The sound of my heart pounding in my head, throbbing at the same rate as the wound in my skull managed to cloud my thoughts, making it hard to focus. A low moan escaped me as the energy once again wrapped around me and pulled me up so that my toes were scraping against the cold ground. My head lolled to the side and it was a struggle to draw a lungful of air. Gaizka walked over to where I hovered helpless in the air.

“I did not spend your lifetime preparing you to fight me in this moment,” Gaizka calmly stated. “Don’t fight me on this matter, and I won’t be forced to destroy you and everything that you care about.”

With a wave of its hand, the creature tossed me aside. I slammed into the pavement and rolled several feet before my back crashed into the Pulaski monument in the middle of the square. A cry escaped me as fresh pain exploded in my frame.

With a grin, the naturi turned and walked back toward the shadows he had risen out of. With a shaky hand and a soft grunt, I threw the knife as hard as I could. The blade flew straight and true, glinting faintly in the moonlight. It passed straight through the back of the naturi and hit the ground with a heavy thud just before he completely disappeared from sight. Gaizka was right. I couldn’t kill it, which left me with no way of protecting Mira or the humans of Savannah.

I lay on the ground for several minutes, blood oozing from my skull, waiting for the worst of the pain to subside so that I could drag myself back to Mira’s town house. Yet, as the pain slowly slipped from my fractured frame, it was replaced with a deeper sense of hopelessness that I couldn’t push aside. We weren’t going to win this battle.

Stifling a yawn, I rubbed my left eye with the heel of my palm as I slowly trudged up the stairs to the police station. The sun had been up for only a few hours and I was running on less than five hours of sleep. It had taken me the better part of an hour to drag myself through the streets the previous night and into bed in Mira’s town house. My body was healed, but still somewhat tender.

But a slim shred of hope lingered as I slowly mounted the concrete stairs to the police station. Daniel Crowley had woken me from a dead, healing sleep to inform me that he had a potential witness; someone who actually saw the murderer leave Abigail Bradford’s apartment building. So far, all the detective had been willing to tell me was that I had to hurry if I wanted the chance to talk to her.

Still bleary-eyed, I was shuffled through the building until I landed before Daniel’s desk. The detective looked exhausted, having already worked past the end of his shift. The sleeves of his wrinkled white shirt had been rolled up past his elbows and his tie dangled like a worn noose around his neck. Papers, files, and used paper coffee cups cluttered his desk in a growing pile, until it appeared the mountain would soon spill off the edge.

“I guess it’s a good thing you’re around, or Mira would have missed this opportunity,” Daniel said by way of a greeting. “I’ve got to take her over to Family Services before I clock out for the night.”

“Family Services?” I repeated dumbly, my brain still trying to function without that first cup of coffee.

“Yeah. She can’t be more than thirteen, though you can hardly get a straight answer out of her.” Daniel paused and ran one hand over his face as if to clear his thoughts. “She lives on the streets—runaway. We’ve picked her up a couple times before. She won’t stay in any of the homes that she’s placed with.”

“How did you get her?”

“She came to us. Scared out of her mind. Don’t think she’s slept in days,” Daniel said with a heavy sigh as he pushed himself out of his chair.

“Did you get a description of the killer?” I asked, following him down the hall past a series of interrogation rooms.

“She spent most of the morning with a sketch artist,” he confirmed, and then paused, his hand on the doorknob. “I was just going to send a copy of the picture over to Mira, until she said that the guy’s eyes glowed red. It could have been a trick of the light, but I thought it best if one of you people talk to her first.”

I flinched at the “one of you people” comment and gave a soft affirmative grunt. I wasn’t a vampire or lycanthrope, and Daniel knew that. However, I doubted that he was aware that I wasn’t fully human. He simply lumped me with them because I associated with Mira.

“We had one other strange development,” Daniel admitted as he took his hand off the interrogation-room doorknob. “We had a floater turn up this morning.”

“A floater?” I inquired, my brain struggling to keep up.

“Dead body in the river, down by the shipyards,” Daniel replied.

“And you think it’s linked?” I was surprised that there was no mention of the man who had been cremated on Factors Walk. Of course, the body might not have been found yet or it wasn’t being listed as a strange death similar to what Daniel was accustomed to seeing with Mira’s crowd.

“Possibly. Archie already called. Says the teeth aren’t human, but animal fangs. The jawbone has been completely shattered. And from a rough description, it appears this guy matches the kid’s description,” Daniel explained.

“So the killer has been found,” I said. I should have felt overwhelming relief, but instead all I felt was growing fear. “What did the man die of?”

“According to Archie, all of his internal organs were reduced to black goo. His body completely shut down,” Daniel said. “What could do that to someone?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted, but I was beginning to wonder if the dead man had simply been a carrier for something darker. “Let me talk to the girl,” I said, nodding toward the door. My hopes weren’t high that she might know something useful, but at this point, I would take whatever information I could get.

Following Daniel into the interrogation room, I found the young girl from Factors Walk seated at the table, cleaning the dirt out from underneath her fingernails. She looked up at Daniel and frowned, then her eyes traveled over to me. In a flash, the girl launched herself out of her chair and jumped to the other side of the room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded, pressing herself into the far corner.

Daniel looked at me strangely, while a frown pulled at the corners of my mouth. I’d hoped to find the young girl that James and I had spoken to, but I wasn’t expecting to find her this way. I also hadn’t been expecting this kind of welcome, but after our run-in with the bori, I guess I should have.

“We’ve met before. Can you give me a moment alone with her?” I asked Daniel, while my eyes remained on the young girl.

“No! Don’t!” the girl cried, holding up her hand to ward me off.

“I won’t harm you,” I said, taking a single step forward. “I just came to talk to you about what you saw outside the apartment building.”

“Why are you here? You’re the reason I’m being hunted!” she demanded again.

“Hunted?” Daniel asked, and then he quickly held up his hands to stop us from answering his question. “I think it’s best I leave before I hear anything else. I know more than I want to already.” Before the girl could argue, Daniel stepped behind me and jerked open the door, making a hasty retreat.

“How am I the reason you’re being hunted?” I asked, remaining where I was near the door.

“I don’t know. That thing knows I know you and it wants you, doesn’t it? Or maybe it just wants me because of what I know? I don’t know anymore,” she cried, slamming her fist into the wall to her right.

“What you know? What is it that you know that no one else does?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, staring down at the ground. Her hands remained balled into fists and her lips were pressed into a hard line as if she were fighting to hold her secret deep within her.