“And if we leave Themis, where do we find a place in this world?” I asked.

James heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head. “I don’t think there is a place for us yet.”

Those with knowledge of the others didn’t find an easy home within this world. The everyday world in which most people existed seemed like a pale, gray-shaded lie that left a nasty taste in the back of your throat. We had to maintain some kind of link to the others if we were to remain sane, if we were to find some way to sleep at night, even if it was with a knife under our pillow.

“Not yet, but after the Great Awakening, the world will make a place for us,” I commented, starting up the hill toward Factors Walk.

“After hearing Mira’s thoughts on that auspicious event, I have to admit that I’m not particularly looking forward to it. I can’t imagine that it’s going to go smoothly, no matter when it happens,” James said, walking just a couple steps behind me. “I mean, people just don’t like being lied to. They don’t like secrets.”

I stopped when we reached Factors Walk and looked up and down the wide alley. We were only a few dozen feet away from the apartment building where Abigail Bradford had been killed. The area was still blanketed with heavy shadows, but my keen eyesight could easily pierce the darkest corners. From what I could see, we were alone.

“What are we doing back here?” James finally asked after nearly a minute of silence.

“I was down here yesterday morning and a girl stopped me from walking up here,” I replied, slowly turning back to face the alley that linked Factors Walk and River Street. “She made it sound like she had seen the killer.”

“Really?” James demanded, coming alive and awake for the first time since meeting me that morning. His doubts about Themis and Ryan were temporarily forgotten as he turned his mind back to the mystery currently at his fingertips. “What’s her name? Can we speak with her again? Did you get any kind of description?”

“No, no name. She ran off before I could catch her name or any additional details.” I shook my head and walked back down toward River Street. “She called Factors Walk the Dark Walk.”

“Fitting,” James mumbled as he walked beside me.

“She said that the thing that killed the girl has been lingering around the region and that it’s unlike anything that’s been here before.”

“But—” James started, but abruptly stopped as if the thought caused him enough of a problem to halt his feet. “But that makes it sound like she knows about creatures like nightwalkers and shifters. Could she know about…the others?” he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“Why not? You do,” I said with a smirk that finally got him walking again.

“Yes, but who is she?”

“Another homeless soul. This city has more than a few of them,” I said, crossing the street to walk along the boardwalk. “She looks to be around twelve to fourteen years old. Brown hair. Brown eyes. A little over five feet tall. Slender, with a worn backpack and dirty jeans.”

“Is that why we’re out this morning? Looking for her?”

I weaved around a park bench and regained the sidewalk near the cobblestone street. “Yes,” I admitted. “She was scared of me that last time. I thought maybe if I brought you along, she might be more willing to talk.”

“You think two strange men are better than one?” he inquired incredulously.

“You don’t have a very threatening manner,” I said.

James fell silent after my less-than-flattering assessment of his person and we continued down the walk until it finally wound away from River Street and followed the river into a park-like setting. I was about to give up and head back to Factors Walk when we finally spotted her sitting against the bronze Waving Girl statue, weaving Savannah roses with dried palm leaves.

Her head snapped up at the sound of James’s footsteps as we turned the corner. She placed one hand on the ground and was preparing to surge to her feet and bolt out of the area at the first sight of me.

“Wait!” I commanded. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Please!” James called after me. “We’ve got questions.”

The girl paused, standing, clutching a half-finished rose in her left hand and a pair of scissors in the other. Her bag was still on the ground along with a half dozen finished palm-leaf roses. If she ran now, she would be forced to leave all of her stuff behind if she had any hope of escaping both of us.

“What do you want?” she demanded belligerently, pointing the scissors at me like a knife.

“My name is James and this is Danaus,” James calmly said, with his smooth British accent and impeccable manners. “We’re looking into the murder of that poor woman who lived over on River Street. Danaus indicated to me that you might have seen the person who killed her. We are simply looking for a little information.”

The girl directed her gaze over at me, arching one eyebrow and crinkling her nose. “Is he serious?”

“Very,” I replied around a half smile. Sometimes James could be a bit stuffy, but I had a feeling that that was half the reason that Mira liked him as much as she did. He was easy to tease.

The girl frowned, as she squinted her eyes at James, carefully looking him over before turning her gaze to me, weighing me with the same heavy stare. “Just hang around River Street or even any one of the churches. It’ll show up eventually,” she said at last, as she plopped back on the ground next to her things and resumed the task of weaving another rose.

“What is it?” James inquired, slowly edging closer one step.

The girl shook her head, not bothering to look up at him. “Don’t know. Like I told him, I’ve never seen anything like it before and there’s more than enough strange things hiding in this city.”

“Strange things?” James repeated.

“Yeah, like him,” she stated, jerking her chin toward me. “Or that woman you were with last night. Vampire, ain’t she?”

“So you do know,” I stated, earning a grim smile from the girl. She gazed up at me with old eyes that bespoke too many years lived on the streets.

“Vampires? Yeah, I’ve seen them. Werewolves, too. In the past few months, there’s something else lurking around the area, fighting with the vampires,” she said. With nimble fingers, she wrapped a thin strip of gold thread around the throat of the rose, tying the leaf in place and finishing yet another flower. She laid it down with the others and pulled up another long palm leaf.

“Naturi,” I said.

“What?” she asked, her head popping up, her hands finally freezing.

“Those other creatures you’ve been noticing are called naturi,” I explained. “They’re earth creatures out to destroy both mankind and vampires. I’d keep my distance from them.”

She gave a little snort and returned to the leaf between her fingers. “Thanks for the advice,” she said sarcastically. “I’ve learned that it’s best to stay away from all of them. All those damn things are always looking for a bite and you don’t want to be their next snack. They might be strong, but you can’t count on them to watch your back, particularly during the daylight hours.”

“But this creature that killed the woman, it’s not any of these creatures?” I said, turning the conversation back to the reason we went looking for her.

“Yeah, nothing like them. Its look is closest to the vampires, but this thing is stronger. It just feels…evil,” she said. A shiver wracked her too-thin body for a moment, causing her to edge a little to her left so that she was sitting more in the sunlight.

James squatted down near her, and picked up one of the roses she had made, twirling it between two fingers. “Have you seen it during the day?”

“Day. Night. It’s always around,” she said with a shrug.

“How long ago did you last see it?” I asked.

“Last night.”

“Will you take us to where you last saw it?”