"A ghost?"

"Maybe."

Did Seamus know any other ghosts? Speak to them?

"But I've never felt one inside the apartment before, and with all this going on…," he said, moving closer to Rose, "I think we should leave."

Rose lowered her head and didn't answer him.

Eleisha suffered a few seconds of frustration. A train from San Francisco to Portland could take nearly a full day, but then she took in the sight of Rose's anxious face and her frustration faded.

It didn't matter how they got home.

"Don't worry, Rose," she said. "I'll get us a cabin on the train."

Julian sat in a linen-covered chair in his suite, holding his fist to his mouth. A part of him had always known. In the wee hours of the day between sunset and dusk, he sometimes felt panic rising that perhaps an elder had somehow escaped him, slipped away to hide and wait. Or he even feared that perhaps Angelo had missed one-or two-from the listings in his book. Once fully awake, these fears left him… but they always returned.

And Eleisha had found one.

Eleisha had found Robert Brighton.

Julian did not understand how he'd been tricked. He'd cut off Robert's head and watched his body turn to dust. But only an elder would know of the laws, and Mary had described him in detail.

If Robert began teaching the old laws, then everything Julian had accomplished to protect himself would perish. He would be the aberration again.

If Robert had survived, escaped… could there be others like him?

Yet one truth was clear.

Eleisha was managing to do something Julian could not: draw these vampires in hiding out into the open.

He realized that he could not kill her yet. He would not kill her yet. He was still the hunter, only this time, she was the hound. In just over a month, she had found two others and drawn them out of hiding. Rose was not important just now. Mary had relayed that Rose still required "training by a proper master." If this was true, then she knew nothing of her own kind or their history.

But Robert had to be destroyed before the week was out. In years past, he would have murdered Julian for merely existing-and Robert was fully telepathic.

To Julian's further discomfort, Mary had relayed word-for-word conversations that seemed to suggest Wade was also telepathic, but the girl must be wrong. He did not see how this was possible. Wade was mortal. But what if…? The implications of the timing and Eleisha's sudden manifestation of psychic abilities left him almost too unsettled to think.

Julian tightened his fist. What to do?

He could not reveal his presence yet or the fact that he was hunting again, not when his prey appeared to be gathering into a group. He'd often taken out two vampires at once by stepping from the darkness, beheading one of them instantly, and then killing the second one as he or she was hit by the first one's psychic explosion. Julian was not as affected and maintained his ability to strike.

But four vampires? No, that was too many.

But if any one of them learned of his presence here too early, they would band together as never before, and he would lose the element of surprise. How could he manage to pick off one or two before they learned he was hunting again?

Strength in numbers.

They were joining forces, and he had no one. Well, he did have Mary, and in spite of her repellent nature, she had proven herself useful. Did he need more numbers?

He shook his head.

No, he existed alone. He believed in the purity of remaining alone-as all his kind should. Unnatural, undead beings who fed on mortals should function alone, not pretend to be some kind of human family. The very thought repelled him. He was convinced that the behavior of the elders, their need for each other's company, and their close physical proximity to each other must have generated the first inklings of their telepathy, of their twisted need for laws, in the first place.

He was sure of it… Centuries and centuries ago, one vampire must have become aware of this power and begun assisting the others. Why else would a new vampire have to be «taught» by his or her maker? Why else would a new vampire need an elder to awaken such abilities?

That thought brought him back to Robert.

He had to do something!

Strength in numbers.

He took his fist away from his mouth. If… if he created a vampire to assist him, the obvious choice would be to pick someone strong, an intelligent and resilient fighter. But he could not bring himself to do this. No, he would have to pick someone who could be controlled and easily dispatched if necessary, but also someone who yearned for more than what he had, someone who could be used and tempted.

Julian would need to find the right type. But he was not telepathic, and he was not a good judge of mortals by simply studying their faces, especially Americans. They all looked the same to him.

He glanced around the room. "Mary, are you still here?"

She materialized by the fireplace, seeming somewhat put out. "Yeah, I'm here. You give up on staring into space?"

"I need you to find someone."

"What? Again? I told you. I know right where they are."

"No, I need you to find a mortal."

"Someone still alive? How am supposed to do that? Even if I had the right name, I can't exactly turn pages in a phone book… Well, I guess you could turn them for me and-"

"Quiet!" he ordered, wishing he could strike her. "Listen to me. I need you to find a specific type of mortal." He closed his eyes, visualizing. "A man in his late teens or early twenties. He lives in near squalor, not homeless, but in some shabby apartment where he watches TV at night. He has a job but makes just enough to scrape by. He has failed in relationships with women, but he believes success is a matter of luck, and that if only he had wealth and drove a BMW, then all his problems would be solved."

When he opened his eyes, Mary was floating right in front of him. "Geez, Julian."

"Can you find someone like this?"

"Here? Sure, the city's full of guys like that. You probably couldn't swing a Barbie doll by her hair without hitting one. I just can't believe you know that much about people."

"Find one," he said coldly. "Tonight. And come back with his address."

Mary materialized inside a darkened doorway near the mouth of an alley. She'd already been looking around the city for an hour.

In spite of her flippant words to Julian, Mary was having a tough time locating the right man. Although she'd never paid attention at school, she wasn't stupid, and she knew exactly what kind of guy Julian was looking for.

She would never admit it, but in the past few nights, she'd felt more satisfaction with herself than she had in all of her previous life. There was something satisfying about tracking Eleisha in secret and always finding her, about traveling wherever she chose with a freedom that no other ghosts seemed to enjoy.

Mary was unique.

She hadn't even thought about her parents in several days. Even though Julian was a cold-blooded bastard, she was starting to kind of… well, like the tasks he gave her. Weird.

Focusing on the task at hand, she spotted a FOR LEASE sign on an empty shop next to a video store, and she got an idea.

Blinking out, she blinked into the empty shop and moved up alongside the window to peer into the street. She could tell a lot about people by the movies they rented.

She started to study everyone who came out of the video store and walked past her.

The first guy was bald and weighed about three hundred pounds, and he was stuffing movies inside his coat like he was ashamed. The films were probably porn.

Nope. Too perverted, she thought.