The landslide of law officials was inevitable after we found the vampire. I expected it, Sibbie expected it, and yet we both groaned with dread when Sibbie's snarling captain told Sib to wait out the storm. As a civilian who had no purpose at the scene, I was relegated to my car, where I sat inside with the windows rolled down, preparing tomorrow's lecture while I listened to the drone of investigative teams tromping in and out of the trees. 

It was strange how tame the afternoon seemed after my hectic morning. I was parked outside an active murder investigation, scribbling on a notecard with a book about cadres and their effect on the socio-economic climes propped open in my lap, and everything felt normal. While I did my work, I didn't have to think about Havik, or that missing girl, or anything else. Everything was quiet. Simple.

My eyes rose from the paper to see the sun setting through the towering trees. The bloody light seemed to set the forest ablaze in autumn colors. I wondered how long my relaxing moment would last.

A sudden clatter at the car's side made me yip with alarm. The door swung open, and Sibbie clamored into the seat, being as silent as possible while she kept her head down.

"Okay, let's go!" 

"What?"

"Go, Grae! Before he changes his mind and calls me back to guard a patch of fungus or something!" 

Comprehension dawned on me, and I snorted with amusement as I set my notes aside and started the car. I pulled out from the line of cruisers jammed onto the roadside and urged us forward before Sibbie's captain could come looking for her. We had to pause for a rookie to lift the police tape stretched across the road—but after that we were free, slipping deeper into the somnolent woods. 

"Thank God," Sibbie exhaled, slouching into the seat. "I wasn't even supposed to work today! But I got called in anyway, of course!" 

They really did overwork my friend at the station. She'd devoted years of her life to the force and to the betterment of official relationships between humans and others, and while she'd been promoted young, her beliefs kept her down and earned the scorn of much of her department. It was unfair.

We drove for a while, cruising in the lonely depths of the woods as Sibbie rested her eyes and I fiddled with the radio. At first, I thought I was on the route that would take us back through Amondale to the highway, circumventing the crime scene and Sibbie's captain, but it some recess of my mind, I must have taken a wrong turn, must have followed a half-thought memory or muscle reaction instead of my planned route, because I suddenly recognized the trail we were on.

The car rolled to a slow stop at the mouth of a gravel drive, and I looked past Sib toward the tired ranch house with white columns on the porch and a pentacle etched on the gable.

Sibbie stirred, peering out the window with a frown. "Isn't that where—?" 

"Yeah," I interrupted as I shifted the car into park, never taking my eyes off the house. It seemed quiet enough, the windows all dark and the drive choked with overgrown weeds. The gutters were bursting with dead leaves and the roof was covered with a thick layer of dried pine needles.

"Do you think he's back in town?" Sib asked. 

I bit my lip. "It'd explain your dead vamps." A part of me wished he was back if only to simplify matters for Sib, but a greater part dreaded what I may find inside. The sun was low enough against the horizon to make exploring in Amondale deadly for a human, but enough light filtered through the trees to dissuade all those who were fanged and bloodthirsty.

I cracked open the car door, the dome light blinking. "Stay here." 

"Will you be alright by yourself?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." It was true, though I couldn't quite shake the urge to jump back into the car and speed off into the night. "I'll just be a minute."

The soft crunch and rattle of gravel and fallen autumn leaves followed me from the parked vehicle up the house's drive. I fidgeted with my glasses and with my sleeves as I watched the front door and the windows, my eyes lingering on that stupid pentacle I knew the owner had carved there long before I'd been born.

It served as a marker to those who were privy to its meaning, though that number was slim and far between. In the underbelly of preternatural society, you could find people and things even all creatures fanged, furry, and fae were afraid to approach, the kind of people who gave nightmares to our nightmares.

If you wanted someone dead—someone who wasn't human, someone who could crush mortals with their magic or bare hands—you didn't hire a hitman. You followed the signs, and found yourself an entirely different kind of killer.

I stared at the pentacle as I came into the shadow of the porch and eyed the single slash going through the star. The steps were invisible under all the dead leaves, matted by rainfall and latent summer heat, and the front light was swaddled with ancient cobwebs. Knowing the door was unlocked, I didn't bother to knock. I cracked it open—wincing at the menacing creak rising from the hinges—and peeked inside.

Darkness peered back at me. Frowning, I shuffled over the threshold and breathed in the smell of must and old, stale dust. In the foyer, the antique furniture was yet covered in intermittent sheets, and the thick layer of dirt upon the floor bore no trail of footsteps. I tiptoed into the adjoining study, wincing at the creak of floorboards underfoot, and prodded open the wood shutters.

