The release papers were signed, and arrangements made for a registered nurse to come by three times a day. An ambulance was hired to transport her from the hospital to the house on Bourbon Street.

Lauren rode in the ambulance with Deanna. Sean, Bobby and Mark followed by car. The paramedics helped settle Deanna in, then left.

Heidi was still upset and on edge, but she was behaving normally again, and she was ready to be a little mother hen, clucking over Deanna. She a.s.sured Stacey and Bobby that she would be taking over Deanna's care and would make sure they didn't impose on anyone, and that she would protect her friend against any evil.

Lauren noticed that Mark seemed to find that final claim, especially, doubtful. He had a hushed conversation with Stacey in the hallway, and Lauren suspected Stacey was a.s.suring him that she had gotten Heidi to understand the danger facing them.

"I really think Heidi is going to be okay," she whispered to Mark, as he came back into the room. She kept her voice down because Heidi was close by, concentrating on making sure that Deanna's pillow was properly plumped.

He stared at her as she spoke, seeming distant and tense.

"Really," she said, catching his arm and leading him toward the door. "She's herself again."

Mark sighed, shaking his head. "And Sean told me about Judy Lockwood saying Leticia wouldn't stay out all night or miss work.

Don't you see? He gets to the people he uses. He literally gets into their blood."

Sean Canady came up the stairs, staring at Mark. "We've got another corpse," he said.

"Headless?" Lauren asked, swallowing.

"No. And found in a courtyard, not the Mississippi." He turned back to Mark. "They're having a hard time discerning how she originally met her demise. She's pretty well decayed. Apparently she's been dead for months."

"A fraternity prank?" Lauren asked, hoping against hope. But then she saw the way Sean and Mark were looking at one another.

"Vampires only explode and turn to dust if they've been dead long enough that their body would have decayed already.

Apparently we have a few fairly fresh kills on our hands."

"I think Lauren's idea of a fraternity prank makes sense. At least, that's the story I'd go with for the press," Mark told Sean.

"h.e.l.l," Sean groaned.

"We should go, don't you think?" Mark said to him.

"To the morgue?" Sean asked.

"To the hospital. We've got to see if we can talk to Leticia." He turned to Lauren. "Stay here. And please, Don't leave this house."

"I won't. Deanna and Heidi are both here," she said.

"And Bobby and Stacey," Sean told her. "And I'm going to tell Big Jim that the band will have to do without him for a few nights.

Call me if anything, anything at all, happens." "Absolutely," she swore.

She nodded, turned and took a seat on the bed next to Deanna, as if to show both men that she wasn't going anywhere.

Sun streamed in from the balcony. The air-conditioner hummed.

The only odd thing at all was the fact that Stacey had strung cloves of garlic all the way around the windows and the French doors that led to the balcony.

The room smelled like a pizzeria. But there were far worse scents, Lauren had discovered.

Like blood.

Sean was quite a helpful guy, Mark noted dryly to himself. The cop was his pa.s.sage into the places he needed to go.

Like Leticia's room, where Sean had stationed an officer by the door while Deanna's release was being handled.

When they entered, Mark saw that Leticia was shackled to the bed, and Judy Lockwood was still there, seated by her niece's side in the big hospital chair that turned into a bed. She was hummed as she knitted a sweater.

Mark noticed that Judy had brought her own kind of defense. The window sill was littered with a bit of dirt, which he knew was some kind of mojo Judy thought might work to keep her niece safe. There was also a huge cross on the bedside stand.

"How's she doing?" Sean asked.

"Sleeping like a baby," Judy told him. She didn't miss a st.i.tch as she answered, then smiled at Sean. "Thank you for listening to me."

Sean nodded. "This is a friend of mine, Ms. Lockwood. Mark Davidson. I think you met him earlier"

Judy studied him. "All right," she said after a moment. "Are you going to help us, then, Mr. Mark?"

"I'm going to do my best. I'll need to speak with Leticia when she wakes up. I'm hoping she can tell me something about where she's been."

Judy nodded. "You may take a seat, young man."

"I'll leave you, Mark, and get down to the mor-station," Sean said. "Judy, feel free to call me any time."

"I will, Lieutenant," she said firmly, her eyes on Mark. "And I thank you again," she added softly.

