When she looked up, the woman was staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. There was something like recognition on her face, and she reached into her pocket, retrieving a prescription bottle.

"These are for you," she said. "Vicodin."

Miranda regarded the bottle, which had her name in bold print across the label, issued by a doctor she didn't recognize and picked up from a CVS on the west side of Austin.

"I also instructed Samuel to bring you food," she went on. "I know you're probably not feeling hungry, but you have to eat if you're going to heal."

Miranda didn't bother to protest. She knew that this was not the sort of woman to argue with.

"Also, I'm to give you this." The guard produced one of the wristbands that she and the others wore, and handed it to Miranda. "It's a voice-activated communication device. If you find yourself needing help, say the code number of the person you want to speak to, and it will connect you if you have sufficient security clearance."

"How do I know the codes?"

"Samuel is code nineteen. Helen, code twenty-three."

"What about you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Star-three."

"Why a star?"

"The Prime is Star-one, and I am his second in command."

"Then why aren't you Star-two?"

"Traditionally the Prime is first in the chain, followed by his Queen, then their second. Our Prime has no Queen, so Star-two is vacant."

"What exactly is a Prime?"

She got the look of someone trying to find words to explain calculus to a hamster. "The Shadow World is divided loosely into twenty-seven territories," she began. "Each territory is controlled by a Prime, and ideally by a paired Prime and Queen, who set the law which is enforced by their warriors-us. Everyone living within that territory is required to follow the Prime's law on pain of death."

"Okay, back up. Shadow World?"

The woman looked taken aback. "What?"

"I don't get it. I've never heard of any of this, and your Prime guy was talking about your world like it's this whole separate universe. Are you all nuts? You really think there's some special kind of law just for you? Who is he? Who are you? And what the fuck is going on in this place?"

She fell back into the cushions, drained by the burst of questions, and stared at the guardswoman, who blinked at her in surprise.

Miranda waited for her to say something, her head starting to pound-normally the guard's thoughts and feelings would tell her whatever she wanted to know. This business of having to ask questions felt strange after months of knowing too much about everyone she met. She could even look the woman in the eye, if she wanted to, without being confronted with her entire life story, which for a woman wearing a sword was probably a good thing.

"And one last thing," Miranda said before she could help it, "if you guys are bodyguards, why don't you have guns? What good is a sword going to do you in the twenty-first century?"

Now the woman definitely smiled. "Bullets are useless against our enemies," she told Miranda, "but decapitation works for pretty much everyone."

"So, what, you're the Highlander?"

She took a deep breath and sat down on the opposite end of the sofa. "I think perhaps this explanation will take a while."

Miranda shut her eyes a moment. "I figured." She gestured weakly at the woman, who was sitting with absolutely perfect posture, ready at a moment's notice to leap into action . . . whatever sort of action went on here in Bizarro World. "Why don't we start with your name."

"All right. My name is Faith."

"Nice to meet you, Faith. Miranda. Now, tell me who you people are."

She tried not to let the statement come off as a command, but Faith's eyebrow quirked anyway. "It's complicated. You may not believe me."

"Then keep it simple, for now. Ten words or less."

"I can give it to you in three."

"Go ahead."

Faith smiled, and the entire universe, already perilously close to spinning wildly off its axis, ground to a halt as she replied, "We are vampires."

Three.

Her name was Maria, and she spoke no English, but the halter top and leather miniskirt said all anyone at the club really wanted to know.

He led her from the dance floor up the stairs to the balcony, where the guards were holding the space, keeping the rest of the crowd away. She followed gamely, her mind full of sex and tequila.

She was young and sweet and surprisingly innocent, here with her older friends for a wild night on the town before starting another week cleaning hotel rooms. He imagined her in her maid's uniform dancing in the hallways, a vacuum her partner, peeking in people's suitcases. The thought made him smile.

