Magiere's eyes snapped open. "Rose?" she said softly, turning to look up.

A small form in a muslin nightdress rubbed her eyes and yawned.

Leesil took the stairs two at a time.

"Where's Grandma and Grandpa?" Rose asked, half awake. Her lower lip quivered slightly. "I heard noisy things in the dark."

"You had a bad dream." Leesil grabbed Rose quickly, but gently, and picked her up, holding her against his shoulder.

"Where's Grandma?"

"People who sleep in my bed never have bad dreams," he answered. "It's too big and soft. Would you like to sleep there?"

She blinked again, trying hard to keep her eyes open for the moment. "Where will you sleep?"

"I'll sit in the chair and watch over you until the sun comes up. All right?"

She smiled, clutching at his hair as she put her head in the crook of his neck. "Yes. I'm afraid."

"Don't be." Before turning toward his room with the weary child, he looked down. Magiere stood at the bottom of the stairs, leaning heavily against the railing for support. His voice was sweet and light as he whispered to the child. "Everything will be better in the morning," he lied.

Chapter Ten

Rashed paced inside the cave below his warehouse in nearly panicked agitation. He'd raced back home to find Teesha and Ratboy-assuming that Ratboy would have run home as well-in order to move them someplace safe. The hunter had clearly seen his face, and many people in town knew him or knew of him as the owner of the warehouse. Sunrise was only moments away, and not only was Ratboy still missing, but he'd come back to find Teesha gone as well.

Had she gone looking for them or taken Ratboy to safety herself? Either act was certainly in the realm of Teesha's nature, but he couldn't be certain. Rashed moved toward the lower end of the cave, ready to head back out in search of Teesha, but he could sense the time. After long years in the night, any vampire was fully aware of the time and movement of the unseen sun. Any who failed to build such an awareness had long since burned to ash in the light of day. He knew the sun was cresting the horizon, and so he stopped short of leaving, turning to pace again, back and forth in the dark.

Where was Teesha?

He'd constructed their world carefully in a place where they could exist and thrive, feed judiciously and not worry over being discovered. It was home enough, but not without Teesha. Given time, he'd even hoped one day she might be free of that specter of a husband who clung to her in after-life. If she had gone to find Ratboy and himself and been burned in the daylight? Then Ratboy best have burned with her, or Rashed would tear him apart slowly, piece by piece, over long blood-starved years, never letting the filthy little wretch have his second death.

Damn the hunter to eternal torture as well. And what a fool he'd been himself.

Blood dripped openly from the gaping wound in Rashed's shoulder, and he could not easily move his left arm. His collarbone was cleanly broken. The shallow wound down his chest seeped. Each injury burned as if he'd been dowsed with some priest's blessed oils. The wounds weren't healing at all. He remembered Ratboy's own panic upon returning from the fight on the road with the hunter, and he knew he would have to feed soon in order to close his wounds.

He'd told Ratboy "no noise." Was that such a difficult concept to understand? In a matter of moments, he'd lost control of his fight with the hunter, and Ratboy had managed to alert the entire household. Now the hunter had confirmation that at least two undeads inhabited the town. The situation could hardly be worse.

And what in all the demons of the underworld had happened to him during the fight itself? The hunter's sword was magically endowed, if not magically created; that much was obvious. Where did she get it? Even a blade that had been warded or arcanely made to battle the undead should not have prevailed against his open attack-he was too strong and skilled. This was not arrogance or pride, but realism. He should have been able to beat her down, if not kill her outright, and been back out the window with the body in a matter of seconds. Instead of tiring, her strength and speed had grown to match his every attack.

And she had bitten him as if she were one of his own kind.

He'd felt the heat of her body, heard the pounding of her heart, and smelled living blood in her veins. She was not a vampire or some other Noble Dead. What had happened? And she had seen his face. It was only a matter of time and questions asked before the hunter connected him to the warehouse.

"We must leave here," he murmured.

"Rashed!" Teesha's voice called to him from the far side of the cave.

Relief flooded Rashed at the sound of her voice. But when he turned to see her in the dark, stumbling toward him, her face was filled with as much fear as he'd felt when he dove through the inn's window to save his own existence. He ran toward her, and anger returned quickly at what he saw.

Teesha held on to Ratboy's half-conscious form by the back of his shirt collar, dragging him into the cave. She looked exhausted. She'd never had the physical strength with which most Noble Dead were gifted. Perhaps it was a trade-off for her higher ability in thought and dreams that she used to hunt. Even he had sometimes felt the soothing calm wash through him at the sound of her lilting words.

"Someone threw garlic water all over Ratboy," she said. "I found him crawling by the sea, using wet sand to scour it off. I had to kill a peddler down by the shore to feed him quickly. Haste would not allow a more discreet hunt, and Ratboy needed a great deal of blood. I buried the body in the sand for now. We just got inside before sunrise, but he's badly hurt."

By way of answer, Rashed grabbed Ratboy by the front of his shirt and held him off the ground against the dirt wall of the cave. The little urchin's skin was still partially blackened and charred in places, cracking and split. It served him right for his recklessness.

"We're stuck in here now because of you," Rashed hissed. "That hunter may come during the day and burn this place around us."

Ratboy's eyes were mere slits, but hatred glowed out clearly.

"What a pity," he managed hoarsely.

"I told you 'no noise'! You forced me out before my work was finished." That was only partly true-but Ratboy and Teesha didn't need to know that.

"And who cut through your shoulder?" Ratboy opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. "Did she hurt you, my dear captain?"

Rashed dropped him and drew his fist back to strike.

Teesha grabbed it. The mere touch of her hands was enough to make him pause.

"This will not help us," she said. With light pressure he could have easily resisted, Teesha pulled Rashed's arm down. "We have to get every trap set and hide as deeply as possible."

Of course, she was correct. There was nowhere to run until nightfall. Now he was the one playing the fool and right in front of her. Ratboy's blundering had undone him in more ways than one. He quickly collected himself.

"Yes, you help Ratboy. I'll set the devices and join you below."

Her tiny fingers brushed his face as if glad to see him in charge again. "Let me tend your shoulder."

"No, it's all right. Just get deeper below."

Perhaps they would all survive until nightfall.

Leesil and Magiere waited in the common room for Constable Ellinwood to arrive. At sunrise, Leesil had accosted a passing boy on the street and paid the youth to run to the guardhouse with the news of Beth-rae's murder. His initial instinct had been to clean the mess up in the common room, but Magiere stopped him.

"All of this proves we were attacked," she said.