No answer.

"Fuck-Sire, can you access Lindsay's com from here?"

"Of course." He clicked on something and brought up another grid, this one showing the locations of every com. She saw four dots representing the backup team closing in on Miranda's apartment complex, and there in its usual spot was Elite 86's signal.

"She hasn't moved," David noted. "But she's not answering-she could be unconscious like the others. Elite Fifty-Seven, what's your status?"

"We're having trouble getting to the building, Sire. There's something going on."

"What do you mean?"

"There are fire trucks and ambulances everywhere. They pulled in just as we reached the street. I sent Elite Twenty in for a closer look, but there's so much smoke that it's making visual confirmation impossible."

David met Faith's eyes, and she saw what he was thinking. Her own insides went to ice.

He reached out with one hand and switched windows to the sensor grid. Every life form with a lower body temperature than a human's and a body mass over a certain size registered on the network.

He overlaid the two grids.

There were three vampires leaving the location of Miranda's apartment as four more approached it from the opposite direction. The approaching four were Elite. The other three were not.

"Oh my God, she's there," Faith gasped.

But when she looked up, he was gone.

David reappeared across the street from the apartment complex, and as soon as he could hear again, the cacophony was deafening. Sirens, radio chatter, and people shouting surrounded him, and the acrid smell of burning assailed him.

There were two enormous fire trucks blocking the street, and police cars lining the block to hold back the crowds.

The air was thick with smoke.

David ran across the street, pushing past the bright yellow barrier and ignoring the officer who tried to call him back. He snaked in between the fire trucks and emerged on the other side, where a blast of heat knocked him back.

It was like staring into hell. The building was an inferno, and several of the others in the complex had already gone up as well.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to the charring white eaves of the building. Just beneath the roof, painted in dark red that was blackening in the smoke, was the Seal of Auren.

The energy expense of moving himself through such a great distance caught up with him as the shock did, and he felt his knees impacting with the concrete. He couldn't tear his eyes from the flames licking out of Miranda's windows-his mind's eye showed him her furniture cracking and paint blistering, her prized keyboard's casing melting in the heat.

And all the while, he could hear the past: Lizzie screaming as the bonfire rose up to consume her lily-white skin.

"Sire?"

He didn't look away from the fire at the patrol leader who had found him.

"Sire, we found Elite Eighty-Six-she was still alive when we got to her, but . . ."

"What else?" he asked. "What have they found?"

"We don't know. It happened so fast-they're certain it was arson. They found gas cans in the parking lot. They rescued a few of the residents, but at least half are unaccounted for."

"And Miss Grey?"

"I don't know, Sire. All I know is . . ."

"What?"

"Lindsay . . . when we found her, she was saying 'I failed, I'm sorry' over and over again. When I asked her what happened, all she said was . . . was . . . 'She's gone.' "

"No," he said. "She must have been out. She couldn't have been in there. Find her. Now."

He tried to think, tried to come up with another explanation. She had been at the club tonight, and he was supposed to meet her at midnight . . . she would have been home, waiting for him, when they came for her. She might even have opened the door thinking he was behind it.

There was no way she could have escaped. A small human woman couldn't stand up to three vampires, not without months of fight training and a miracle. She had been strong, but not that strong, not yet.

No. No . . . no.

Desperate, he sought out with his power, trying to find the connection they'd had only days ago. He'd let it fade so that she could go back to normal for a little while longer, thinking it was the right thing to do, that she should have more time to think. But she had already known what she wanted. He was the one who was afraid. And now . . .

He searched for her with his mind, but when he found what was left of the link and tried to follow it, he met only cold darkness where her loving warmth should be. Even after a week there should have been a faint trace of it left.

He didn't know how long he knelt there, staring at the fire, before a voice said, "Excuse me, sir, but I've been asked to show you this."

David rose, absently dusting off his knees and straightening his coat, and faced the paramedic. The young woman was sweaty and dirty, and he could see that she was a seasoned professional who wouldn't let herself feel the loss of life until after she had saved as many as she could.

