"Three days is the normal. We'll pick her up between now and then."

"Maybe you could call first?"

Sike laughed at me. "We'll come by at night." And then she hung up.

I stood in my bedroom, looking at my closed closet door. I was so tired. I was so scared. I was so tired of being scared.

But in my mind, I put all of my nurse armor on. I was going to do what needed doing. Again.

I went back out to living room, where Gideon sat, pantsless on my couch in a hospital gown.

"We're going to have to make the best of things, okay?" He was mute, of course. "Look, you were here beforehand, right? Did you give yourself a tour?"

He shook his head.

"Well, the bathroom is down the hall. But." I could not just have him sitting on my couch with no pants. I gave a slightly manic laugh at the thought, then breathed in deeply and went back to my bedroom.

Gideon was way taller than me. My old scrubs would be highwaters on him, but at least he'd be able to shimmy in and out of them, even without entire fingers. I silently blessed my new washable couch cover, which was keeping his boy parts from direct contact with my couch.

I brought the scrub pants out into my living room. "Okay, stand up. Right leg up. Left leg up." I hitched the pants onto him and drew them up. After I tied the drawstring in a loose bow, I put my hand to his elbow and directed him down my short hallway.

"So there's a bathroom over here, to your right." My toilet was against the back wall, but I didn't trust him to hit it in his state. I pulled him inside the small room. "There's a shower here"-I knocked on the gla.s.s door so he could hear it-"and I'll leave the door open. You can just pee in there. And if you have to do worse, just let me know. It won't be the first time I've wiped someone's a.s.s, so don't be shy, okay?"

He made a cross between a grunt and a groan. I decided to take it as a yes.

"Are you hungry?"

He nodded. Without lips, there was only so much he would be able to keep inside his mouth. Lips were one of those things that people didn't appreciate till they were gone-although most times that was due to a stroke, and not internecine vampire warfare. Thank G.o.d they'd let him keep his teeth. I inhaled and exhaled, drawing on additional strength and sanity hidden deep inside.

"I'll make some eggs."

I was tired as h.e.l.l, but Gideon's day had been worse than mine. I scrambled the eggs up, cubing some leftover Christmas turkey to toss inside. He'd need all the protein he could get to heal.

I surrounded him with dish towels, and sat beside him to fork pieces of turkey and egg into his mouth. He gnashed at them, having a hard time moving them around without a tongue, without lips to hold them in. His gums weren't meant to be exposed like this. I knew his mouth would dry out. And then his teeth would go. I wondered if Anna knew what she'd gotten herself into. I knew I hadn't, really. And Gideon-d.a.m.n.

In between Gideon's bites of food, I researched-if research online about werewolves can actually be called such-causes of werewolf-itis. It seemed only appropriate since I had been carrying Winter's blood in my pocket.

The Internet was its usual helpful-unhelpful self. Twenty standard ideas and fifty thousand nonstandard ones, complete with comments below the articles from twelve-year-old kids who swore they were going to go out to a national park and slaughter a wolf to try out that pelt-wearing thing this weekend. That'd wind up really well for anyone who tried to do it in the Deepest Snow pack's park.

The standard ideas were pretty standard, though, at least. Accidents of birth-being born on a full-moon night, the seventh son of a seventh son thing, or with a caul. Then there were accidents of locale, being bitten by a werewolf personally, or just plain bad luck-putting on that old furry thing you found abandoned in the forest, witches' curses, and drinking water from a werewolf's paw print, which sounded ludicrously dumb.

Part of me being super Pollyanna with Gideon and nosy on the Internet was the fact that a baby vampire was asleep in my closet. I didn't want to go in there to sleep and hang out with her. I mean, daytime was safest for me and all-but what would she wake up as? And who? And how mad? I didn't know anything about her.

Had she wanted to become a vampire? Had she been a daytimer too? Or just someone whom Anna had thought it'd be a good idea to save? There was saving, and then there was this, me spooning eggs into the mouth of a man who had no lips.

Gideon would eventually need something to drink, too. Maybe I could feed him ice chips. Or in the shower, with his face turned up into the faucet like a bird.

I took a few deep breaths. "Are you okay for now, Gideon?"

He nodded. Perhaps if he'd been able to talk, he'd have told me how ironic that question was. Okay was a very relative term.

"I'll buy you some other food soon. But I gotta sleep. It's been a long day," I said, knowing I spoke for both of us. I put a station on my laptop's Internet radio, and I set Grandfather beside him. "Keep him company, okay?" I doubted Gideon spoke German, but hey. "I've got a cat too. Be nice to her, or else. I'll be asleep in the back. Don't be afraid to go to the bathroom. We'll work out a system, I swear."