Sean left with a nod to Mark, who turned to Judy "Ms. Lockwood, are her clothes in the closest?"

She nodded.

"May I look at them?"

She stared at him for a long time. "They say you calmed her down. The cops couldn't hold her. No one could. You calmed her down."

"Um...yes."

He was startled when she reached out and grabbed him. "Is she going to be all right?" she demanded tensely.

This woman was somehow in the know, Mark thought. Maybe she didn't even know what she understood; maybe she just had special instincts. But somehow she knew that more was going on here than it seemed.

"I sincerely hope so," he said.

"I love this girl," Judy said with quiet vehemence. "Understand this: I love this girl more than my own life. I love her enough to kill her if need be. Do you understand what I'm saying, young man?"

"She needs a lot of blood," he said softly. "A lot."

Judy leaned back, eyeing him warily. "She's been getting that."

"She needs to be...watched."

"I won't leave her side."

He hesitated. "You have to be very careful. You have to...watch whoever comes in here." "I can do that," Judy a.s.sured him.

He nodded.

"Her things are all in the closet," Judy told him.

He thanked her.

Judy's uniform gave him little to go on; it was splotched with blood, but he had expected that. Then he checked her shoes. The soles were thickly caked with dark muck and swamp gra.s.s.

He set the shoes back where they'd been. He was surprised that Stephan hadn't made a clean kill of the nurse. A small miracle, he thought, then winced, thinking about the day.

About the decaying corpse that was now at the morgue.

Nefert.i.ti.

"I'll be praying for my girl," Judy said, her fingers busy at her knitting once again. "I'll be praying for her. You'll be praying, too, won't you, Mark?" She stared straight at him.

"Yes," he said simply.

"You go on now," she told him. "I'll be here. Day and night. Come what may. You can count on me," she said.

He smiled then walked over to the table, found paper and pen, and scribbled down his number. "If she wakes up..."

"I'll call you."

"Thank you."

Mark left the hospital. As he did, he saw night was coming.

His cell phone rang. It was Sean.

"Meet me at the morgue."

"Now?"

"It's as good a time as any."

"Lauren."

Lauren jumped. She had dozed off in a chair.

She looked across the room, thinking Heidi, who was relaxing in another chair, had spoken.

Heidi stared at her.

Then they both stared at Deanna.

Lauren blinked.This time it seemed Deanna really was conscious. Lauren and Heidi both leaped up, almost crashing into each other in their rush to reach Deanna's side.

"Hey!" Heidi said.

"Deanna," Lauren breathed.

"'m thirsty," Deanna murmured.

"I've got it," Heidi immediately said.

Lauren smiled and lifted Deanna's head so Heidi could hold the gla.s.s in place. Deanna took an eager sip.

"Go slow," Lauren warned.

Deanna nodded, drank, and sagged back against her pillow.

Her eyes closed for a minute, then flew open again.

"Jonas," she said.

"Jonas," Lauren repeated blankly. Then she frowned. Where was Jonas? He had stayed by Deanna's side for so long, but today...

Deanna had been alone, all alone, while Bobby had battled with Leticia, while pure madness had broken out....

Where had Jonas been?

"He's been with me, hasn't he?" Deanna asked softly.

"Yes, honey, he hung around," Heidi a.s.sured her, smoothing back her hair.

Deanna stared at Lauren. "Jonas is good," she said firmly.

Then why the h.e.l.l had he disappeared right when Deanna needed him most? Lauren wondered.

Bernie Gibbs was on night duty at the morgue. His job was to sit at the desk and deal with whatever the doctors might need help with, and sign the paperwork for whatever dear souls might depart this world in the darkness. Since the doctors never needed help at night, mainly he read books and signed for bodies when they were brought in.

He was often on night duty. Actually, he liked it, liked the silence. He'd gotten through three years at Tulane by working here. He heard about some weird stuff now and then, but it didn't bother him any. He'd always been the kind of kid who could sit through the most gruesome horror movie. Now that he was premed, he'd already seen a h.e.l.l of a lot worse anything Hollyweird could come up with.

Tonight he was in pretty good shape. He had borrowed a popular new spy thriller from the library, and it was just as engrossing as the reviews had promised. He was actually glad to be at work, where the stiffs never interrupted him just when he was at the best part of a book.