas. It was only a few minutes later that they were screeching into the tiny parking lot outside the Agency office's entrance. There was only one car there—most employees of the organization used public transit and the tunnels that connected the transit system to the Agency's lower levels. It was Jackie's. She and Mac had the same taste in cars, Vic thought to himself. Red and sporty, with no space for more than one passenger. Mac pulled into a spot close to Jackie's car, but not too close, and they got out. Almost immediately, the smell of blood and rotting flesh was overwhelming in the warm night air. "Shit," Mac said, walking towards the car, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Vic took advantage of the fact that he didn't really need to breathe "Oh, yuck," Mac said, looking a little green. Yuck was a good term for it. The dead man behind the wheel of Jackie's car looked like he'd been dead for the better part of a week. Part of that was the heat, but still, the decomposition was too advanced for it to be natural. Especially since they'd spoken with the man only a few days earlier. Vic pulled out the cellphone yet again and hit the speed dial for a number he didn't use much, but which was programmed into all agents' cellphones. "Housekeeping? There's a dead cop on our doorstep. You might want to clean it up." He hung up before the Agency's cover-up staff could protest. They usually dealt with making sure that no one paid to much attention to the Agency's people or equipment. They didn't normally deal with dead bodies, but they didn't have much choice. If he was left for the cops to find, it would attract all the wrong attention. "I gotta say, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Mac said, the dark humor in his voice at odds with the strained expression on his face. Part of Vic agreed with him, but the rest of him was sick at the sight of Detective McKenzie's mutilated body. Between the blood and the decay, it was almost impossible to recognize him, but the size and the suit were right. Ditto for the oversized ring on his pinkie. The only thing was, what the hell was he doing in Jackie's car at the Agency? And where was Jackie? Vic turned, scanning the small lot. Their car and Jackie's were the only ones around, and there was no sign of life. On the ground next to the driver's side of the car was a tiny smear of blood, but it wasn't enough to be a serious wound. He dropped to one knee next to the blood stain and bent down to look under the car. There he found a jumble of items, and he fished them out. Jackie's purse. A crushed cellphone. A mess of wires that was obviously the equipment Jackie was *supposed* to be wearing so that they didn't lose her. It hadn't done any good. "Why kill McKenzie?" Mac asked, still staring at the car. "Who knows," Vic replied, standing up again. Outwardly, at least, he tried to maintain his calm. "Maybe he got too close." "Then why dump him in Jackie's car? It doesn't make any sense!" A small group was emerging from the Agency's doors, and Vic pulled Mac away from the car. The items he had found, he stuffed into Jackie's purse to bring with them. "Do you think it was Sanji?" he asked. Mac looked at him like he had grown two heads. "What do you think?" Mac said, each word cut off sharply as it came out of his mouth. "Exactly what you think. He grabbed Jackie and left McKenzie. That means McKenzie's body is probably a warning. He's been watching us. He probably saw the confrontation outside of the Ceramic Arts co-op." "The killer was *watching* us?" Mac said, swallowing hard. "I don't think I like that idea." "You and me both," Vic muttered, leaning against his car while the housekeeping team quickly and efficiently removed the body from the car and took it away. The car itself was probably going to end up at the bottom of Lake Ontario, well out from shore. McKenzie would no doubt go in the books at the PD as a missing person, case never solved. The only real worry was that McKenzie might have told someone about talking to Mac and Vic. That could make them suspects, which would be a pain in the ass. "So now what? We have to find Jackie!" Mac took a deep breath. "Shit. I mean, we knew she was a target, but it was supposed to be a week between victims. What changed things?" "I don't know," Vic said, staring into the distance, suddenly wishing for a cigarette to calm his nerves, even though he hadn't smoked since LiAnn had insisted that he lose the disgusting habit. Then he straightened up. "But we better figure out fast. Only problem is, I'm all out of ideas." Mac was silent for a moment, then elbowed him. "I've got one, but it's a long shot. Let's go." Mac drove quickly, heading for the house he'd only been to twice. The streets were nearly dead, only an hour before sunrise, but it was an eerie feeling, like the world was holding its breath. He didn't really believe that they were going to find Jackie before sunrise drove them inside, and Vic knew it too, but they had to hope that the change in pattern meant that they had time. Otherwise, they were going to wake up to find out that her body had been dumped in an alleyway, assuming that it didn't end up a pile of dust from sun exposure. His stomach turned at the thought, and he pushed any images of Jackie being dead aside. Think positive, he told himself. Sofia's house was dark when they arrived, but it had been that way when he'd arrived the previous night. Any lights in the kitchen wouldn't be visible from the front of the house anyway. He pulled up to the curb and headed for the door at a run. Vic caught up with him as he knocked on the door. There was no answer. After a moment, he knocked a little louder. No matter how much he strained, he couldn't hear any indication of movement inside. "Damn," he muttered to himself, pulling out his wallet. Tucked into a hidden pocket were his lock picks. He extracted them carefully and used them to get the