“No, I’ll do that now.”

“If she’s not there, check with the hotel front desk, see whether anyone saw her come in.”

I did as he’d suggested. No answer at the hotel room. No answer again on her cell. The desk clerk said he hadn’t seen her come in. When I suggested maybe she’d slipped past, he swore he would have noticed, and from his stammer, I guessed he’d been keeping an eye out for this semifamous, fully attractive guest. He offered to run up to her room, and left me hanging on the line before I could respond. Five minutes later he returned saying there was no sign of Jaime. He’d even checked inside her room, which was doubtless against company policy, but I wasn’t going to call him on it. I thanked him for his help, then relayed the news to the others.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cassandra said. “The woman has the attention span of a gnat. She probably drove halfway to the hotel, saw a shoe sale, and forgot all about us.”

Lucas shook his head. “While Jaime may cultivate the appearance of flightiness, she has far more gravitas than that, and far more dedication. She’s stayed with us so far, despite some serious battering.”

“Lucas is right,” I said. “Jaime really wanted to help, and it would take something far more serious than a shoe sale to distract her from that.”

“Ladies’ night at the strip club, perhaps?” Cassandra said.

“Mrrow,” Aaron said. “Retract your claws, Cass, before you cut yourself. I’m with Lucas and Paige on this one.”

“It’s settled, then,” Clay said. “Jaime is missing, so someone needs to look for her, and Elena and I are the best trackers. Aaron and Cassandra can stay here and keep an eye out for their fellow vampire. Lucas and Paige? Take your pick.”

I looked toward Benicio on the dance floor. “We’d better stay.”

“No,” Lucas said. “We’ll go. My father is well protected by his guards, and Aaron and Cassandra can handle Edward if he shows up, which I’m strongly beginning to doubt. We have a portal that must be reopened using a necromantic ritual, and now we have a missing necromancer. I suspect the two are not unconnected.”

“Oh, shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Missing: One Celeb Necromancer

IN THE HOTEL PARKING LOT, ELENA PICKED UP A SCENT. But it wasn’t Jaime’s. It was Edward’s. She trailed it to an empty parking space, where I found Jaime’s designer cell phone lying on the asphalt. Elena and Clay could detect traces of Jaime’s scent at the site, but no trail, as if she’d stepped from the car, but gone no farther. And, unless Edward had perfectly retraced his own path, he hadn’t gone any farther, either. The logical conclusion: Edward had surprised Jaime getting out ofher car; she’d had time to fumble for her cell phone, but dropped it as he overwhelmed her. Then he’d driven off, in her rental car, with her in it.

I cursed myself for not seeing this coming. Yet as Lucas insisted, kidnapping Jaime wasn’t the obvious scenario. Reopening a portal was considered a necromantic ritual only because it involved access to the dead. Edward didn’t need a necromancer to carry it out. If he had the right victim, he only needed to slit that person’s throat over the portal site. Without that blood, he couldn’t open the portal at all, not even with a dozen necromancers helping him.

What we had overlooked, though, was the very real possibility that Edward had no idea how to reopen the portal. As Jaime had said, it was an obscure ritual. Edward might not have even known any necromancers to ask about it. Yet he did know where to find one. Given Jaime’s celebrity, her involvement in our case had to be all over the supernatural grapevine. Even John in New Orleans had probably known about it. And to find a photo of Jaime, all Edward had to do was run an Internet search, as Elena had done.

Did I think Jaime would tell Edward what he needed to complete the ceremony? Yes, and that’s no reflection on her character. What reason did she have not to tell him? She knew Benicio was safely under guard, and if she steered Edward in his direction, she’d be steering him into ours, which was exactly what we wanted. Our main concern was that, after Edward got what he wanted from Jaime, he’d kill her. We could only hope he wouldn’t trust Jaime’s word enough to kill her before he had the portal reopened.

We planned our attack from both ends, the first end being the gala, where Edward would find Benicio, and the other end being the portal site, where he had to return if his mission was successful. Elena and Clay would join Aaron and Cassandra at the gala; with that kind of supernatural firepower on the alert, Edward would find it nearly impossible to capture Benicio. But, just in case, Lucas and I would stand guard at the portal site.

Lucas drove us back to the neighborhood where the portal had been opened. On the way, I drew a map of the surrounding area, noting all the possible points of entry and all the best locations for perimeter spells. Then we considered places to lie in wait. We were still debating our choices when Lucas’s cell phone rang. He checked the call display, then passed it to me.

I didn’t even get a chance to say hello before Aaron cut in. “Lucas? Where are you?”

“Uh, it’s Paige, and we’re still heading to the portal site. Do you want to talk to—”

“No, not if I can help it.” His voice sounded strained, and a bit breathless. “Shit! I am so sorry, guys. We f**ked up. Fucked up big-time.”

“What’s wrong?”