He also had another image of her: so drunk her eyes rolled in her head, being held down and fucked by the group of frat boys he'd seen moving in on her. Maybe she would remember, maybe it would just be a haze of booze and Rohypnol, but in the morning she would wake up hung over with the vague feeling that someone had been cruel to her, and it would never occur to a poor immigrant girl to get the police involved over being treated like a gutter whore.

He'd seen it a thousand times. They came to Texas for something better, and perhaps they found it-but the milk of human unkindness was as bitter in Austin as it was in Mexico.

Maria was nineteen, and her Spanish was lightning fast. She spoke of her friends still out on the dance floor, and of the guy who'd stuck his tongue in her ear an hour ago, and of the merits of Patron over Cuervo. She was nervous. A handsome man in black had slid in behind her on the dance floor, his hands wrapping around her hips and drawing her back against him, and her will went completely slack. Her friends had elbowed each other, and he knew what they were thinking: rich white man.

The human mind was astonishingly easy to manipulate. They were almost always open to gentle suggestion, and few knew how to shield. It was that manipulation, ironically, that enabled his kind to feed without hurting anyone . . . when they bothered to do so.

He drew Maria to the corner and pressed against her, feeling her small hands and long fingernails clench his upper arms. She had no intention of saying no, but still, he turned so that if she wanted she could still get away, even as he took firmer hold of her mind and tilted her chin back.

The smell of her skin-perfume, yes, but beneath that soap and sweat and the intoxicating scent of the feminine and mortality-brought his hunger out full force. His teeth scratched lightly over her neck, and he lowered his head and struck.

Her body tightened, but his hold over her was too strong to allow her to panic. She moaned and ground her hips into his. He ran power through her, heightening her arousal until she moaned again; desire and pleasure strengthened the blood, and flavored it with an undertone of sex and chocolate, thick and hot. She also had the faint taste of frankincense-a good Catholic girl.

He drank until he felt the itch in his jaw fade, and until her heartbeat fell into rhythm with his. Beyond that point, taking more could injure her. This was all he needed, and would affect her about as much as donating at the blood and tissue center.

He lifted his mouth from her skin and licked the two tiny holes. They would be gone by midmorning.

Maria sagged back against the wall, and he held her up for a moment, carefully planting suggestions in her mind: She'd met a man, they'd danced and had a few drinks, and then she'd gone home. She could fill in the details with her own imagination. She was to get in the cab that would be waiting outside and return to her apartment, eat something, and then sleep.

He watched her walk back down the stairs in her stiletto heels, wondering for the thousandth time why women in this century hadn't jettisoned such patriarchal masochism. Once he saw her walk out of the club, where his guards would steer her into the Yellow Cab and pay the driver, he took the stairs and left himself.

The night was hot and humid from the recent rain, but for his kind it was just warm enough. The only real reason he wore his coat this time of year was to conceal his weapons from the teeming mortal crowd of Sixth Street.

He lifted his wrist and said into the com, "Star-three."

A chiming noise told him he'd connected. "Yes, Sire?"

"Report."

"As you requested, I came to check on your guest. I'm there now."

He blinked. "Still?"

"Yes. We're . . . having a conversation about . . . things."

Oh. That conversation. "How's she taking it?"

"Unclear at this point. I'll keep you apprised."

"Star-one, out."

He smiled faintly at the thought of how Miranda had reacted to finding out exactly what she'd blundered into.

He was about to call the car to take him back to the Haven, when a second chime, higher-pitched, issued from the com.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Sire . . . Elite Twenty-seven here reporting from Patrol Three. We have a situation and request your intervention."

Her voice was tense, with an edge of shock. His heart sank. There was only one reason the patrol would request his presence on an otherwise peaceful night: another attack. "Alpha Seven?"

"Yes, Sire."

"Location?"

"The 360 entrance to the Barton Creek Greenbelt."

"I'm on my way."

During daylight hours the Greenbelt was scattered with joggers and humans walking dogs. The ribbon of trees and brush itself wound around the water, beneath the highway and along the edge of town, and though it was a good place for a run or a nature walk, it was also, unfortunately, a good place to dump a body.

