the boy from other Lancers meetings, but neither of the girls were familiar.
"Lucky you," Elliot said. "This is Vicky, my new second-in-command." He nodded at the girl on the
floor. "She just moved toBoston ; she was the leader of a group on the south shore. And tonight she's
taking a little expedition out to some warehouses in Mission Hill. We got a lead that there's been some
activity out there."
"What kind of activity? Leeches, puppies?"
Elliot shrugged. "Vampires definitely. Werewolves maybe. There's been a rumor about teenage girls
getting kidnapped and stashed somewhere around there. The problem is we don't know exactly where,
or why." He tilted his head, his eyes twinkling. "You want to go?"
"Isn't anybody going to ask me?" Vicky said, straightening up from her backpack. Her pale blue eyes
were fixed on Rashel. "I've never even seen this girl before. She could be one of them."
Elliot pushed his glasses higher on his nose. He looked amused. "You wouldn't say that if you knew,
Vicky. Rashel's the best."
"At what?"
"At everything. When you were going to your fancy prep school, she was out in theChicago slums
staking vampires. She's been inL.A. ,New York ,New Orleans... even Vegas. She's wiped out more
parasites than the rest of us put together." Elliot glanced mischievously at Rashel, then leaned toward Vicki.
"Ever heard of the Cat?" he said.
Vicki's head snapped up. She stared at Rashel.
"The Cat? The one all the Night People are afraid of? The one they're offering a reward for? The one
who leaves a mark-"
Rashel shot Elliot a warning look. "Never mind," she said. She wasn't sure she trusted these new people.
Vicky was right about one thing: you couldn't be too careful.
And she didn't like Vicky much, but she could hardly turn down such a good opportunity for vampire
hunting. Not tonight, when she was in such terrific form.
"I'll go with you-if you'll have me," she said.
Vicky's pale blue eyes bored into Rashel's a moment, then she nodded. "Just remember I'm in charge."
"Sure," Rashel murmured. She could see Elliot's grin out of the corner of her eye.
"You know Steve, and that's Nyala." Elliot indicated the boy and girl on the couch. Steve had blond hair,
muscular shoulders, and a steady expression; Nyala had skin like cocoa and a faraway look in her eyes,
as if she were sleepwalking. "Nyala's new. She just lost her sister a month ago," Elliot added in a gentle
voice. He didn't need to say how the sister had been lost.
Rashel nodded at the girl. She sympathized. There was nothing quite like the shock of first discovering
the Night World, when you realized that things like vampires and witches and werewolves were real, and
that they were everywhere, joined in one giant
secret organization. That anybody could be one, and you'd never know until it was too late.
"Everybody ready? Then let's go," Vicky said, and Steve and Nyala got up. Elliot showed them to the door.
"Good luck," he said.
Outside, Vicky led the way to a dark blue car with mud strategically caked on the license plates.
"We'll drive to the warehouse area," she said.
Rashel was relieved. She was used to walking the city streets at night without being seen-important when
you were carrying a rather unconcealable sword-but she wasn't sure that these other three could manage.
It took practice.
The drive was silent except for the murmur of Steve's voice occasionally helping Vicky with directions.
They passed through respectable neighborhoods and venerable areas with handsome old buildings until
they got to a street where everything changed suddenly. All at once, as if they had crossed some invisible
dividing line, the gutters were full of soggy trash and the fences were topped with razor wire. The
buildings were government housing projects, dark warehouses, or rowdy bars.
Vicky pulled into a parking lot and stopped the car away from the security lights. Then she led them
through the knee-high dead weeds of a vacant lot to a street that was poorly lighted and utterly silent.
"This is the observation post," Vicky whispered, as they reached a squat brick building, a part of the
housing project that had been abandoned. Following her, they zigzagged through debris and scrap metal
to get to a side door, and then they climbed a dark staircase covered with graffiti to the third floor. Their
flashlights provided the only illumination.
"Nice place," Nyala whispered, looking around. She had obviously never seen anything like it before.
"Don't you think-there may be other people here besides vampires?"
Steve gave her a reassuring pat. "No, it's okay."
"Yeah, it looks like even the junkies have abandoned it," Rashel said, grimly amused.
"You can see the whole street from the window," Vicky put in shortly. "Elliot and I were here yesterday
watching those warehouses across the street. And last night we saw a guy at the end of the street who
looked a lot like a vampire. You know the signs."
Nyala opened her mouth as if to say she didn't know the signs, but Rashel was already speaking. "Did
you test him?"
"We didn't want to get that close. We'll do it tonight if he shows up again."
"How do you test them?" Nyala asked.
Vicky didn't answer. She and Steve had pushed aside a couple of rat-chewed mattresses and were
unloading the bags and backpacks they'd brought.
Rashel said, "One way is to shine a flashlight in their eyes. Usually you get eye-shine back-like an animal's."
"There are other ways, too," Vicky said, setting the things she was unloading on the bare boards of the
floor. There were ski masks, knives made of both metal and wood, a number of stakes of various sizes,
and a mallet. Steve added two clubs made of white oak to the pile.
"Wood hurts them more than metal," Vicky said to Nyala. "If you cut them with a steel knife they heal
right before your eyes-but cut them with wood and they keep bleeding."