In the dead of night, cloaked by the darkness, stood a cabin. Behind its walls, sitting at the kitchen table, sergeant Novik still pondered about what he had recently heard from Ana and Teresa. They briefly described their fight with the vampire who came to subdue them. He ran away, they said. He was injured, but he managed to get away.

"These murders," the sergeant eventually spoke, "are they his attempt to lure you out in the open?"

"No, they're his way to heal a wounded body," Ana replied. "Living blood is a powerful remedy for injured vampires."

Teresa shook her head, defeated. "You should have gone after him when he was still weak."

"And leave you in the state you were? You know I would never do that."

"What was Teresa's state at the time?" Sergeant Novik's eyes traveled from one woman sitting across him, to the other.

Ana looked at her friend with care in her gaze. "It was bad. The poison was spreading through her body, it weakened her significantly."

Sergeant's stare fell to the photos scattered on the kitchen table. For a minute he was silent, then he asked, "Didn't you say that he's killing people because he needs living blood to heals his wounds?" Lifting his head, he looked at Teresa. "You seem to be fine now. How did you heal? Are there going to be more dead bodies uncovered around here?"

Teresa stood up and vigorously shook her head. She walked up to the window, where Daniel stood during the whole conversation. She faced the dark, heavy curtain, without saying anything. Ana was silent as well, but her eyes briefly wandered to Daniel. Novik didn't miss it.

"I was under the impression you don't feed on the living," he remarked.

"We don't," Teresa reassured him.

Daniel didn't like the look on sergeant's face as he observed Teresa and Ana. Feeling the urge to stand in their defense, he moved away from the window, approached the table and said, "It was my idea."

Novik's eyes felt like daggers when he looked at Daniel. Maybe he's looking for the signs of me becoming a vampire, it occurred him, so he added, "I'm still a normal human being. Nothing changed. My fangs are still normal size." To emphasize what he said, he briefly lifted his upper lip with his index finger.

After what felt like half an hour, sergeant Novik finally let his stare drift away from Daniel's face. It found its way back to the photographs of the victims, the latest reasons of his insomnia. As his hands rubbed his tired face, he asked, "How do we stop him? Is it too late? Did he already call for others?"

Teresa walked up to the table, leaned on her palms and said, "No, he didn't. He is not one of the more influential members of our race. If he were, someone would already be here. But he came alone, and the expression on his face when he realized who he discovered... Well, let's just say he was too happy to see us; it's difficult to hide greed. I'm convinced that he stuck around because he hasn't given up the hope of overpowering us by himself and then turning us to our creator."

"Let's hope you're right." Sergeant Novik interlocked his fingers and rested his chin on them. "In that case, we still have the time to take action."

He sat like that for a minute, then he arranged the photos neatly side by side. "There must be something that will help us locate him," he stated. His fingers tapped on the surface of the table as he observed them. "There just doesn't seem to be an obvious connection between the victims."

Three more pairs of eyes joined the sergeant in observing the photographs. Only Daniel's gaze longed to wonder away from the unsettling scenes, and he let it happen.

"The man in this picture," the sergeant said and touched the photo with an index finger, "he was homeless. He stayed near the bus station, had no family. A friendly guy, harmless."

"The second victim," Novik's finger moved to the second photo, "a woman in late fifties. Worked at the newsstand across the church. Left behind a husband and three children, the youngest still in college.

He lifted his eyes. "And now there's another victim. A thirty-one-year-old man, recently married, worked for the local newspaper. As you already know, he was killed in a park across the hospital."

There was no photo of the latest dead body in the sergeant's folder, but there was a map of the town. He lay it on the table and reached into the pocket on his uniform to pull out a pen. He drew a small cross on the map, marking the place of the latest murder. Two crosses were already drawn, indicating the places where two lives extinguished just a short time earlier.

"Three very different locations. Three very different victim profiles. There isn't a connection between them whatsoever," Novik stated.

Neither Ana nor Teresa spoke. Daniel let his gaze fall on the map of the town. A few seconds later, he cleared his throat and said, "But there is a connection between the murder places."

In an instant, all eyes turned to Daniel. To avoid the stares, he hunched over the map of their little town and said, "Look. Bus station – right next to it is the park. Newsstand, church, behind it – the park. Hospital – park is just across the street." As he was speaking, he moved his finger on the map from the first murder scene, to the second, and then third. "If he's like the two of them," he jerked his chin in Teresa and Ana's direction, "then the sunlight bothers him. That means, he has to hide somewhere during the day. My money's on the park."

Ana briefly smiled. "We have to search the park, then."

"You mean we have to search the park," Daniel replied, pointing at himself and sergeant Novik. "You two can't handle the sunlight."

Sergeant Novik stroked his mustache while he was observing Daniel. Ana and Teresa also looked at him intently.

"Why are you all staring at me?" Daniel asked, feeling discomfort. "I'm a smart guy. People just don't seem to notice," he added in a lower tone.

Sergeant nodded his head several times. "He's right. The park would be a logical hiding place."

Daniel turned his attention to Teresa. "What should we be looking for? What would his lair even look like?"

"That's difficult to say," Teresa responded. She stepped to the sergeant, and looked at the map. "Are there any structures in the park?"

The sergeant leaned over the map, but he just shook his head. "Hard to tell. This particular map isn't showing any structure."

"In that case, we're gonna need a bigger map," Daniel stated.

Sergent Novik cast a sideways glance at him before he suggested, "I might assign the task of searching the park to the officers from my precinct."

"And what would you tell them?" Teresa wanted to know. "You can't tell them who they are looking for. It would all be too risky. Suppose they do find his hideaway; they cannot defeat him, they would only make him angry. There's no telling what he might do in such an event."

"I can do it myself. I can search the park," Daniel said, earning himself another set of stares. "I only have one thing planned for tomorrow, and a lot of free time to kill."

Sergeant Novik stroked his moustache again. "I suppose that would be doable. The park isn't vast, and a civilian walking through it shouldn't arouse suspicion."

"But," Daniel was hesitant, "don't people in the town think I'm dead? That I kicked the bucket along with the gang at the factory?"

"No," the sergeant replied. "Your remains weren't found in the charred building. The assumption was, you left town. In a way, that is the truth, isn't it?"

Daniel bowed his head. He was afraid to ask how much the sergeant knew of the misdeeds of Lucio's crew. At the hospital he told him he wouldn't take him to jail because he didn't break any laws, but Daniel sincerely doubted that sergeant Novik considered him a model citizen. So far, he proved to be an insightful man, so Daniel had a hard time believing he didn't know that he was one of Lucio's boys.

"All right," the sergeant broke his train of thoughts, "it's time for me to return to the station. I'll be back in the morning and then we can put this plan into motion." He looked at Teresa and Ana before he asked, "Will he be okay here with you?"

"Of course," Ana said with a slight smile.

"Not a single hair shall fall off his head," Teresa added.

Sergeant Novik pressed his lips together to refrain himself from further comments. Allowing his eyes to encircle them all, he nodded twice and headed out the door. Darkness still kept the cabin in its strong embrace.

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