He nodded, and she led him around the fire truck, past several humans in various degrees of jeopardy with other EMTs fixing oxygen masks on their faces. Nearby, there were already three bodies covered in sheets, awaiting transport to the morgue.

The Elite patrol leader he'd spoken to before was standing at the edge of the triage area. He was staring down at something.

David had never wanted to run away from anything so badly in his life.

He forced himself to walk up to the man's side, stand between him and the EMT, and look down.

He was expecting a body. What he saw was a guitar.

"The fire started in unit two twenty-one," the EMT was saying. "One of the first responders tripped over this and ended up dragging it out with him. The strings got wrapped around his foot. As I understand it, you know the resident here?"

David stared at the remains of the beautiful instrument. There was little more than a scrap of neck and string left, the body so charred it had fallen apart.

He remembered the first time he'd seen her play, that night at the club, when he had no idea how she would throw his world into such welcome turmoil. Then, that night at the Haven, when he'd watched her from the door, his heart so full of love for her that only a liter of Jack could silence it. He saw her slender hands dancing over the strings, the way they had danced over his skin, and her soft mouth forming words, that same mouth that had closed over his.

She was gone. He couldn't feel her anymore. Ariana had gotten to her before the Elite could reach her. He'd been too late to save her. Jonathan's vision had come true, and he had been too blind to heed the warning.

She was gone.

He responded numbly to the EMT's questions, and when she finally left, he turned to the Elite.

"You will stay here until we have a body," he informed the patrol leader. "Have Lindsay's body sent back for a memorial and comb the area for any further evidence. I want this Blackthorn bitch brought to me." He looked back up at the smoking remains of the apartment building, where everything that mattered had gone to ash. "I'm going home."

Faith was waiting outside the front doors of the Haven when the car pulled up. She'd been standing there for nearly half an hour.

She'd tried to contact him over the coms, but he wasn't answering; the patrol unit at the scene had no news, only that the building was a total loss and no body had been found. But if anyone would know, David would know. The connection between him and Miranda would surely still be active, and even if it wasn't he was strong enough to find its echo.

She had to be alive. There was simply no other possibility. After everything that had happened, everything Miranda had been through, it couldn't end so suddenly. They would find her, and she would be fine, and she would come home.

Harlan got out and held open the car door, and after a moment, David emerged, his face smudged with soot.

When she saw the expression on his face, Faith shook her head violently.

"No," she charged up to him, standing in front of him, fighting the urge to shake him. "Tell me you found her, Sire. Tell me she's okay."

In the decades she'd known him she had seen him angry, seen him hate; she had seen him mourn. But she had never seen what she saw in his eyes at that moment . . . complete desolation.

Faith fell back, her hand to her mouth against the sobs that were trying to batter their way past her rapidly fracturing calm.

The Prime lowered his eyes and walked past her into the Haven, silent, head bowed.

Faith followed, struggling to regain control of herself, but she saw tears on the faces of the servants and Elite that she passed. When they reached the Prime's wing, and he went quietly into the suite and shut the door without admitting her, Samuel took her arm.

"What's happening?" he asked. "I just got on duty and everyone's saying . . . God, Faith, is it true?"

She made herself sound professional even if her heart was screaming. "We don't have confirmation yet. As soon as there's news I'll make sure you know."

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

She started back down the hall. "We're going to find Ariana Blackthorn and kill her. And we're going to kill all of her friends. And anyone else who might need it. But first . . . first we're going to find Miranda and bring her back here, where she belongs."

Eighteen.

The first breath she took was nothing but water.

She screamed, but no sound would come. It was cold . . . so cold . . . and she couldn't see. Blackness surrounded her, pulled her feet, dragging her downward . . . and she was so weak, she could barely even move, let alone struggle.

So cold.

This was where she had always been headed. It was the nightmare made real. The darkness had closed around her and there was no escape.

