“No! No! It can’t be her! It can’t be her—” Jade’s voice went from a wail to a sob in a heartbeat.

   I didn’t say anything else. Nothing I could say would change the cold, cruel facts or make this any better.

   A loud clatter sounded, as though Jade had dropped the phone, although I could hear her still sobbing no-no-no in the background. Each one of her cries shattered another piece of my heart. The better part of a minute passed before someone picked up the phone again.

   “Don’t worry,” Sophia rasped. “I’ll drive her.”

   “Thanks. I’ll meet you there.”

   We hung up, and I looked over at the crime scene. The workers from the coroner’s office had loaded Elissa onto the stretcher, and I watched while they slowly zipped the black body bag over her, hiding her bruised, bloody, battered face.

   Out of sight but not out of mind.

   Never, ever that.

   And a hard, inescapable truth punched me in the gut, the way it always did whenever something like this happened.

   This might be the end of Elissa Daniels, but it was just the beginning of her sister’s pain.

10

   I left Northern Aggression, drove through the downtown loop, and fell into the flow of traffic a few blocks away from the main police station. It was after ten o’clock now, and the mean streets of Southtown were open for business.

   Hookers wearing as little as they could without freezing to death ambled up and down the sidewalks, stamping their feet and trying to stay warm between customers, while cars slowly cruised by, the drivers debating who they wanted to take for a spin. Pimps bundled up in puffy parkas lurked in the dark alleys beyond, ready to make their presence known if someone tried to leave without paying for services rendered. Still more folks gathered at the street corners under the flickering lights, buying and selling everything from pills to pot to bags of fresh blood for the vampires. At least, that’s what the dealers claimed it was. I had my doubts, though, especially since it looked more like colored corn syrup than actual O-negative.

   I pulled into the first empty parking space on the street that I saw, got out of my car, and locked it. I hadn’t taken three steps down the sidewalk before a couple of guys sporting flashy gold chains over neon-green jackets broke away from their posse of friends at the corner and stopped in front of me. The guys looked to be in their early twenties, and they both grinned like fools as they cracked their knuckles and gave me a leering once-over.

   “Hey there, honey,” one of them crooned in a high, twangy voice. “What’s a sweet little thing like you doing out on the dark, dangerous streets tonight?”

   I rolled my eyes. Sweet little thing? Please. I’d already been killing people when these idiots were still in middle school.

   I could have done the whole song and dance about how they needed to move out of my way, how they didn’t know who they were messing with, and how they would deeply, painfully, and permanently regret hassling me. They would be stupid enough to attack me, and I would kick their asses into next week, just like I’d done with the giants at the country club earlier today. The same scenario had played out dozens of times over the past year.

   Part of me wanted all of that to happen just so I could beat somebody down. Just so I could let out some of my simmering anger and frustration that I hadn’t been able to find and save Elissa. But this wasn’t about what I wanted, not anymore. It was about helping Jade as best I could. I needed to get to the coroner’s office before she did, and I just didn’t have time to deal with these fools. So I reached underneath my jacket, pulled out my spider rune pendant, and held it out where the two goons could see it.

   “Any more questions?” I snarled.

   Their eyes bulged, and their mouths opened and closed and opened and closed again, but no sounds came out. They knew exactly who this rune belonged to and just how dead I could make them.

   “I didn’t think so.”

   I strode forward, and the two guys practically tripped over each other to get out of my way. And not just them. Everyone on the block had seen our confrontation. All conversation abruptly cut off, and everyone on the sidewalk stopped what they were doing and stared at me. No one else blocked my path, and I got the distinct impression that several people were holding their breath. Of course, I knew that they would all start talking about me the second I turned the corner, wondering what I was doing here tonight, but I didn’t care. Let them gossip all they wanted.

   It didn’t much matter when a girl was dead.

   A few minutes later, I reached the police station, which was located in a prewar building made of dark gray granite that took up its own block. Despite the late hour, light spilled out of every window, highlighting the columns, crenellations, and curlicued carvings of vines and leaves that covered much of the stone. I’d always thought it highly ironic that the station was housed in such a beautiful building when so much ugliness passed through its doors on a daily basis.

   A bored-looking cop was working a metal detector that had been installed just inside the main entrance. The machine beep-beep-beeped out a sharp, high-pitched warning when I went through, but I didn’t want to deal with the cop any more than I had wanted to deal with the thugs outside, so I tap-tap-tapped my fingernail against my spider rune, making it ring like a bell. The cop knew what the symbol meant just like the thugs had, and he swallowed and waved me through.

   Sometimes being feared was quite helpful.

   Fifty feet later, the corridor opened up into the main part of the station, an enormous room of lovely gray marble with silver flecks running through it. Crystal and brass chandeliers dropped down from the ceiling, highlighting the people below. Uniformed cops carrying paperwork from one side of the room to the other, suited detectives gossiping around a water cooler, criminals slouching on wooden benches along the walls waiting to be processed and taken to their cells for the night. The murmur of a dozen conversations echoed through the room, punctuated by the constant jingle-jangle of one phone after another, and the air reeked of black coffee, burned popcorn, and sour sweat.