around here.”

Hiding or disguising or dumping bodies was a natural part of hunting for me. Leaving him made me nervous, but Maggie was already outside. I washed up and followed.

I didn’t feel so reckless anymore. We walked more than a mile before she said, “You did good back there. Better than I’d expected.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you pegged that guy in a hurry. I was watching you from the bar and you had him in less than ten minutes. Surprised me.”

Her praise had an odd, soothing effect. I hunted to survive, so that I could go on living and taking care of William. No one had ever judged my technique and said “Good job” like that before. The opinions of others didn’t really matter much to me, but for some reason I liked hearing how pleased she was.

“Can we go to a higher-class place next time?”

“Oooooooh.” She laughed. “Getting snooty already? People in the higher-class places get missed. Better get used to smoke and tattoos.”

“Fabulous.”

Warmth glowed from her pale face in a way that made me feel welcome. She’d been alone too long. It’s funny how she thought herself so worldly and couldn’t recognize the scars of loneliness.

She broke into a run down an alley—still wearing those heels. I watched her hair blow back like a cloud and then followed her into the darkness. I felt right somehow. Happy.

Maybe I’d been lonely, too.

chapter 6

Cool, salt-laden wind from Puget Sound felt good blowing through my hair, a tiny breeze compared to the great gusts I’d grown up with in Wales. Exactly a week to the day after our experience together at Blue Jack’s, Maggie dressed us both up to go hunting again, only this time we hit the waterfront.

Maybe it was my newfound companion, or maybe the wide assortment of people who lived here, but Seattle appealed to me more and more each night. A haven. A paradise. Even though we hadn’t made another kill together yet, Maggie showed me the city and even insisted once that we take William for a walk on the street outside her house. He objected, shaking in agitation, but then calmed down when we both stayed right beside him and chatted of silly topics like trees and squirrels. I think he even enjoyed himself.

But tonight was different. I could feel it in the clothes she chose, the time she took with her hair and makeup, the pale cast of her face, the hard look in her eyes.

Now she leaned on the pier railing in her black Lycra tank dress and fishnet stockings, her hot-chocolate hair wisping across her cheek. She looked like a cartoon cutout from some teenage boy’s fantasy magazine. That should have tipped me off. Maggie never did anything by accident.

She didn’t look excited or anticipatory, not as I had expected. Edward hadn’t exactly enjoyed breaking somebody’s neck, but the actual prospect of hunting had sometimes filled him with glittering energy that made me turn away in disgust.

Don’t get me wrong. I knew the game and the score, but simply having the facts didn’t fill me with bloodlust. I took no pleasure in the fact that some mortal had to die so I could go on living. Still, I obeyed the cardinal rule we all followed: never leave a witness. Our existence depended on absolute silence. Blackness. Anyone who knew our secret had to die. The body dumped. The life erased.

No one knew the score better than me.

But Maggie viewed the entire twisted cycle as commonplace. We needed life force, so we hunted. Cut and dried. It isn’t that she was aware of having no regrets. She just didn’t think about it at all. Enviable.

“What now?” I asked.

Before us lay the dark water, behind us a rusted train track stretching into the city. Beyond the tracks were faded nondescript buildings too old to be of much interest.

“We wait,” she answered. “Someone always turns up.”

“How often do you come here?”

“A few times a year. Something told me you’d like this place.”

“I do.”

Wind from the sound whipped up again, blowing my hair into slightly damp tangles. I heard voices. They came from the left. Masculine laughter. Maggie turned to look.

A party of three walked down the railed sidewalk, about seventeen years old, all wearing torn jeans and T-shirts. One wore a leather coat. No earrings. No shaved heads. No makeup. They weren’t skinheads or part of a gang, probably just some guys trying to get out of the house.

Maggie stepped out in front of