Light glimmered against the tall bank buildings and corporate skyscrapers as I drove along West Hastings Street . It was a very long thoroughfare, encompassing some of Vancouver's wealthiest and poorest areas at the same time. The Downtown Eastside, stretching from the infamous Main and Hastings intersection-the site of a prominent needle exchange program at the Carnegie Library-to the gritty area around Cordova Street known as Pigeon Park, was still Canada's poorest postal code. It was a focal point for Vancouver's homeless community, and an area of contention for the RCMP, who often walked an uneasy line between letting the neighbors live autonomously and trying to enforce some semblance of civic law within the area. People went missing all the time within that maze of alleys and Dumpsters, fire escapes and squalid tenement buildings, and their disappearances were often given little media attention. People didn't want to hear about sex-trade workers and the drug-addicted homeless who died under mysterious and often suspicious circumstances. They wanted to hear about the fireworks at EnglishBay, or the Dragon Boat Festival, or the unveiling of new transit services from one rich suburb to another.

I kept driving, past the PriceWaterhouseCoopersBuilding, with its black marble fountain and gleaming silver dome. It was supposed to be an accounting firm, but it looked more like a Las Vegas resort. Right next to that, there was a tiny ESL college, where students puffed on their cigarettes and spoke in broken English. Across the street, Luce, a once-hot club, had shut down. It would be replaced soon enough. Clubs were a revolving affair in the downtown core.

I turned onto Richards, and the street sloped sharply downward, as if I were descending into some lower ring of a parallel dimension-which, possibly, I was.

It was almost 2:30 a.m., but the Pink Martini was still in full swing, its neon sign glowing like an unbelievable kitsch lantern against the night. I slowed down, wary of drunken and drugged-out pedestrians wandering across the street, along with the silent homeless pushing their shopping carts full of discarded bottles and pop cans. Vancouver wasn't exactly the city that never slept, but you could always find some sort of community that was active, regardless of the hour. This was how people lived, I realized. In odd shifts. In mysterious communities and enclaves, some blurring into each other, some never touching at all.

I parked at the edge of Gastown-a tourist trap area, full of gift shops and heritage sites that existed uncomfortably alongside the city's most impoverished neighborhood. Gastown had no middle-class apartments. The buildings were either million-dollar lofts owned by the megaprosperous, or squalid three-story walkups and second-story suites above shops with barred windows. This area was an odd mixture of different races and classes, filled with touristy restaurants- like Monks, where the waiters dressed in cappucine robes- existing alongside dance clubs like Shine and 23 West, pounding house music, fetish clubs, antique stores, specialty booksellers, and upscale computer firms who had managed to survive the dot-com collapse of the late 1990s. Every sort of person wandered along these streets, which seemed to be in a state of semipermanent construction and renovation. As if the neighborhood itself were rapidly decomposing, and the city was unsuccessfully trying to apply patches and Band-Aids everywhere.

I walked past the eclectic row of shops along Cordova- Deluxe Junk, Biz Books, a fetish clothing boutique, and a shop that appeared to sell nothing but designer buttons. I saw a man kneeling in an alley, his hand pressed up against a Dumpster. He was panting. He looked up, and I realized instantly that he was a vampire. The hair on the back of my arms and neck stood up straight. His pupils were almost completely dilated. Had he just fed, or was he just about to?

He took a step forward, but I lifted up my jacket, revealing the athame that I'd tucked inside my belt. The vampire saw it. He looked indecisive for a moment, then turned around and walked back down the alley. A gun might not have deterred him-especially if he was hungry-but he recognized the athame. Vampires knew who mages were, and they weren't willing to violate the truce. Yet.

Most people had no idea that they were mingling with demons all the time. Still, the chances of being killed by a demon weren't statistically greater than the chances of being killed by another human. Or a bus. Most demons tended to confine violence to their own species, and even considered humans to be beneath their notice-too contemptible to actually kill. It didn't make me feel any better.

I was standing in front of a convenience store with Urdu script on the twenty-four-hour sign and yellow awning above. Hidden among those graceful loops and swirls was exactly what I'd been expecting to find-a single character, in vampiric script, which indicated that this was a vampire safehouse. Vampires could take refuge here if they were caught outside just before sunrise, or they could choose to rent the dingy apartments-little more than rooms, really- above the store. Just like Sebastian had done.

