I had to move forward.

As we stepped between two dead vehicles and the road stretched away once more, the sudden growl of an engine cut through the silence. I jerked up, caught a glimpse of flying snow and red taillights as two motorcycles flashed between cars and vanished. The tracks from the tires shot away through the snow and followed the motorcycles into the dark, down the highway, and out of sight. The whine of their bike engines echoed over the buildings, ebbing away into the night.

I whirled on Jackal. “Those were raiders!” I exclaimed, almost an accusation. He raised a patronizing eyebrow, and I narrowed my gaze. “Why are they here? What do they want?”

The raider king gave me a serene smirk. “What makes you think they were mine, sister?”

“Uh, because we’re a couple days from Old Chicago? Because this is the same town where they attacked us last time?”

He continued to smirk at me, and I scowled. “Don’t play innocent—those were your bikers. What did they want?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Jackal said breezily. “They didn’t exactly stick around for tea and gossip, did they?”

I bared my fangs at his obnoxiousness. “Aren’t you their king? Wouldn’t they at least try to talk to you if they knew you were here?”

Jackal snorted. “Sister, please. The minions aren’t stupid.

If you were a bloodbag and you saw three vampires walking up the road toward your house, what would you do?

Stay and have a nice little chat? Or run like hell?” He shook his head. “The minions, if they were mine, did exactly what they always do—saved their own worthless hides. As well they should. I don’t want them getting comfortable with vampires. I worked very hard to make sure they’re all scared shitless of me, and I’ll thank you not to screw that up. My raiders, especially, know better than to hang around, waiting to be eaten. I’m their king, not their pal. So, yes, we saw two bikers, and they peed themselves and ran away. What’s the problem here?”

“Just that… I mean…” I trailed off, frustrated that I knew something was wrong, and I couldn’t put it into words. Kanin, however, spoke up from behind me.

“And is it usual that two of your humans would stake out a town for the sole purpose of watching for vampires?” he asked. “And that they chose this town, which they knew we would have to pass on the way to Old Chicago?”

Jackal shrugged. “Maybe. Who gives a damn, anyway?

Don’t glare at me, old man,” he added, facing Kanin down.

“I’m not a mind reader. I can’t tell what the minions are thinking every second of every day. It’s just a couple bloodbags. What do you think they’re going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Kanin admitted, his dark gaze moving to the road ahead. “But I think we should proceed with caution.”

* * * Nothing unusual happened that night. We met no more raiders on the road, heard no motorcycles tearing away from us at top speed, encountered no human life at all. The path to Old Chicago was as it had always been: silent, cold and dark, twisting through woods and deserted towns, past the skeletons of houses and the ancient remains of cars buried in the snow. Near dawn, we split up to bury ourselves in the frozen earth, as Kanin was suddenly wary of being above ground and exposed. I slept in my dark grave, silent, dreamless and undisturbed, and rose the next night to a still, icy world. It had stopped snowing, but sometime during the day the snow had turned to sleet, and everything was outlined in a thin layer of ice. I shook snow from my hair and clothes and paused a moment to concentrate on Kanin and Jackal, searching for them through our blood tie.

They weren’t far. I backtracked through the trees until I found the road again and saw Jackal leaning against a dead tree at the edge of the pavement. He raised an eyebrow as I came up, but didn’t move.

“Where’s Kanin?” I asked, gazing around for the Master vampire. Our blood tie allowed me to sense my sire’s general direction, and even that he wasn’t very far, but it didn’t let me know what he was doing. Jackal shrugged.

“You know as much as I do, sister. The old bastard is off that way—” he nodded over a rise on the other side of the road “—but of course he hasn’t told me what he’s doing. For all I know, he could be chasing squirrels to make a necklace from their little squirrel balls.” He looked content not to move from his position as I glared at him. “If you’re so curious, why don’t you go ask him?”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Following our blood tie, I trekked over the rise and through the snow, weaving through trees and around a rotting cabin, until I found him. He stood with his back to me at the edge of the road where it curved around a bend, his tall, imposing form a featureless silhouette against the snow.

“Kanin.” I walked to his side, not expecting him to acknowledge me but knowing he knew I was there. As predicted, he didn’t turn, but continued to gaze down the road, his face unreadable. I peered into the darkness, saw nothing unusual, and glanced back. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know.” Kanin sounded suspicious, and I caught the barest note of frustration beneath his cool tone, a hint I would have never caught a month ago. The Master vampire stared down the winding pavement, and his eyes narrowed.

“I feel we are being watched.”

I frowned. The road and the forest surrounding it were empty. Nothing moved or made a sound in the shadows; no tracks lay in the snow except our own. “Rabids?” I asked.

“No.” Kanin shook his head. “Rabids would not simply watch from the woods. They would have attacked us by now.”

“Raiders, then?”

“Perhaps. Though I am uncertain as to why they would be stalking us. And I cannot sense, or smell, any humans nearby.”

I gave him a faint smile. “Is it possible you’re just being paranoid after last night?”

He finally looked at me, a hint of amusement crossing his face. “One does not live to be several centuries old without a little paranoia,” he said, the corner of his mouth curving just slightly. “But perhaps you are right. In any case, there is little we can do about it now. Let’s keep moving. Once we reach Old Chicago, I am sure we will find answers.”

Several hours later, the road widened and became a highway, and the buildings around us grew larger and more numerous as we approached the outskirts of the city. According to Jackal, we were still a day out from Old Chicago, though we’d left the wilderness behind and had entered the surrounding suburban districts. The tangle of trees and undergrowth now wrapped themselves around houses, stores and road signs, and the once-empty highway slowly grew choked with cars.

One side of it, anyway. The other side, the side leading toward Old Chicago, was completely barren. I’d seen this before: the endless stream of dead, crumpled vehicles, thousands of people trying to flee the cities all at once. I stared at the cars we passed, repressing a shiver. It must’ve been chaos, back then.

Vehicles lay smashed against each other, sometimes flipped to the side or all the way onto the roof. A skeleton lay half in, half out of a broken windshield, splayed across the hood in the snow. The blackened hulk of a van lay overturned in a ditch, one small bony arm reaching through the shattered window, as if trying to claw itself free.