“Roger that.” Silvio started typing again. “Anything else?”

   “Nah. Although this can all wait until morning. You should go to bed. Get some rest.”

   “Mmm-hmm.” The vampire started typing even faster than before, completely ignoring my suggestion.

   I sighed, knowing that I couldn’t stop him from calling Jade the second we hung up. Silvio didn’t like to procrastinate about anything, not even for a few hours. It was one of the things that made him such a great assistant, even if it sometimes annoyed me.

   “I’ll see you at the restaurant in the morning,” I said, giving in to the inevitable.

   “Of course. And I’ll have an update for you first thing. See you then.”

   We both hung up, and I looked over at Phillip.

   He frowned at me. “Eyes only on Jonah? That’s not your usual style. I’m surprised that you’re not storming back in there right now and asking him some more pointed questions with your knife at his throat.”

   Maybe that’s what I should have done, but I just didn’t have the energy to be intimidating tonight. Not when the Circle had already outsmarted me again. Besides, I wouldn’t trust a word that McAllister said right now, and there was no way to be sure how much he would try to play me just to keep on breathing.

   “What can I say?” I drawled. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

   Phillip laughed as I put the van in gear and drove away into the cold, icy night.

3

   I dropped Phillip off at the dock to the Delta Queen, his home and riverboat casino, then drove along the river until I reached a paved lot that fronted a small park and a wooded area. I pulled in there and stopped, peering out the windows.

   I was only a few miles away from the Delta Queen, but I might as well have driven to the moon, given the startling differences. Instead of a gleaming white riverboat, high-end shops, and gourmet restaurants, abandoned buildings, cracked sidewalks, and busted-out streetlights dotted the landscape. I was squarely in Southtown now, the part of Ashland that was home to gangs, hustlers, and other violent, dangerous folks.

   Normally, I would have expected to see a couple of homeless guys huddled over the trash cans at either end of the parking lot, burning the garbage inside to stay warm. But it was too wet and cold for that tonight, so the area was completely deserted. Good. I didn’t want anyone to see me or especially to realize where I was going.

   Silvio could—and did—track my phone, so I turned it off and left it in my car, which the vamp could also track, thanks to the GPS locator he’d hooked to the undercarriage. He might be home working, but I had no doubt that Silvio was checking his phone every so often, just to see where I was. I admired the vampire’s efficiency and dedication, but knowing that he could keep tabs on me so easily creeped me out a little. Besides, a girl had to keep some secrets to herself.

   Especially when it came to the Circle.

   I got out of my car. It had finally stopped raining, but the ice accumulations made the air even colder than before, so I pulled up my jacket collar, yanked down my toboggan, and stuck my gloved hands into my coat pockets, trying to seal in all my body heat. That worked for about five seconds, then the first gust of wind slapped me across the face and sliced through all my many layers of clothes. I shivered, put my head down, and started walking.

   I left the parking lot behind and headed over to a winding path that ran along the river. During the warmer months, the wooded area was popular with walkers, joggers, and cyclists, but no one in their right mind would be out here tonight, given the weather. Then again, I was rarely in my right mind, according to Phillip, Silvio, and the rest of my friends.

   The path was covered with ice, so I walked through the grass to the side, judging that to be safer. I kept an eye out, but everyone had taken what shelter they could find for the night, and I was the only person hurrying through the dark.

   It took me about thirty minutes to reach the end of the path, which fed into another small, wooded park. I stood in the shadows of a weeping willow, scanning this area as well, but it was also deserted. So I trudged through the piles of wet, slick leaves and over to the ten-foot chain-link fence that cordoned off the park from the industrial area next door.

   Despite the ice that crusted the metal, I easily scaled the fence, swinging my legs up and over the top, and dropping down to the other side. I crouched in the shadows, just in case anyone was on this side of the fence, but I was as alone as before, so I straightened up and darted forward.

   I sprinted across a hundred feet of open space until I reached a large metal container, the first of many housed in this sprawling shipping yard. I plastered myself up against the side of the container, looking in all directions, but no one appeared, and no shouts broke the cold quiet. No one had seen my initial trespassing, so I felt safe enough to keep going.

   I rounded the far end of that container only to be greeted by hundreds more, all stacked on top of each other in neat rows. During the day, the metal boxes would have shown their true colors of dull, rusty reds, yellows, and oranges, but they were all a washed-out gray in the semidarkness. Lights had been rigged up throughout the shipping yard to deter trespassers like me, but they cast more shadows than they banished, and I was easily able to move from one pool of darkness to the next. In the distance, I could hear the steady rush of the Aneirin River, but that was the only sound that echoed through the night.

   I moved through the area until I reached the end of the container maze, then stopped. More open space stretched out in front of me, leading to a large warehouse in the center of the shipping yard. Lights blazed in the warehouse, and I spotted a giant guard sitting in a small wooden shack by one of the loading-dock doors. He was as bundled up as I was and seemed to be watching something on his phone, although he did glance around every minute or so, checking on things.

   I looked around, but I didn’t see any more guards, so I slipped back into the container maze, moving through the rows until I came to a lone container set off by itself underneath a large maple tree. This container was battered and dented in several places, as though it had been dropped on its sides more than once, and looked to be abandoned, a discarded piece of junk that the workers hadn’t yet gotten around to taking to the scrap yard.