I took Sabine's key out of my pocket. It still had the blue evidence tag wrapped around it.

Selena could say what she wanted, but I hadn't broken any rules-at least not technically. I'd signed the key out of the evidence room, and documented everything that I was doing. The clerk had given me an odd look, but he'd given me the key anyway. Of course, nobody would notice for a few days, at least. This case was in the middle of paperwork hell at the moment, and nobody cared about Sebastian's apartment. It wasn't the primary crime scene, and it wasn't even the dump site for the vampire's body. We didn't have much reason to check it out, and any evidence that we found there would be out of context to begin with. Sebastian's prints would be all over the place, and possibly Sabine's, but that didn't prove anything.

I wasn't looking for prints. I was looking for a thread.

The key turned in the lock, and I labored my way up a long, steep flight of stairs that creaked piteously with every step. The upstairs hallway was like a furnace, and it smelled incredibly stale. Storefront apartments were usually like that. The floor, remarkably, was free of vomit and broken beer bottles. Only a few stray cigarette packages were scattered around, along with assorted bits of cardboard, wires, and scraps of debris that I couldn't identify. It wasn't a comfy place to live, but it wasn't the stinking hell-hole that I'd expected it to be either. It rather reminded me of Derrick's first apartment, which had been above an Italian restaurant called Spargo's. His living room always smelled like baking ravioli.

Sebastian's apartment-109-was at the very end of the hallway, right next to the emergency exit and rear stairs. We usually called a place like that murder central. The ideal location for killing someone, since it had an easy escape route, and no neighboring suites on the opposite side.

The same key opened Sebastian's door, and I wrinkled my nose as I was hit by a draft of stale, squalid air. Obviously, the place had been shut up tight for several weeks, with no ventilation. Slipping on a pair of plastic gloves, I fumbled for the light switch. When I could finally see the inside of the apartment, my eyes widened in surprise.

I'd expected something extremely utilitarian-like a student's dorm or a junkie's crack pad. A mattress in the corner, maybe, and shelves made out of cinderblocks. But Sebastian's apartment was actually . . . comfy. The floors were hardwood, old but serviceable, with all the nicks and grooves that had accumulated over the decades. There was a window in the corner that overlooked the maze of Gastown streets, some paved, some cobblestone, all snaking crazily and intersecting around old brick buildings and heritage sites. The bed was positioned close to the window, and I saw that the quilt and sheets were rumpled. If I looked closely, I'd probably still be able to see the soft impression of Sebastian's body there.

There was an oak bookcase in the corner-the attached kind that came with the suite-and it was overflowing with books and papers. I took a closer look, and saw a whole shelf devoted to poetry. Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Christina Rosetti. Either Sebastian had a fondness for female poets, or these books belonged to Sabine. There were also sketchbooks and loose papers with charcoal drawings on them. Mostly landscapes, with a few cityscapes thrown in-I recognized Kitsilano, the area around Main and Twenty-Second Street , and the West End. I tried to picture Sebastian sitting at a cafe on Main Street , like Soma or Balducci's, sipping on a latte, quietly and patiently drawing in his sketchbook. It baffled me.

There were no pictures on the top of the bookshelf, but there was an empty frame. I looked at it curiously. This must have been where the photograph of Sebastian and Sabine came from.

I opened up my kit and got out some black dusting powder and a brush. Dabbing the brush in the powder, I twirled it lightly between my fingers to fluff the bristles, then carefully applied the powder onto the glass frame and wooden backing. The surface was a mess of prints- probably all Sebastian's. I concentrated on the area around the clasp that undid the frame. The most recent print left there would have to be from the person who removed the photo, and to have done that, they must have touched both the glass front and the wooden clasp. A single, clear print resolved itself.

Still, that didn't mean much. It was probably just Sebastian's print-but there was always the possibility that this mysterious third person could have planted the photo on Sebastian's body.

Maybe they'd forgotten to wear gloves this one time. I was gambling on the fact that, whoever this X-factor subject was, they'd been in Sebastian's apartment before. There had to be a connection between the two of them. It was the only thing that made sense.

I lifted the print with a tape-lift and compared it to my copy of Sebastian's prints, which Tasha had inked from his body. Even with just a magnifying glass, and no formal training in ridgeology, I could tell that the two prints didn't match. So who did this belong to? Sabine, perhaps? But why would she remove the picture?