Diffused yellow light filtered into the room as I looked out across the yard and saw Sib still waiting in the parked car. I turned to study the office—the rich oak desk, the built-in shelves, paneled walls, and the collection of framed portraits. The rug was mottled with holes chewed by moths, and the overhead light fixture was something straight out of the sixties.

No one had been here in months—years. He hadn't returned.

I sighed with relief—and almost died of a heart attack when my phone started to ring. Fumbling at my pocket, I pulled the phone out and studied the screen, not recognizing the number.

"Hello?" I asked as I answered, holding the phone to my ear.

Aurel's voice poured out of the speaker in a rumble of displeased thunder. "The information you provided was insufficient."

Shocked, I looked out the window again and saw how the barest sliver of sunlight yet lingered on the horizon. Havik had to have arrived at the Gilded Glass. If a vamp was careful, he could get around the city without getting burned at this time—but most wouldn't be awake yet. Couldn't be awake, given that the moon hadn't risen far enough to animate their magics again.

He shouldn't have been awake yet.

"What do you mean insufficient?" I retorted, balancing my hand on my hip. "I gave you an address and a lead! I gave you more information than you had. That's totally sufficient on my part!"

"Your efforts are paltry. You did not search, and I will not be pandered to like a simpleton, Ms. Winters."

"Paltry?!" I stomped about the space, fuming, setting loose plumes of dust. "How do you even have my number?!"

"None of your concern."

"Like hell it's none of my concern!"

My eye caught upon a framed photo sitting next to a withered house plant and a set of first edition novels. I picked the frame up, my fingers tracing the familiar shape of the carved leaves and lines as my thumb swept across the glass, clearing some of the dust.

The girl pictured there was no more than twelve, thin and awkward, with her platinum hair spilling about her shoulders like molten metal while her sharp ears poked out from the strands. Her smile was wide and her eyeglasses caught the flash coming from the camera.

I stared at myself, and then at the tall, lean shadow of a man who stood calmly at my side. I brushed my fingertips across the glass once more.

Memories of the last time I'd seen him filled my thoughts.

Footsteps pattered through the forest leaves, my panicked breath issuing into the dark.

A male scream broke the stillness.

My heart stuttered in my chest.

The man in the picture growled, the snap of a neck-breaking like a crack of a whip.

A body landed at his feet, broken and pathetic as an abused doll. His mouth upon its neck.

"We're all monsters, Grae," he stated, sharp teeth red in the moonlight. "Some, like you, just take longer to realize it."

I swallowed as old terror seeped through my veins and doubled the burn in my skin. The light of my scars had grown so bright it was visible as a dull glow in the surrounding dark, even with the thick layer of my sweater. I'd almost forgotten I was on the phone.

"You will accompany me to this...shop. You will tell me if Theda is present and if I must act. You will meet me there in an hour."

"No."

Something broke, and what calm civility the vampire had been holding onto disappeared. Oh, his voice was still cold and sneering, but it rose in volume, and the threat came out of him with utter silken assurance. "Arrangements can be made if you are...unwilling."

I was certain they could, and I didn't want to know what they were.

"Fine," I snapped. "Fine! I'll go! I'll be there! I'll show you my full cooperation and effort and whatever—but afterward, you and your entire cadre will leave me alone and stay out of my life!"

The vampire sucked air through his teeth, the sound buffeting the phone's receiver. "How childish."

"Whatever. Either agree or go to hell, Havik."

Silence answered my snarl as my anger dribbled to nothing, leaving behind a hollow, fearful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'd just yelled at Aurel Havik. I'd just told him to go to hell. Did I have a death wish?!

Havik sniffed, composure returning. "We'll discuss this further when you arrive, Ms. Winters."

My face heated. "Whatever!" I hung up before he could say more, drawn between feeling indignant and horrified as I saved the vampire's number under the label Fang Face. Havik would remember my irreverence. Being flippant on the phone when I wasn't face-to-face with the man was one thing—but Havik was noctoreum, a master, and I'd better remember that fact before I lost my mind and said something rude to him in person.

He could crumple me like tissue paper.

Heart racing, I realized I was still holding the picture, fingertips white upon the frame. I let go, and the frame fell to the floor, shattering upon impact.

I guess my audacity knows no bounds today.

Stepping over the glass, I walked from the house and didn't look back.