Samantha told him what we wanted, then beckoned for him to bend closer.

  “Nicola,” she said.

  The waiter raised his eyebrows at her before bowing and hurrying away, taking our menus and our orders with him.

  “Now,” Samantha told me, “we wait.”

  “Have you seen the Hunter?” It was the man from the table near ours.

  Samantha turned slowly to face him.

  “I have,” she admitted.

  “There have been deaths around the city of late,” he said. “All members of our kind.”

  Samantha fixed him with an icy stare.

  “Mr ...”

  “Ross,” the man said. “My name’s Ross.”

  “Perhaps you would care to join us.”

  Ross nodded.

  “Perhaps I would,” he agreed, getting up from his table.

  Again, I watched, and listened, letting my eyes explore my surroundings. That was why I saw him, my lover’s murderer, as he crossed the dance floor on the mid-level.

  I could not restrain my hiss of anger as I rose from my seat. Both Ross and Samantha reached for me, but I was now as quick as they. If I had not run into the waiter and his tray of drinks, and if the white-headed Di Nitrate hadn’t caught my arm to steady me, I would have been down the stairs and amongst the musicians in seconds.

  “He’s here,” I spat, pulling against Samantha and Di Nitrate’s hands as they guided me back to the table. “He is here!”

  “Hush,” Samantha ordered, wrapping her other arm around my shoulders. “Hush, we don’t want to attract his attention. Seems the problem isn’t our own.”

  That settled me.

  “It’s not?” I whispered, looking from Samantha to Ross, the waiter, and Di Nitrate.

  Ross shook his head.

  “And it’s attracting her,” he whispered, making a small gesture with his finger.

  I looked where he had pointed and saw the woman from the entrance seated amongst the potted plants in the mid-level.

  “We’re facing a half-breed,” Samantha told me.

  I looked at her, confused.

  “I thought you said she had been told about the night life,” Di Nitrate said.

  “Most of it,” Samantha replied. “She’s only new to this. We haven’t had time to teach her everything.”

  “Better teach it fast,” Ross said. “It’s a rough time to be born in.”

  I glared from one to the other.

  “New born I might be,” I snapped, “but I’m not the one sitting here willingly, while a murderer or half-breed or whatever it is selects its next victim from this club as easily as we chose our meals from your menu. So, who is she and what is a half-breed?”

  Samantha indicated the woman below us.

  “She is a Hunter. Usually, they come after us if one of our kind causes trouble, but some hunt us simply because we are. If one Hunter knows of us, there is always a risk the others will find out and we will all be endangered. We will have to watch to see if this one poses a threat.”

  Di Nitrate shook his head.

  “She doesn’t,” he said. “We have made arrangements before, and she has never betrayed us, not even unintentionally.”

  “And the half-breed?” I pressed.

  “A newly turned vampire that’s been infected by a were, or a newly made werebeast that’s been turned into a vampire. Usually, they’re so insane that hunting them is easy. This one has enough sanity to make him extremely dangerous.” Samantha’s voice was soft. “He will kill more often until he is stopped, or the madness drives him into the noonday sun. We must take him down quickly; tonight, if we can.”

  Nitrate glanced sharply at Samantha.

  “What says your Lady on this?” he asked.

  “What says your Hunt Mistress?” Samantha retorted.

  “The whelp must die,” Ross interrupted, “regardless of what either say. He is hunting me.”

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  They turned to face him, and he met their stares without flinching.

  “The kill belongs to us all.” The Lady’s voice cut through the conversation like a knife, a softly gleaming, sharp-edged knife, with silver and iron in its blade.

  “The kill belongs to us all,” she repeated, when Ross looked about to protest. “The whelp’s ravages have touched us close to the bone and we will all share his demise.”

  “We’d better share it quickly then,” another voice interrupted, “for he has made his selection, and even now has taken up the hunt.”

  This time, I was sure I heard wind blowing through pine trees. I looked up at what I guessed to be the Hunt Mistress.

  She was darkly tanned with thick, russet hair and eyes the color of palest amber. I could nearly see the blunt claws of her beast form overshadowing her fingernails.

  There was a moment of tension between the Lady and the Mistress. It died as we looked to them.

  “You,” the Lady directed, pointing to me. “You will draw him.”

  “He has already selected his prey,” the Hunt Mistress argued. “He will not be swayed by her.”

  “She drew blood beneath last month’s moon,” the Lady retorted. “He will not overlook her when she comes across him and his prey in the alley.”

  “The alley?”

  “It is his killing floor.”

  “He had better not overlook her,” Ross spoke darkly. “His intended prey happens to be a dear friend of mine.”

  “You are free to intervene any time you feel necessary,” the Lady told him.

  The Hunt Mistress nodded her agreement.

  “My thanks,” Ross said dryly, and I knew he would have intervened, whether he had their permission or no.

  I listened to their instructions, seeking the face of the killer again in the crowd. I glimpsed him once or twice more, dancing with his prey before the band on the mid-level, unaware of the interest he drew from the woman Ross had called a Hunter.

