While Damek worked, he said, “People see that my buildings are good. They write the articles. Now, I build for people with money, and when it is important, I build some special things in the old ways.”

“No!” Justine tried futilely to dislodge the stones and bricks. “This isn’t happening.”

As Damek worked, the only sounds other than the grate of brick against brick or tool against stone were those of Justine’s mix of screams, objections, and pleas. Then, even those faded, and only the rhythmic scrape of tools remained.

Chastity watched the bricks as Damek built them up around the exhausted, yet still weeping ARB chairperson. Quietly, she spoke to Justine. “It is for the good of the community. You understand that, don’t you?”

Justine lifted her head and stared at Chastity. “You’re a monster.”

“Yes.” Chastity nodded. “Not so different from you. You wanted to protectyour community from fences and divisiveness . . .” Her words drifted away for a moment as she realized that she felt strangely sad. “I understand now. We both are trying to protect what we believe in. I have to protect my nestmates. The littles need safety, stability, a home . . . and you are helping provide that for them. Our home will be safe from any damage now. It cannot be broken into. Even our windows will not break.”

“You’re insane,” Justine said wearily.

Only her head was still exposed.

“No.” Damek lifted a trowel of mortar and carefully spread it on her face. “My buildings are safer. You make this building strong. Your rage. Your sorrow. Your death. It is good. Strong feeling from you and for you.”

He lifted several more trowels of mortar, and Chastity scooped it from the trowel with her fingers and packed it around Justine’s face and smoothed it into her hair.

The littles had come into the room at some point and now sat nestled against Alison’s body in the middle of the floor. Raven was tucked under one arm, and Remus was curled on the other side.

“You wanted to make a difference, to be noticed, to be important. You have been. You will always be important to us now, Justine.” Gently, Chastity covered Justine’s eyes.

The last couple of tears had left tracks in the mortar on the ARB chairperson’s cheeks. Chastity left them there.

She stepped back, looked at her sister and at the littles. Then she nodded to Damek.

Silently, he finished strengthening the building. Each brick and every stone he placed solidified its security and strength.

When he was done, the sisters and their young siblings went up the stairs, and Damek began humming again.

SEVERAL DAYS PASSEDas Damek continued his work in the house. On the third day, Chastity found another letter in the mail. Nervously, she clutched it in her hand as she read the first paragraph: The River Glades Community prides itself on high community standards. As such any and all exterior architectural alterations must receive approval of the Architectural Review Board. Please file the attached approval FOR FENCE CONSTRUCTION for your records.

She smiled.

“What does it say?” Alison came to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her sister.

Chastity held up the paper so they could both read it. “They’ve approved our fence!”

Alison let out a whoop of triumph, and the littles came careening into the room.

“I told you it would all be okay.” Alison bumped her shoulder against Chastity’s. “The littles will have their safe home and safe play yard.”

“We owe thanks to Justine.” Chastity nudged her sister back. “And to you.”

Remus bumped his head gently against her hand. “Go catch yellow birds now?”

At that, Raven and Alison exchanged a worried look, but Chastity smiled at him and then said, “If you keep eating them, we won’t have any left.”

“Is a feeder though,” Remus complained. “Feeder is for food.”

Chastity laughed. “True. We need to mark the fence line anyhow. Come on.”

And the sisters led their younger nestmates into their soon-to-be-fenced yard.

There’s a joke over in Europe that if you find yourself in America’s Upper Midwest, it’s time to switch your GPS. Any reputable routing service provider should program its devices to keep you well clear of these bleak woods and cornfields, connected by old two-lane highways linking bits of crossroad nothing.

They can’t imagine why anyone would want to be here. Bland as processed cheese, either too hot or too cold and dreary in the spring and fall. Whatever the charts say, the region’s not on anyone’s cultural map—devoid of interesting incident since the last Sioux uprising was put down during the American Civil War and populated by flannel-wearing bumpkins; they might say antipathy is the best policy . . .

Feck the snobs, I say. I’ve been there a couple of times. Few of the snobs will say that. What’s more, I look forward to returning, which none of the snobs would say, even if it were true. You may laugh, but it’s a land of quiet surprises and secret treasures. One moment you’re on a winding country road counting cows, the next you’re in a Swiss village or Cornish mining country, with Norwegian troll statues grinning at you from the roadside.

That’s just Wisconsin, perhaps my favorite of the Midwest states. It’s a rich land in its own way, sharing the stolid wisdom displayed by the locals in my own home county in Ireland, and with life in the country moving to the rhythm of the livestock and harvest. The grass is the same emerald green as well, at least until the July sun hammers the countryside into straw and clay. Maybe that’s why it always seems half-familiar to me.

Ah, Ireland. You can leave it, but it never leaves you, even if you escape. I grew up wild and woolly with nothing but ravens and barn rats for friends, sneaking from one paddock to the next and scrounging from bins and feed sheds. I left the Auld Sod with a caravan of translife first chance I got. Quite an eye-opener, that, learning there were others not unlike me, full of anxiety and appetite. Because I was the new guy they dumped the worst duty on me: food prep and disposal. Of course the weres and the troupe’s leader, a one-eyed vamp named Jack who taught me the Discreet Art of Wandering Translife, had all the fun of procuring the food. Once the blood was drained and the excitement of sticky red died down, I took over and turned the meats and vitals into road cuisine that would see everyone through to the next carefully chosen kill.

Then on my night rides I’d get rid of the bits of evidence that weren’t reduced to sauces and stock.

That was how I found out I had a knack for cooking—a gift, even, as the others styled it. Dear old One-Eyed Jack plunked down the cash for my first translife eatery in Paris and handed over the deed. It was a dying bistro beneath an old nunnery when he bought it.

Two holes and a corner, it was, connected to the vast Paris sewers and a smuggler’s tunnel on the Seine that dated back to Napoleon’s Continental System. I put in twenty-two-hour days for a year and made a go of it. Word got out and I opened a second in Prague—my first and only instant success. I did a true restaurant in New Orleans, following with Shanghai, Lisbon, Buenos Aires, and finally my crown jewel, Nippers, in London, not far from Jack the Ripper’s old kills. I did well in that very competitive market. The Secret Eyes, who pretty much run things in the translife world, put my London staff on retainer, doing the catering for their seasonals. That took me and my team all over the world, since the Secret Eyes never meet in the same city twice in the traditional human life span of three-score-and-ten. “Everyone served anywhere” went on my business cards.

But arse-over, such public recognition made me some enemies. Rivals in the translife foodie world got my place in Prague shut down. You’d think even white-hot jealousy wouldn’t make any of us night folk do a deal with the Templars, but that was just what happened. Someone sent a note or an e-mail and three promising caterers on my team there saw their last night. The Templars dispatched and exorcised them in the prime of translife. What could happen in Prague could happen in Paris and Shanghai and so on, so I sold off my catering empire.