I got him some blankets and left him there on my couch. I didn't want to go back into my room, but with him on the couch, I had little choice.

I crawled into bed, and Minnie hopped up on my bed to eye me once I'd gotten settled. "I know," I told her. "This is all incredibly bad." True to her Siamese ways, she meowed in agreement. Then she snuggled under the blankets with me, and despite both of us knowing it was a bad idea, we went to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

The closet doors were still closed when I woke up. I lay in bed for a moment and contemplated my next move. Luckily for me, my underwear lived in my dresser, and I could just wear some things that weren't that dirty on the floor. I didn't want to open my closet up. I mean, what if I went in there for a shirt, and somehow the lightproof fabric fell off my window, and she dusted from the daylight, leaving a dust stain right there in my closet. How would I get my deposit back then?

I snorted, rolled upright, and hunted down some clothes.

Gideon was still in the living room, sitting on my couch. The Internet radio had paused out long ago. I glanced at my oven's clock-it was four. I'd only been asleep for six hours. Not enough to feel rested after the night I'd had. But it was still daylight out. Safer than nighttime, for sure.

"Okay. I'm gonna go get us some food." I took my laptop back from Gideon and woke it up to check my bank account. My paycheck had autodeposited the evening before-somehow I never believed it was going to until I'd seen that it had. I breathed a little easier. I could make it for another two weeks just fine-rent wasn't due till the fifteenth. But I couldn't feed Gideon eggs forever. He'd get scurvy. "Do you like Chinese?" There was a take-out joint nearby I could hit. And it was all cut up into small bites already. He shrugged.

"Is that a no on Chinese?"

He shrugged again.

"We're going to have to get better on nodding or shaking our heads if we want this thing to work. Wait-egg rolls?" A nod. "Mushroom chicken." A large shake no. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Lemon chicken?" Another nod.

We played twenty questions till I had our menu figured out, and discovered that Gideon did not like mushrooms, kung pao, or hot-and-sour soup. Which was just as well because he wouldn't be able to drink it. Which gave me a thought.

I found the old mister I'd used with Minnie back in the day, to dissuade her from clawing up my couch, back when my couch had been worth attempting to save. I cleaned out the spigot, filled the bottle, and returned.

"Open up your mouth. I'm gonna mist you like a houseplant."

I think more water went on him than in his mouth. But he could almost hold it, and spray himself with it, if he smashed both his hands together, Hulk-style. It would keep him busy for a while. That would be the biggest damage he'd face, as time went on. Not being able to interact with the outside world could make him go insane. I'd seen it before, with long-term patients. They were mostly druggies before they got hurt, so they hadn't had much of a support structure to fall back on afterward. And Gideon didn't really either-just Anna, his now-a-vampire girlfriend, and me. I could barely manage owning a cat. Caring for an entire other human being long-term was out of the question.

I looked around my small living room, made smaller by the addition of Gideon. I spotted the boxes that were left here for me to deal with after Christmas morning. There was that ugly belt in one of them, the one Peter'd given me, which I had no chance in h.e.l.l of ever wearing. I could return that, and maybe at least break even on the Chinese food.

"Okay, Gideon, I'm taking off now," I said while picking up the boxes to take out to the trash and/or return. Gideon nod-grunted from his spot on my couch.

Winter's test strip was still in my purse. I should have put it in a plastic bag, because ew, biohazards, but the blood was dry now, and I doubted my purse was going to become a were-purse come the full moon. I didn't want to touch it anyhow-I wouldn't until it came time to hand it over to Dren.

Daylight, such as it was, filtered through the clouds above. The constant gray of living in Port Cavell-at least during winter, and not in summer when all it was was too warm-wore on me. Each winter day, numbingly cold, wet, miserable, just like the last. No wonder vampires liked it here so much. I parked my car in a mostly vacant lot. Now that Christmas was over, all the weather-bleached decorations looked like grim little flags, flapping surrender in the wind.

I hit the Chinese food place first. I stood in line, ordered my takeout, and my phone rang. Jake. Normally I wouldn't pick up and be that person who talked in public, but with him I'd been trained to feel I was one phone call away from an emergency at all times.

"Hey, Sissy."

"Hey yourself." I stepped back and looked sheepish as I handed the Asian woman my credit card. "What are you up to tonight?"

"About five eleven," he said, and I snorted.

The lady at the counter handed my card back, and I tipped her well, since I knew I was being rude. "What's going on?" I slid the food off the counter and made my way to the door.

"Just wondering if I could take you out for dinner tomorrow."