  We ate a token meal, during which the Lady brought a wine glass full of red.

  “You have not learned to control the hunger yet,” she said, as much for my own benefit as for those around the table.

  I drank my meal, gulping down the scarlet liquid in the goblet and watching while the whelp that had killed Nicola seduced another victim. I almost dropped the goblet, when the pair headed for the door leading from the club.

  The Lady’s hand on my shoulder stilled me and I looked askance of her.

  “Not yet,” she whispered. “It would be too soon. He’s expecting trouble.”

  We waited. I fidgeted in my seat. When she nodded for me to go after them, I felt like an arrow released from a bow. Mustering as much self-control as I possessed, I walked through the packed nightclub to the exit I’d seen the pair take.

  Samantha walked beside me, her hand under my elbow to slow me should she need to. She did not, and I sensed the same leashed tension in her as I felt coursing through myself. Ross, walking behind us, radiated enough curbed energy that I felt it from ten paces ahead of him.

  Outside in the street, I sensed when Ross left us. I did not look back, but strode forward, listening, muscles tense, ready to run.

  There was mist in the streets. The night was cold, and I sent little puffs of white before me as I walked. Ahead of me, someone screamed.

  I broke into a run, praying Ross would not be too impatient. The woman screamed, again, and someone yelled a challenge. Another woman.

  I raced forward, aware Samantha had caught up to me. Our plans had changed. I reached out a hand, and she grabbed it so we ran forward together.

  The woman’s voice was giving orders, and I heard them being answered with the same velvet tones of mockery that had goaded me the night of Nicola’s death.

  This time Samantha could not hold me back. This time I tore my hand free of her grip and lunged into the alley mouth.

  The Hunter faced the whelp, who had a merciless grip on the throat of the woman he had taken from the club. I was relieved when I smelt no blood. Ross watched silently from the shadows, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. The Hunter had leveled an ancient weapon at him, its hammer was back, and her finger trembled on the trigger.

  Part of my mind marveled that a blunderbuss could still be in fine enough working order to take down creatures of the night.

  The whelp saw me coming over the Hunter’s shoulder.

  “Still seeking Nicola?” it sneered, “Still proud of having kept her from the secrets of the night?”

  I saw his nails dig more deeply into the girl’s throat. The Hunter stiffened, more from sensing my approach than believing the whelp’s lying tongue. I admired her courage.

  “Another step,” she growled, “and your friend in the shadows wears a silver bullet.”

  “I’m not interested in you,” I retorted. “My prey is the murderer who stands in front of you.”

  “And what of your friend?”

  “The same,” I replied, moving steadily toward her back. “He has no interest in you save to keep from your sight.”

  The Hunter laughed at that and shifted her aim from Ross to the half-breed.

  “Together?” she asked.

  The half-breed heard her, sensed our unity of purpose, bared his fangs, and bent his head toward his prisoner’s breast. He got no further.

  The Hunter’s weapon roared death. Too old for a silencer, its echoes rang through the alley and into the street beyond. It was almost equaled by Ross’s bellow of hunting rage. My own cry seemed pitifully weak in comparison, but my blow struck first with all my weight behind it.

  The six-inch blade of the stiletto only stopped when the dagger’s hilt met the whelp’s spine. He stared at me in startlement, dropping his prey as he reached for me. She stumbled to one side, holding a hand to her throat. Ross looked once at the battle, then swept her away.

  I looked into the half-breed’s eyes and twisted the leather-bound handle. He tried to scream but no sound came. He closed one hand around my wrist, its claws cutting almost to the bone. Again, I twisted the dagger’s blade.

  The Hunter stepped in close beside me and the blunderbuss roared again. The half-breed whimpered and I turned the blade once more. Red mist hung across my vision and all I was aware of was the stiletto’s hilt and the whelp’s struggles. In the end, I was not even aware of those.

  It was Samantha’s hand on my arm that stopped me as I bared my fangs and lunged for the half-breed’s throat. Someone else dragged him out of my grasp, while Samantha held me back until the reality of the alley, the mist, and the surrounding mounds of garbage came back to me. By that time, Samantha and I were alone.

  No, not quite alone. I shook my head and the shapes of Di Nitrate and the Hunt Mistress became clear in the mist. They advanced toward us with caution, relaxing when they saw I was free of the killing rage.

  “We will take him to some nice sunny garden where his ashes will fertilize the flowers,” Di Nitrate told me.

  “You’d better hurry then,” Samantha replied, “I can hear sirens.”

  “I can see the lights.” The Lady’s voice drifted down to us from the top of a nearby roof.

  I left the alley, Samantha leading. Nicola was avenged, and Ross had taken his friend somewhere safe to explain to her the secrets of the night.

  Di Nitrate and the Hunt Mistress did as they had promised and my stiletto, its handle still wrapped in blood-soaked leather thonging was returned to me three days later.

  Two curved, white fangs and five black claws were returned with it.

  “Trophies,” Samantha explained, and I grinned at her, wrapping an arm around her waist and drawing her to me.