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“I know.” Nausea churned in his stomach. The man was probably lying dead on the gurney already. Too late.

Bennett glanced his way and fiddled his tongue over his teeth. “Can you hack the hospital security cameras? I’d rather not have the cops out looking for us.”

Anonymity was crucial for their survival. Before celebratory beers and burgers with the team, he’d be spending his night erasing surveillance footage.

Not how he wanted to spend his last night of hunting in San Francisco.

The tops of the skyscrapers glowed as the sun reached the horizon. After tonight, and, fuck, the last few decades, he’d shed enough vampire blood to tide him over for a lifetime.

2

Ah, the noxious scent of cleanser. Sweat. Blood. Vomit. Shit. Death and narrowly subverted ends. All swirling together in the aromatic cocktail that made up the ED’s unique bouquet.

The place where controlled chaos reigned. On days that staffing was adequate. Sometimes it was just chaos. One might think a coastal Oregon hospital ED would be more serene than inner-city Chicago.

Eryn knew better.

Tonight, the waiting room was already full. Beds nearing capacity. The beehive buzzed with activity.

Imminent death prickled over her skin like someone walking over her grave. Her shoulders stiffened and her gaze sharpened.

Adrenaline surged into her veins. Ready to run. To try.

Any moment, they’d realize. But sometimes, there was nothing anyone could do. This patient wasn’t going to survive the night. So she stayed quiet.

Dressed in street clothes, her bag in her lap, and impatience draining her energy, Eryn waited at the nurse’s station for the physician who was supposed to be orienting her to the department.

Leg tapping rhythmically in a high-backed, ergonomic office chair, her sleeves made of tattoos, her gray-streaked hair in a tight bun, and donned in the same aqua blue scrubs popular in hospitals nationwide, Karen spun toward her. “Eryn with a y.” The corners of her lips quirked with amusement.

“Eryn with a y,” Eryn confirmed with a light nod, as she had so many times. As usual, she followed it with, “I will never know why my parents cursed me to introduce myself as, ‘Eryn with a y, Lara—not Laura—and Pedersen with a D and all E’s.’”

The charge nurse slapped her knee and grinned. “Trust me. It’s better than being named Karen Emily Smith. Exactly as it sounds. Hence the tattoos and butt-length hair, otherwise I’d be cursed to endure loogies in my lattes.”

Eryn released her fists from her bag and leaned back in her chair. “Karen, something tells me I can come to you with anything, and you won’t judge me for being the stupid new doc.”

Karen winked so deeply her bushy gray eyebrow touched her cheekbone. “And I get the feeling your questions won’t be stupid.”

“Anyone around here not listen up, when you tell them what’s what?”

“Ha. Plenty of ’em last a week.” Karen glanced down the busy hall before cracking her neck with clever angles of her jaw. As she stood, she tugged her scrub pants from their anterior and posterior wedgie. “So. Chicago, huh? What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

Eryn fiddled her fingers on the zipper of her bag. “I was only there for residency. I grew up in Sisters.”

She paused and scanned the occupied rooms, and the beds waiting in the hall for overflow. Stethoscope around her neck, she tucked her unit phone into her pocket. “Didn’t want to work at St. Charles, or something closer to home?”

“Nah.” Eryn shook her head, trying to focus on the conversation instead of the rhythm of impending death like a harpy’s song. “My sister and I both always wanted to live on the coast.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Karen quirked an eyebrow and tipped a look down the hall. “I see your tour guide now. Well, Eryn with a ‘y,’ thanks for keeping me company between my rounds.”

Eryn followed her look. “Ditto. On the company, I mean. See you around.”

Square and stubbled jaw, hair a few weeks past due for a trim, the man was dressed in the same scrubs as everyone else, with “PHYSICIAN” in big letters on his ID badge. He leaned his elbows on the nurse’s station counter and glanced over Eryn, then did a quick double take. “Shit. Eryn, right?” His weary expression pinched into a grimace.

“That’s me.” She shifted her bag and sat up straight.

“Holden. We met on the video call for your interview. I’m the department lead and incredibly glad to see you.”

“Busy?”