Slipping the frame into an evidence bag, I examined the rest of the suite. There was a miniature kitchen in one corner, and a tiny bathroom with a coffin shower and crumbling tile on the floor. I noticed a wide array of shampoo, hair, and skin products lining the rim of Sebastian's tub. Either he was extremely well groomed, or Sabine stayed here more often than she cared to admit. I looked closely at one bottle. Redken anti-snap formula for silky hair.

Even a vampire could be vain.

The floor of the living room was dusty-it obviously hadn't been swept in a while. I peered into Sebastian's closet and saw a neat row of stylish dress shirts and casual pants, along with four pairs of shoes. Loafers, mostly, along with a pair of running shoes. Was he big into exercise? Did he jog along the seawall at night, or through StanleyPark, like countless other neighborhood residents? Maybe I'd passed him during my own evening run. Maybe we'd waved or nodded to each other. A mage and a vampire passing in the night. It seemed so ridiculous.

I knelt down and examined the area around the doorway. There were a few stray pebbles, some sand, and other fine particles at the bottom of the door, along with a torn piece of paper in the corner. Hah. Now we're getting somewhere.

I picked up the scrap of paper with a pair of forceps, holding it to the light. It was obviously water damaged, and had the splotchy appearance of a wet receipt that had gradually dried.

Blue ink had run in gaping teardrops along the surface of the paper. Gingerly, I unfolded it, and saw that it was half of a parking receipt. I recognized "Imperial" as a popular company that rented lots in the downtown area. I squinted at the address, and my heart nearly froze.

The date and time were clearly stamped on the receipt: August 10, 6:45 p.m.

The night that Sebastian was murdered.

The block number was obscured, but I could just make out the fragmentary words "ville" and "elson." Granville and Nelson.

I could see it clearly in my mind's eye. Our elusive third suspect had walked into the alley on Granville and seen Sebastian's body, perfectly posed, just as Cassandra had left it. Cassandra herself had no reason to come to Sebastian's apartment after she murdered him, and I sincerely doubted that she'd ever been here before to begin with. Sebastian had met Cassandra for the first time when he knocked on the door of her comfortable home in Elder, and his murder had been an act of passion-or revenge. After dumping Sebastian's body, Cassandra would have hurried home. Mia would have been waiting for her, or perhaps she was tucked safely in bed, sleeping. Either way, Cassandra wouldn't have wandered along the streets of Gastown looking for Sebastian's apartment.

But someone else was in that alley, and they saw Sebastian's body. They stepped on that receipt, and the wet paper stuck to the sole of their shoe. I could clearly see grooves impressed into the surface of the paper-a partial footprint. They must have tracked the receipt all the way into Sebastian's apartment, and then, in an act of complete universal randomness, it came unstuck and fell off. They never noticed it. Who would notice a wet clump of paper on the floor?

Someone else had been here. Someone who was trying to tie up loose ends-or perhaps to doctor the crime scene so that we'd be led in a very specific direction.

I reached into my kit and brought out a sheet of magnetic plastic for lifting latent prints off smooth surfaces. I used a roller to smooth down the paper, and static electricity from the plastic and the roller penetrated deep into the surface of the hardwood, reflecting the print that I knew must be there. Carefully, I turned the plastic sheet over, and there it was. A perfect boot print, right next to the door sill.

It was big-probably a size twelve or more. Sebastian's shoes had all been much smaller, a size ten or less, and most of them were loafers. I hadn't seen any boots, and he'd been wearing dress shoes when we found him. I thought of Sabine momentarily, remembering how envious I'd been of her black boots with the stiletto heels-but these were clearly men's boots.

"Who do you belong to?" I murmured.

My cell phone started ringing.

I hated cell phones, and couldn't understand why I even owned one. They only rang when you absolutely didn't want to talk to anybody.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other line was crackly and indistinct. It took me a moment to recognize it as Rebecca's.

"Tess? I-ex-the-"

"Becka?" I held one hand against my ear, in that useless gesture of all cell phone users that doesn't actually do anything to improve the reception. "Becka, is that you? I can hardly hear you. The reception in this apartment is shit."

"Tess-" I could hear what almost sounded like a note of panic in her voice. "Results back from-enhancement- your reflection-"

My eyes widened. "You managed to enhance the reflection from that photo? That's great!

Can you tell who it is?"