Images floated past her mind as she hung suspended between life and death. She saw her childhood, her mother, back when things were good. She saw Marianne back when she could smile. She saw her mother's vacant face and lifeless eyes . . . her lonely grave in Austin, unattended for ten years until her prodigal daughter offered her rosemary. There was an empty plot next to her, just the right size for one more grave.

She heard music, her own voice singing. Piano, deep and rich. She felt keys beneath her fingers, then strings, then muscles. She tasted blood.

Faces came to her, some with names, some without. Kat. Faith. Sophie. Terrence. Helen.

David.

Samuel. Ariana. Traitors. The full moon.

Memory struck, and from somewhere deep within her that was almost dead, she summoned all her strength and fought.

She burst through the surface of the water, flailing on all sides, her lungs burning from lack of oxygen. Her hands were nearly unresponsive, but she splashed out until she found something to grab on to and pulled herself sideways.

She crawled onto the bank, vomiting huge gushes of stinking lake water, then sucking in an enormous breath that made her dizzy. She collapsed into the mud, coughing and gasping and sobbing.

Her chest hurt. She put her hands to her heart, felt it beating. It was beating.

She was alive.

As soon as her lungs were empty and her nose was no longer full of the stench of pollution and dirt, she smelled something else . . . something crisp and light . . . something terrifying.

Morning. Morning was coming.

She had to get inside. The sky was starting to lighten in the east.

Inch by inch, she pulled herself all the way out of the water and got to her hands and knees, then her feet. The world spun around her, but she stayed upright through sheer force of will.

She had somehow ended up a long way from the Congress bridge. She was just off the jogging path that wound around Lady Bird Lake. In a few hours there would be people everywhere. She could get help, find a phone, call . . .

Call who, exactly? She had never bothered memorizing numbers because they were all stored in her phone. She was fairly sure she knew Kat's, but she didn't have any way to call. Her phone was back at her apartment and there was no way she'd make it there by dawn. She had to find someplace dark and safe, somewhere she could rest. She was so tired.

She almost sank back to the ground, but fear of what would happen if she was caught outside drove her forward. Her body hurt all over, and she felt like her insides were coated with sawdust. She was soaked and filthy and had no money, no identification, not even seventy-five cents for a bus.

Her mind was whirling. She had to think. Where could she go?

She stumbled up the path, arms wrapped around herself in a vain attempt to warm up. She made her way up to the street, trying to make sense of where she was, and her blurry eyes made out a street sign: LAMAR BOULEVARD.

That was something. Lamar ran all the way through Austin, parallel to the interstate from one end to the other. If she was at the lake, she was west of her apartment and just south of downtown. She could get home in a couple of hours walking once the sun went down. If she continued south a little farther, she'd pass the Zachary Scott Theatre and a variety of restaurants.

She concentrated on moving one foot at a time, watching carefully where she stepped in her bare feet. She was starting to shiver from the cold, and her teeth were chattering, causing her upper jaw to hurt like it was cracked. The pain in her body was growing so intense that she started to cry without realizing it until she felt tears hit her arm.

Around her the night waned, and her skin started to feel wrong, like it was on too tight. She remembered a similar feeling a long time ago when she'd been stung by a bee and found out she was allergic.

She looked around and saw she'd made it as far as the sandwich shop next to the theater. It was closed at this hour, but an idea seized her, and she slipped around the back of the building to the kitchen door.

Taking a deep breath, she threw herself at the door; it shuddered under her weight but didn't give. She tried again, and again, crying out softly with each hit, and on the fourth, the flimsy wood splintered and fell inward.

She had to take it on faith that there was no alarm. Inside, the air was cool and dark, and she wanted more than anything just to curl up in the corner and sleep, but she'd be found; instead, she looked behind the counter until she found a phone.

It took several tries to get the number right. The last two digits were hazy in her mind, but providence was with her, and after a couple of rings, a sleepy voice answered, "Hello?"

"Kat," she all but wept, "It's Miranda. I need your help."