“Part of that is probably right. The neck wound is only two weeks old and was probably made by her owner, but the wound on her arm is only a few nights old,” Mira began. She lifted up the girl’s arm to the light so that I could clearly see the two marks left by vampire fangs. “The nightwalker tried to heal it but didn’t finish, or botched the job. The wound is closed, but the bruising is still there. For such an aged-looking scar, there shouldn’t be any bruising.”

“So who are the two vampires?” I inquired.

Mira leaned close to the girl’s arm. I didn’t even see her take in a breath. She jerked back with a hiss, dropping Abigail’s arm back to the operating table. “We have to go,” she said, her words sharp and crisp as she quickly walked around the table.

“What?” I demanded, jogging after her. “Who is it? What about the neck wound?”

Throwing open the double doors, Mira hurried down the hall to the staircase. “I’ll never pick up the scent of the other vampire over the scent coming off the neck wound. It doesn’t matter. I know how to get the information.”

I followed after her as we silently climbed the stairs and slipped out the back door into the parking lot. Things were exactly as we left them. Mira’s BMW sat all sleek and black next to the white Lexus under the single parking-lot lamp. The Chevy Nova hunkered in one of the far corners, hoping to go unnoticed.

The second her feet hit the blacktop of the parking lot, a wave of power exploded from Mira. The tidal wave swept out from her body, washing over the city. I nearly stumbled under its unexpected weight. She was searching the city for her prey. And I had no doubt that whoever the culprit was, he or she knew we were coming.

Anger radiated off the nightwalker as her hand slid along the steering wheel. Mira remained silent, as if words couldn’t squeeze between her clenched teeth. The air in the car had chilled to the point where I expected to see my breath fog if I sighed. Yet this cold would not be cut by a blast of warm air from the heater. She had erected a barrier around her thoughts, keeping me out. But I didn’t need to be in her mind to know that whoever had been involved with Abigail Bradford was toast, literally.

We had returned to the historic district of the city, quickly stopping at a lonely square near the edge. I had expected us to return to the club district of River Street, where most nightwalkers were known to congregate while in the process of hunting down their prey. Mira whipped the sleek, black BMW into an open parking spot on the street and was out of the car before the engine was completely shut off.

In the far corner of the square rose an ornate gazebo. Constructed of stone, the architecture had an Old World feel to it, with its odd bits of ironwork. In one of the windows looking out at the small fountain in the center of the square sat a vampire.

The air was silent except for the crunch of stray gravel beneath our feet. I followed behind her, a knife tightly gripped in my right hand as I searched the area for other vampires. There were a few lurking about a mile off, but after Mira’s brief display of power at the morgue, I doubted any other vampire was going to risk coming close enough to catch her attention.

I reached the gazebo just a couple seconds behind Mira, who was now standing in the center of the structure. My heart lurched in my chest as my eyes settled on the creature resting on the ledge of the gazebo and I fought the urge to scan the park again for another vampire. I couldn’t stop from blinking twice, convinced that my eyes were lying to me in the darkness.

“How is it that I find you involved in this?” Mira snarled. The heavy shadows within the gazebo hugged her body, making her little more than a threatening voice in the cool winter night.

Tristan sat with his back against one of the columns that formed the window. His right leg was bent before him with his foot resting on the ledge and his right wrist balanced on his knee. His left leg hung limp in the air, swaying slightly. The vampire appeared relaxed, and he had yet to look directly at Mira. His gaze was straight ahead as if he was intently watching the fountain in the center of the square. “I didn’t kill her.” His normally soft voice held an underlying edge to it that I had never heard from him before, causing my muscles to clench defensively. It was a warning for Mira to back off.

“Did you know who she was?” I asked. My deep voice broke between the two in an attempt to put a little distance between them before Mira set him on fire. There was still a good chance that he had some valuable information as to who Abigail Bradford was and with whom she associated. I would prefer to acquire that information before Mira finally lost her tenuous hold on her temper.

“Yes,” he hissed. Tristan slowly turned his head to look at me over his shoulder, his pale blue eyes seeming to pick up the distant lamplight like a cat’s. “I had seen her around town during the past month. She was the daughter of a prominent official and a fan of our kind.”

“Why didn’t you contact me immediately when it happened?” Mira snapped, her temper still bubbling to the top.

The younger vampire’s icy gaze finally reached Mira’s face. “Contact you?” he repeated with a slight tilt of his head. “And how would I have done this? I reached for you, but as far as I could tell, you were as dead as Sadira.”

“My cell ph—”

“Cell phone!” he shrieked. In one fluid movement, he unfolded his body and poured to his feet before his mistress. “Call you like a common servant, like Charlotte or Gabriel? Contact you like a human would? You’re my mistress and yet I am to be without your presence.”

To my surprise, Mira broke eye contact first, pacing away from him. “I’ll not have you mucking around in my mind at all hours.” She slowly circled to her right, moving with the grace of a panther edging closer for the kill. “I’m not Sadira.”

Tristan moved as well, his hands out at his sides and open like a gunslinger waiting for the first opportunity to reach for his guns. The two vampires were sizing each other up. The younger vampire was greatly outmatched by Mira. Any scuffle between the two would prove to be brief, but even with the odds against him, it didn’t seem to be enough to deter Tristan from wanting her blood.

“It’s more than that!” he shouted, his voice echoing across the empty park. “You’re not in my thoughts either. Since my arrival in your domain, you have not once dipped into my thoughts, not reached out to make your presence known.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t realize you needed a babysitter,” she sneered, with a mocking bow. “More than a century of time has slipped before your eyes. You don’t need me there watching over you at all times.”

Mira’s only warning was a low growl in the back of his throat. The younger vampire lunged at her, knocking her onto her back. He gripped her shoulders tightly, his legs straddling her slim hips. His shoulder-length hair fell like a curtain around his face, making it impossible to determine if he had bared his fangs to his mistress. As a reflex, I took a step forward, trying to decide how to best separate them without getting my own throat ripped open in the process.

“This has nothing to do with you, hunter,” Mira said with a grunt, pushing Tristan off of her. The young vampire quickly rolled to his feet but remained squatted low, waiting for his mistress to attack. Mira remained seated on the ground, but she had pulled her feet up underneath her body so that she could quickly rise if she needed to.

“It’s not about needing a caretaker,” Tristan began. His hands were clenched so tight into fists they trembled. “As I’m sure you remember, Sadira provided ample restriction. It’s about compassion. About having a familiar voice in the darkness.”