"You have to-no-I need to-"

"Becka, you're breaking up. I can't understand anything that you're saying."

"Tess-the photo-you've got-"

All I could hear was static and the occasional word fragment.

"Look, Becka, I'll call you back as soon as I'm done here. Thanks so much for letting me know about the picture. I definitely owe you that macchiato."

I flipped the phone closed. I was tempted to run immediately back down to the crime lab, but I wanted to finish up here first.

I tucked the magnetic print lift into an evidence bag, putting them both inside my kit. It wasn't much, but it definitely supported our theory that there must have been a third member in this bizarre triangle.

The coffee table was scattered with scrap paper and magazines, and the only other object of furniture that interested me was a bedside table. I slid open the top drawer and found the usual items-a package of condoms (for STD protection rather than birth control, since vampires couldn't procreate, but they could get herpes), a pair of handcuffs, some nylon rope, leather cords, and lubricants of various kinds. Sabine and Sebastian had definitely had a healthy sex life.

Something caught my eye in the far corner, stuffed beneath a wadded-up ball of socks and small packet of weed. I reached in carefully with a pair of forceps, and pulled out something that made me swear softly beneath my breath.

I'd come to Sebastian's apartment looking for a few stray fibers, but I was holding something much more substantial in my hands.

A yellow scarf.

I couldn't imagine Sebastian wearing such a delicate item of clothing. That left only one person.

My stomach began to clench. Not just from the realization that Sabine was intimately connected to both of these murders, but to a much more terrifying feeling of recognition-the shiver of power that I felt in my limbs, and the unmistakable sense of being watched from behind.

Sabine was here.

"You know," a familiar voice said, "I was wondering where I'd left that. I didn't realize that Sebastian was keeping it locked away in his drawer, like some kind of teddy bear. Isn't that positively adorable?"

I turned around slowly. Sabine was standing by the window, regarding me casually. Both my athame and my gun were within reach, but could I get to them in time? Why hadn't I drawn the gun earlier? How could I have been so stupid? I was wandering around a strange apartment at 2 a.m., searching for evidence. It wasn't exactly the safest position to be in.

God-had I even locked the door? Had I even been paying attention to the signs that someone might be following me?

My enthusiasm had finally caught up with me, made me careless. This was the moment that I'd had nightmares about. I was alone in a tiny room with a powerful vampire, and she had no qualms about killing me. I was like a six-year -old child facing down a serial killer. And I'd told Lucian to leave me alone, to stop protecting me! I sure as hell could have used his protection right now.

"Hello, Sabine," I said, trying to sound casual, like we'd just bumped into each other at The Gap.

She smiled. "Tess. It's been too long. We really should chat more often."

"I thought you hated humans. Except for Lucian, of course."

"I like them when they're interesting-like Lucian." Her smile widened, and I could see her front-row incisors. I knew what it would feel like to have them tear through my neck. I remembered. "And you're very interesting, Tess. In fact, I've sorely misjudged you. I thought you'd never get this close, what with your incompetent Nancy Drew routine, but you've actually done pretty well."

"Yeah, well, I'm a real firecracker."

She laughed. "I see now why Lucian desires you. He only likes things that intrigue him, and you're a bit of a mystery."

"Look-" I didn't want to make any sudden moves, so I just stayed where I was, with my hands in full view. "I don't want to blunder into the middle of some vampire-necromancer love triangle here. I've got no romantic feelings for Lucian, so if you have some sort of claim over him, be my guest. I won't stand in your way."

Sabine rolled her eyes. "I no longer desire Lucian. We satisfied each other once, but over the years he's grown too complacent-too weak. Always wanting to live and let live, preaching his peaceful coexistence. It makes me want to puke."

"So you'd prefer murder and chaos?"

She shrugged. "I choose power. I always choose power, Tess, and Lucian no longer has the strength that he once did."

"Power, huh?" I felt the anger rising in me, but I kept it at bay. "Is that why you turned Mia? Infected her? Because you wanted her to be some kind of pawn in your insane power struggle?"

As I said the words, they suddenly blazed with a tremendous clarity. Sabine didn't reply-she merely smiled-but she didn't have to say anything. Suddenly, the most elusive piece of the puzzle made sense to me. I understood what Mia's role in all of this was. I knew where it had all begun, and why.