door open. Surprisingly, there were no horrified comments or demands for explanations from Vic. Vic had definitely loosened up since they'd first met. Inside, it was pitch black. He tried the light-switch, but either there was no power or there were no light bulbs in the fixtures. He had a bad feeling about this. He headed for the kitchen. The room was exactly as he remembered, but again, the light switch didn't work. The skin on the back of his neck was starting to crawl as he opened cupboards. He found all the dishes that had been there that morning, and the now dead fridge was stocked with food, already starting to turn in the heat. "Mac, all the rooms are empty, full of dust, and there's no one around. Why are we here?" Vic said, appearing at the doorway. Ignoring him for the moment, Mac headed for the basement. A quick check, impossible without Kindred night-vision, found the room he'd spent the day in, exactly as he remembered but smelling musty. He hadn't noticed the smell before. Mac ran his fingers through his hair, trying to order his thoughts. Then he headed back upstairs. "Sun's going to be up in just over half an hour," Vic said. "We better get going." Mac nodded silently and followed him back out to the car, letting Vic get behind the wheel this time. They drove silently, well aware of the several clocks ticking. Sunrise. Jackie. The police potentially coming after them when they realized McKenzie had vanished. All of these things were hanging over their heads. The morning lassitude was already starting to affect him by the time Vic pulled into his parking spot outside their building. Mac could barely find the energy to get inside, but they made it to their apartment before the sun came up. They fed quickly from the blood supply in the fridge, then undressed— Mac needed Vic's help to finish—and climbed into bed. "So why were we at that house?" Vic asked. "Sofia's place. Remember she boosted the pendant?" Mac said sleepily, tugging at the pendant that he'd left hanging around his neck, pretty sure that he'd told Vic about that along with everything else. "Yeah?" "'S giving me visions. Thought maybe could get the right vision. Where Jackie is. Sanji. LiAnn. We aren't going to stop this without help. But don't know how to control it. Thought she might." He wasn't sure how coherent he was, but Vic nodded. "We'll worry about that tonight. Go to sleep." He sounded like he was humoring Mac, which made Mac frown. "Gonna try to dream. Dreamt you fighting Kata in Frisco." "Go to sleep, Mac," Vic said, kissing his forehead. Mac pressed against his lover seeking full body contact, the pendant pressed between them, and let the sunlight outside lull him into unconsciousness. Jackie moaned softly as the darkness slowly receded. She had a pounding headache, and every muscle in her body was pins and needles. She tried to move, and that small motion send shockwaves up and down her spine. Gasping, she went limp again. "Hello, Jackie." The voice was familiar, and when she forced open crusty eyes, she was somehow unsurprised to see Sanji crouched next to her, looking down. She opened her mouth, already planning her words carefully to try and defuse the situation, but all that came out was a strangled sound. She swallowed and tried again. "Where am I?" she croaked through a dry throat. "My home," Sanji said. He tucked a hand under her and levered her up into a seated position. She bit her lip to keep from letting him know just how much that hurt, but the small smile on his face told her that he knew *exactly* what she was feeling. "Or perhaps I should say, my home away from home, since I have no intention of being in this city any longer than necessary." The prickling feeling was already starting to fade, although the headache didn't, and after a moment she was on her feet, although she was leaning heavily on the man. He supported her across the room and sat her on a straight backed chair. Feeling better, she was finally able to take in her surroundings, and what she saw didn't reassure her. The room they were in looked like it had been through an inferno, literally. The walls were stained with soot, and the wallpaper was hanging in long strips, stained by water. The floor was missing in places, and the lingering scent of smoke made her nose twitch. She wanted to sneeze, but held it in, even though she felt like her head was going to explode, not wanting to show anything that might be considered a weakness in front of the other man. "Better?" Sanji asked, standing next to her, stroking her head. Remembering Mac's sketch, she had to fight to keep from flinching. He was as handsome as she remembered, but all she could see was blood dripping from his hands. "A bit," she said reluctantly. "What happened?" She remembered talking with Mac, then getting outfitted with electronic surveillance equipment, although a discrete check told her that the wires were gone, so no one was going to be using them to track her. Then... She frowned. She was heading home, since it was too close to dawn to actually do anything. She'd reached her car and... Her eyes went wide. "There was a dead body in my car!" she said. Damnit, she'd liked that car, but there was no way she was ever getting into it again. Even if they ripped out the entire interior and complete redid it, she wasn't going to have anything to do with it. "I was doing you a favor," Sanji said, smiling, and for a moment she had the impression of pointed teeth. Not fangs, like a vampire, but needle-like. Shark-like. She swallowed hard and tried not to twist in her seat as the man circled around her. Shark metaphors were not good right now. "A favor?" "When you met with the two pretty boys, earlier, he was watching you, all full of malice. I took care of him before he could cause you trouble. Wasn't that nice of me?" Chills were running through her, despite the heat. He sounded like he actually expected her to be grateful. "Yeah, very nice. Who the hell was he?" "Does it matter?" "I suppose not," she replied, biting the inside of her cheek. "So where have you been? I've been looking for you." "I know." He smiled again, this time without showing teeth, thankfully. He slid around behind her, and this time she twisted, trying to keep him in view. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, and the air seemed to crackle. "Anticipation makes the experience more... pleasurable, does it not?" His breath was hot against her cheek, and smelled faintly of... Well, she wasn't sure what it smelled of, just that it made her stomach clench, and not in a good way. Not the way LiAnn had made her stomach clench the night before. "If you say so," she said cautiously. Sanji laughed. "So careful. So beautiful." He stroked her hair ever so carefully, and she twitched with the need to jerk away. "Normally I would have nothing to do with your kind, but for you, I might make an exception." "My kind? What, you don't like blondes?" She tossed her hair back over her shoulders, and he laughed. "Oh, come now. Do you think I didn't know what you are, drinker of blood? And yet, you are tempting. Perhaps my master will let me keep you when I return to his realm." "Master?" she asked, trying to keep cool. If she kept her head, he might tell her more. Sanji's eyes seemed to glow. "The greatest of the lords. The one who saved me. The one who sent me. I do his bidding in everything. And none will stop me from completing my task." He stroked her cheek gently, and this time she did jerk away. "What, am I so repulsive? That's not what you thought before. Or perhaps you prefer..." He straightened, and his entire body seemed to shimmer. A moment later, Sanji was gone and LiAnn stood in his place. At least it looked like LiAnn, but the glow in her eyes was the same as Sanji's, and Jackie swallowed hard. Was he suggesting that *he* was the one she'd been with the previous night? She shook her head, refusing to believe it. Sanji, in LiAnn's form, moved around and straddled her lap. He... she... it settled down, hands on Jackie's shoulder, and leaned down until their lips were almost touching. The smell was even stronger now, and she was certain that no matter what it suggested, it wasn't the one she'd slept with. LiAnn's breath hadn't been anything like that. Sanji grinned, then forced a parody of a kiss on her lips. Jackie reached up to try to push it away, but her hands were quickly pinned to her side, and she had to stay still while it finished the kiss, then ran its tongue along her cheekbone. She shuddered at the wet feeling left behind, like slime or something. Then, suddenly, the weight holding her down was gone, and Sanji stood in front of her again. Jackie was relieved to see it no longer wearing LiAnn's face. "I have things to do, so I will see you later. I recommend you not leave this room. The sun is coming up, night-walker, and the roof of this building is damaged. This room will be safe for you, but that is all I can promise. Besides, where would you go?" Jackie stayed silent as the shapeshifter left the room. An instant later, she was on her feet, prowling the perimeter, checking for any way out. A glance out in the hallway told her that it hadn't been lying about one thing: with the sky beginning to lighten, she could see the holes in what was left of the roof. The building had been gutted by a fire, sometime in the recent past. In fact, the only part of the building that seemed reasonably intact was the room she was in. And since she didn't know where she was, she couldn't risk leaving the place and getting caught out in the sun. Holes in the floor led to a basement, but she wasn't sure she wanted to go down there. She could hear things moving around down there, and she really didn't want to find out what they were. On the other hand, she also didn't want to be a good little girl and wait for Sanji to come back. She found the largest gap in the flooring and checked it. It would be a tight fit, but she could do it. It took a little squeezing, but she made it, although her blouse was going to be a total loss. She'd caught it on a stray splinter, and there was a rip from shoulder to wrist. Damnit, she'd liked that blouse. On the other hand, if sacrificing it got her out of there, she wasn't going to shed a tear. The basement was damp concrete walls and a gravel floor, which made her glad that she was wearing flat shoes instead of her preferred heels. And how old was this place that it didn't have a proper basement? She moved carefully around the space, looking for any exit or hiding space, trying to ignore the sound of scrabbling paws. Some of her brethren liked rats, but as far as she was concerned, that was taking the Vampire myth a little too far. She wasn't *that* crazy. The Nosferatu were welcome to the vermin. The sun was starting to come up, so she didn't have much time to spare. The sky, through a few gaps in the floor above her, was definitely getting brighter. Then, at the far end of the basement she hit possible paydirt. She eyes the gap at the bottom of the wall in distaste. It was barely big enough to let her through, hunched over, and she didn't want to think about what was on the other side, but it was some sort of passage way, and she could hear the sound of water running. Her guess was that it led to the sewer system or something. From what she could see, the passage had been deliberately made, definitely not natural, but by whom or for what purpose she had no idea. Still, if it was deliberately made, then it had to be passable. At least it had been once, she assumed. That it might not be anymore was something she didn't want to think about. It smelled to high heaven and was pitch black, but she took a deep breath, crouched down and squeezed through. Here went everything. Book III: Never the Twain continued lburwell@adan.kingston.net

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