The car pulled up into the parking lot, and by the time he got out the two on-duty patrol leaders were already at his side, giving him the rundown on the attack.

"Is it the same MO as the rest?" he asked.

"No, Sire. It seems the insurgents have upped the ante . . . and they wanted to deliver a very pointed message."

"I suppose it's foolish to ask who the message was for," he mused, following them down the entry path that led to the Greenbelt itself. "How was it discovered?"

"Anonymous tip to APD. They recognized the signs and called it in to us."

He smelled the body before he saw it. As they turned a corner, the stench of old blood and decaying flesh hit him in a nauseating wave. Contrary to popular myth, vampires didn't get hungry just from smelling blood-it was the life energy contained within it that they lived on. Seeing blood splashed around a body wasn't any more appetizing to them than a pile of rotting fruit would be to a human.

The rest of the patrols were clustered around the scene, and as one they rose and bowed to him when he appeared. He nodded, and they returned to their work, gathering parts.

There were a lot of parts.

He stood with his arms crossed and pondered what was in front of him, anger forming a hard knot in his chest.

The Elite had unfolded a plastic tarp on the ground and were lining up the victim's dismembered remains. Each part was wrapped meticulously in white paper and sealed with masking tape. One of the Elite sliced carefully through the tape and unwrapped each piece to get a better look.

The knot of anger caught fire as he realized what he was seeing.

The human had been methodically butchered. There were no clothes, no personal effects, just parts hacked off at the joints with what looked like a cleaver. The white ends of bone were visible where the legs had been cut at the knee. Flesh had been sheared from the pelvis and wrapped separately from the bones. The rib cage had been sliced into segments, ready for barbecue.

Despite the obvious care taken to wrap the body parts, scavengers had already gotten to several, and so had insects. Flies buzzed everywhere, and at least three of the parcels had been dragged from the central location beneath a tree and ripped open. Blood had soaked through the corners of the packages.

One of the Elite turned away from the package he was opening, looking ashen and sick. At the Prime's questioning look, he gestured at the package and said, "Organs. Including the tongue."

"How long has this been out here?" he demanded.

Elite 27 joined him. "We're thinking since this morning, but it looks like it may have been refrigerated before the dump. I called for an APD forensics team to come in and claim the body-they can give us more details. But it was definitely a vampire-there are fang marks at the jugular. I'm guessing that was the cause of death and the poor bastard was hacked up postmortem."

"You're sure it was male?"

"Yes, Sire. The genitals were in their own package. There's also this . . ."

The Prime went with him over to the tree. Elite 27 pointed at the base of the trunk, where the skull had been left unwrapped.

He knelt next to it, wondering whose life had been stolen and whether he had died in pain-the traces of the human's death had already faded, which meant he had been dead several days. It was a blond, Caucasian, about 30 years of age, healthy looking-except of course for being disembodied underneath a tree.

"Look at his ear," the Elite suggested.

The human's left ear had been punctured and hung with a metal tag, just like those used by cattle ranchers, but instead of a number, it was etched with a symbol.

Each Prime had an official Seal. The tag in the human's ear bore the Seal of Auren, the Prime before him.

Apparently the old boy still had friends.

He straightened, clamping down hard on the rage boiling up his spine and the instinctive urge to spill blood. "Now we know who we're dealing with," he said. "I want a trace run on anyone connected with Auren's Court who survived the war. Allies, Elite, servants, everyone. Anyone you find, bring in for questioning. Anyone who resists, rip their heads off."

"Yes, Sire. I'm on it." The warrior seemed a bit surprised at his vehemence, but turned away to call the Haven and have one of the administrative support staff get started on the search.

He walked back up the path, feeling every year of his age and more, anger gradually giving way to frustration and then to weariness. In the last three months there had been seven murders by vampires who were making no effort to hide their crimes. Up until now in his tenure there had been occasional attacks, but nothing on this scale. It had taken a decade and a half for Auren's followers to organize themselves.

Harlan, the driver, bowed. "Sire. Back to the Haven?"