"That's it, isn't it?" I shook my head. "I get it now-the whole twisted thing. Mia's parents vanished almost seven years ago. That must have been around the same time that your overlord, the vampire magnate, announced that he'd be retiring soon. The same time that you began looking for successors."

Sabine's eyes darkened. She didn't look impressed. "You've met Patrick, then. Lucian must have shown you. That spineless bastard. He was ordered not to let anyone near the boy, but he just had to show you because he wanted to impress you. To make you think that he wasn't a monster. That he was still human." She growled. It was the same sound I'd heard her make when I accused her of murdering Sebastian. "But he's not. He's a killer, just like me. The only difference between us is that I wear my animal face all day long, and he puts his away, hides it when company comes. But we're still both the same creature, Tess. Deep down, you must know that. Vampires beget necromancers like humans beget serial killers, on and on, forever and ever."

I ignored what she was saying-it was just to goad me anyway. "You infected Mia all that time ago," I continued, "because you wanted to challenge the magnate's line of succession. Poor Patrick with the tubes and wires was Lucian's pick, but you wanted someone even more malleable. Someone that you could control. You're a powerful vamp, Sabine, and you knew all the dark, dirty secrets for making a new vampling. You knew how to sire someone and make it last, even if it was forbidden. But you didn't care. Because you're all about power."

Now it was my turn to smile. It was probably stupid, since she could still destroy me at any moment. But I'd been wondering about this for so long that now, as things were finally coming together, I couldn't help but savor the moment.

"Too bad," I said, "that there was a tiny problem. Mia's body didn't exactly take to the vampiric retrovirus. You couldn't quite make it past her immune system. Maybe you never knew that her parents had been mages. Maybe you just picked her at random and didn't realize. Or maybe you just never bothered to do a simple blood test, which would have told you that Mia was AB positive. That ABO type is extremely resistant to vampiric viral plasmids."

"We knew that her parents were mages," Sabine said, her voice thick with condescension. "That's why Mia was chosen. The combination of demonic blood in her veins-both vampire and mage-would make her doubly powerful. A hybrid that we'd be able to control, once she was fully turned."

"So you killed her parents and gave her a fake aunt. Cassandra. "

Sabine sighed, as if I'd just reminded her of a particularly annoying relative. "Yes, Cassandra. We met while I was traveling in Assam. We needed a shamanic half-breed, and Cassandra had some problems with the CORE that she needed to resolve. Together, we struck up an arrangement."

"But Cassandra didn't live up to her part of the bargain, did she? When the crisis moment came, she wasn't willing to give Mia up."

"Her weakness was what killed her."

"That's funny-I thought you were the one who killed her, by reaching into her chest and tearing her guts out. Isn't that how it happened?"

Her eyes gleamed. "Yes, that was definitely some of my finer work. But I didn't do it alone, Tess. You must have pieced that together by now."

There was a knock at the door. Sabine turned, and in that instant I managed to draw both mygun and my athame. I clicked off the safety, and Sabine looked at me with mild surprise.

"I suppose that's loaded with silver-tip bullets," she said.

"You bet your skanky undead ass it is."

"Open up," a voice bellowed from the hallway. "Corday? Are you in there?"

"Marcus?" I called back, feeling utterly bewildered. What the hell was he doing here? Had he been checking up on me? Whatever the reason, I didn't care. Two against one were much better odds, and Marcus was a far more powerful mage than I was. His presence, although it had never been comforting before, suddenly made me think that I actually might not die a horrible death tonight.

The door opened, and Marcus stepped into the apartment. He also had a gun, a Glock .45, which was now trained on Sabine.

"Corday, what the hell are you doing here? I explicitly said that you'd been removed from this case. Why are you poking around a dead vampire's apartment, and what's she doing here?"

"Marcus," I said softly, "please believe me when I say that I've never been so glad to see you." I gestured toward Sabine with my gun. "This is Sebastian's dominatrix girlfriend. She's also our new prime suspect in the murder of Cassandra Polanski."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"You'd better believe it. We found yellow silk fibers on the body of the second Vailoid demon, and those fibers match a yellow scarf that I found in Sebastian's drawer. It's Sabine's scarf. She's already admitted that she killed Cassandra, and that she deliberately infected Mia with the vampiric retrovirus. We seem to have wandered into some kind of bizarre vampire political scandal."

"Huh." His expression was impossible to read. "I don't say this often, but good work, Tess."