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The smoke from the cigarette drifted to her nostrils. Dee stepped into the faint streetlight and deliberately placed herself in Ian’s path. With Ian, you had to identify yourself fast—or he’d attack.
And sometimes, he attacked no matter what.
“Ian.” She made her voice quiet but calm. “Ian, I need your help.”
He was half-hidden by the darkness. The cigarette dangled from his fingertips. He wasn’t smoking. Hadn’t smoked in a year.
“Dee?” The tip of the cigarette bobbed and ash drifted into the night. “That you?”
Okay, he wasn’t coming at her with fists yet. A good sign. She’d told Simon to stay back because one look at him, and she knew Ian would have broken. The guy just hadn’t been the same since the fire. Not that she blamed him. No, not at all. “Yes, Ian, it’s me.”
He shifted his stance a bit, bringing the right side of his face more into the light. A strong, hard face. “Heard you killed a human, Dee.” He shook his head. “Bad move that.”
“I didn’t do it, Ian.”
“Humans are supposed to stick together. All those paranormal pricks out there want us gone. We have to fight them.”
More ash drifted away.
“I want to fight them tonight, Ian.” She had to keep Ian focused. So hard. The man already had one foot in the grave. Maybe that was how he did it because she sure as hell wasn’t sure how he found out all his information about the Other.
Ian was psychic. She’d always known that. But since the fire, it was like he was some kind of open channel to the darkness in the city.
He took a step forward, and the light drifted across him, across the ruined, twisted, and reddened flesh on the left side of his face.
Dee kept her eyes on his. “Help me, Ian.”
“The vampires are coming for you, Sandra Dee.” His voice had hollowed and taken on that empty tone that came with his visions. “Inching ever closer. Closer than you know…”
* * *
Simon caught the scent in the air. Blood. Fresh blood. He jerked to a halt as his nostrils flared. Dee stood about ten feet away from him. She was whispering to the bastard in the shadows.
But the blood scent was coming from the left. Drifting from the mouth of an alley. Garbage and decay—and sweet human blood.
He hesitated, his gaze on that yawning opening.
“Help…” The faintest of whispers.
Simon closed his eyes. An attack. Right there, so close.
Close enough for the blood to tempt him.
Dee had been right. This was the perfect place to hunt. But not for them.
These hunting grounds belonged to the vampires.
“Help…m—” A choked gurgle. A death cry.
Shit.
Simon ran for the alley’s entrance.
* * *
Dee’s head snapped up at the thunder of footsteps. Simon. She spun around and saw him run into an alley. Where the hell was he going?
Ian grabbed her hand, the hard flesh of his burnt fingers and palm scraping against her. “Coming from the inside, Sandra Dee. The thing you fear will take you tonight.”