"Really?" I stepped outside, back into the cold.

"You don't have to sound so surprised."

I opened my mouth to say all the ways and reasons I could refute that, and then carefully closed it again.

"You don't have to be so stunned either," he said, during my pause.

"Sorry, Jakey. Just trying to walk outside and not trip in ice is all."

"Uh-huh. So? Are you in?"

"I'm in. What time?"

"Six?"

"Sure. Want me to pick you up?"

"Sounds good."

"Love you, Jake."

"Love you too."

I settled my and Gideon's dinner into the pa.s.senger seat of my car, and carefully walked around to the driver side. The mall was two exits down, and I bet they'd be doing a brisk business in other returns today-I couldn't have been the only one gifted the world's most hideous belt.

The mall was a U-shaped structure around a curb-to-curb parking lot. I parked near the middle, in a s.p.a.ce that the mall's snowplow had cleared, prepared to walk the rest of the way in. I looked inside the box as soon as I'd gotten out of the car, to make sure the gift receipt was still at the bottom. G.o.d bless sensible Peter.

A car parked ahead of me. I closed the box and started walking for the store. The car's driver got out and started walking quickly toward the wing of the mall behind me-not so strange, considering it was cold outside. She was bundled up against the weather in a fashionable parka with a furry hood, and she held something to her cheek, like she was talking on a phone, but I couldn't see it.

I watched her, and I noticed she noticed me. Girls have to watch out for that sort of thing. Maybe not all girls, but I'd just checked my trunk for a vampire less than ten hours ago. My paranoia meter was at eleven. I didn't like how close she was coming, but cell phones made people act stupidly. It was a scientific fact.

We pa.s.sed another row of cars, then rounded a tiny snowdrift the snowplow had made. That's when I saw another woman step out of the woman's car. I stopped, and as the first turned to look at the second, and I saw that she wasn't holding anything after all.

I turned and ran for my car.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

I was fumbling for my keys as they clattered behind. Some part of me still hoped I was overacting, but as I unlocked my door and caught the handle to open it, a hand grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back. One of my fingernails bent and broke inside my glove, and I hissed in pain as she shoved me to the ground.

"Fire!" I yelled, like I'd heard you were supposed to. "There's a fire!" I scrambled to my knees and put my back against my car door. Now, inside my pocket, my badge was glowing day-bright. h.e.l.l of a time to warn me.

The two women stood there, heads c.o.c.ked sideways, as if they were listening to something I couldn't hear. "What do you want?"

Winter's blood? s.h.i.t. Did they know? I scrabbled for my dropped purse. "Look, I'll give it back to you-"

The first one, with the parka on, bent down, sniffing. She kept her eyes on me, breathing deeply.

"I'm sorry-my brother-you wouldn't understand-" I sputtered.

The second one didn't breathe at all. I saw her make a fist with a gloved hand and swing for me. I screamed and ducked lower-she hit my car instead, and I heard the door panel dent.

I crawled toward the front of my car. One of them grabbed my ankles and hauled me back. Reaching out, I put my hand into Peter's gift box, tissue paper bleeding pink into the snow. The belt buckle rasped against asphalt as she yanked my deadweight again.

I flipped over, feeling the seams of everything that had just healed in my abdomen twist inside me, and punched out with the belt buckle by my fist. I caught the hoodless one's jaw, and the skin there burned away. She cupped her hand to the wound, and for the first time her lips opened-to bay.

"Oh f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k-" I curled into a ball, to try to protect myself. I was going to die here over a single dot of blood, in a mall parking lot, with Chinese food cooling in my poor dented car behind me.

The baying woman looked up. There was a loud thump, and my car shook up and down. I looked up, and a trench-coated figure stood on my hood.

Dren.

"Sun's down, girly-girl. Time to play." He squatted on his boot heels and looked at the two other women. "You've started without me. Tsk." Who would have thought this morning, when I was looking for him like he was Jimmy Hoffa, that I'd be so happy to see him now.

"Dren-they-" I panted.

His eyes narrowed, staring at them over me. "You're not bitten-or born. I would scent you if you were. Name your pack."

The women fell back at this, appearing disoriented and confused.

"No-" Dren leapt off my car hood and landed beside me in the muck, his good hand on his sickle.

"Who are you?" one of the women asked. Then she looked to her friend. "What is this place? Where are we?"

I didn't want to tell them they'd just been planning to kill me. I put my back against my car.

Dren kept himself between me and them, and he waved his sickle as if clearing the air of cobwebs between us. "You can see me. You know what I am. Go."

The women turned and ran. One fell to her knees in the ice, then scrambled back up to get away.