Pure cold rage shot through my body and, like the first time, I fantasized about hunting the killer down, exacting revenge for the young lives unjustly ended. Vengeance was as much a part of being Amazon as our worship of Artemis. Within the tribe, a band of warriors would have been chosen and none would have rested until the killer was found and destroyed. Her soul released, but not in the gentle manner I’d used with these girls. No, it would be torn from the killer’s body, then grounded to earth. Cursed to stay locked for eternity in one spot, her only conscious world the moments of her own death playing over and over.

But then reality settled down around me-again.

I was no longer part of the tribe. A fact I didn’t regret, but for these girls’ sakes, for my family’s…for a moment I wavered. Amazon justice was hard and fast. A tempting resolution to this ugly dilemma. But I had left that world, and even if I wanted to return, they wouldn’t accept me back easily.

In fact, they would view any approach from me with suspicion, perhaps even enacting their hard and fast justice on me before bothering to gather tiresome details. And they’d be back in my life, in my daughter’s life. My daughter, who knew nothing of her heritage, didn’t even know Amazons were real and that she was one.

It was why I hadn’t done anything about the first girl-or not much anyway. I’d released her spirit, then left her body where the police could find it.

It had been something, but not enough. I cradled my face in my hands…not enough by a long shot. The dead body beside me proved that.

What now? Nothing had changed. I couldn’t do any more this time.

But hard as I tried, I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t just stand up and cart this body off like I had the last. Forget her…or try to.

What about their families? Their mothers wondering when their daughters would come home…expecting them…

Amazons were seminomadic. Here in the U.S., they traveled from one “safe camp” to another, much like gypsies. Also, like gypsies, Amazons tended to skirt the edges of the law-thinking nothing of conning the humans they encountered out of property and money-my grandmother was a prime example of that way of thinking.

And because of these tendencies, Amazons, even those still fully immersed in the tribe, might not see each other for months. A mother could easily not hear from her barely adult child for that long and think little of it…have no idea her daughter had been left, dead, on my doorstep. Their mothers could still be sitting at some safe camp, waiting, expecting…

My hands formed claws at my sides, my fingernails scraping against the concrete steps.

And what about the others-those not missing yet? Could my silence be endangering other young women? What if the Amazons had no idea they were being preyed upon-that there was a killer in their midst?

Two, then three fingernails broke down to the quick. I breathed out through my nose, ignoring the pain-forcing it and the nagging guilt building in the back of my brain out of my consciousness.

Flattening my fingers against the concrete until my knuckles glowed white, I forced myself to continue weighing my options. Choices-there had to be choices…something better than just ignoring all of this and praying it wouldn’t happen again.

I focused, away from the current situation and the dead girl by my side, and toward the bigger picture: how to stop more girls from dying.

The next logical step, if anything about my life was logical, would be going directly to the police, but there were problems with that solution too.

I was an over-one-hundred-year-old Amazon. Something I hid, not only from society, but my own daughter. I’d spent ten years pretending, and so far I’d succeeded. But my mother and grandmother, who also lived with me, already raised eyebrows. They tried to hide their heritage, both to humor me and to protect the tribe I despised, but their efforts wouldn’t hold up under close study. Not to mention that bringing the police into the picture would also mean bringing in my mother and grandmother. They would realize-just as quickly as I had-that the girls weren’t normal runaways. They were Amazons. And they would insist on informing the tribe.

Bringing me back to problem number one.

So, calling the police, like any normal grown adult human would do when faced with a dead body on her porch, was out.

I was trapped by my own lies, and it pissed me off.

My gaze dropped to the body beside me, zeroing in on a thin strip of leather barely visible beneath the hair covering her neck.

I reached out and let the thong run over my cupped hand until the tiny stone figure I knew would be attached to its end landed in my palm. A leopard, black, his lips pulled into a snarl. I could almost feel anger pulsing in the tiny creature. This girl, like the first, like me, wore her family totem on her back and around her neck. It was the only piece of out-of-the-ordinary adornment aside from the tattoos that both girls had worn. I’d taken the first girl’s for that reason.

I lifted her head and slipped the totem free.

With the tiny leopard tucked inside my pocket, I felt a little better. I had a plan, too late for this girl or the previous one, but maybe it would keep there from being a next.

Still, I muttered an apology as I pulled the corners of the old blanket on which the girl lay over her body and bundled her like a newborn infant. I would perform what Amazon burial rites I could and leave her corpse where the police would find it-hopefully, soon.

It wasn’t much, but this time-I patted the lump of stone resting in my pocket-it wouldn’t be all I’d do. I couldn’t-wouldn’t-reveal myself to the Amazons or the police, but I also couldn’t sit back and do nothing, not again.

This time I’d do my best to let both know something was wrong, that someone was preying on teens.

I glanced at my watch-almost two A.M. I had three hours before my grandmother arose and addressed the sun. I could make it to Milwaukee -or close to it-and be back before anyone noticed my absence. But I wouldn’t have time to complete the second task-not tonight. The Amazons would have to wait. I’d need a full night to make it to the northern Illinois woods where the closest safe camp was located and be back home before dawn.

After taking one last moment to mourn her death, I flipped the girl’s body over my shoulder and trudged to my truck.

At some point I was going to have to try and interpret what message the killer was sending me by depositing the girls on my front steps, but for now I had an even more solemn job to complete.

Chapter Two

“They found another girl’s body today.” Mother spoke from over my shoulder. She was concentrating on the small TV perched on our kitchen counter.

The camera focused on a body bag being lifted onto a portable gurney and wheeled to the back of a hearse-type vehicle. I picked up the remote and flipped off the morning news.

“Unfortunately.” I shifted my gaze to my bowl of Cheerios and waited for Mother to step away.

She didn’t.

“Aren’t you worried?”

My mind lurched. Had she seen me? I glanced up at her, searching for some sign that she’d witnessed my early morning mission, but she just blinked down at me, her gray eyes void of any accusation.

Worried-by the deaths, she meant. I inhaled and willed myself to relax.

“Neither of the girls were found here…in Madison,” I replied, my eyes focusing on my cereal to cover my lie. A Cheerio slipped off my spoon and escaped back into the pool of milk.

“Yet,” Mother countered.

I pushed the spoon to the bottom of the bowl, crushing the cereal trapped beneath the utensil to mush. Why couldn’t she just let it go?