Of course, vampires were no longer the only evil to roam the night or the shadows. When the shifters had unleashed the bombs that had finally ended the war, they’d torn apart the very fabric of the world, creating drifting doorways between this world and the next. These rifts were filled with a magic that not only twisted the essence of the landscape, but also killed anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. That in itself would not have been so bad if the Others had not gained access into our world through many of these rifts. These hellish creatures—creatures the humans and shifters had named demons, monsters, and death spirits, although in truth no one really knew if they were from hell or merely another time or dimension—had all found a new and easy hunting ground in the shadows of our world.

But at least one good thing had come from their arrival—it had finally forced shifters and humans to set aside all differences and act as one against a greater foe.

And yet humanity’s fear of vampires had not been usurped by this newer evil. Even I feared the vampires, and I had their blood running through my veins. It didn’t make me safe from them. Nothing would.

Ghostly fingers ran down my arm and tugged at my fingertips. I followed Cat as she drifted toward the left edge of the building, my gaze scanning the old park opposite. The shadows growing beneath the trees were vacant of life, and nothing moved. Nothing more than the wind-stirred leaves, anyway. I frowned, moving my gaze further afield, studying the street and the battered remnants of what once had been government offices, trying to uncover what was causing the little ones so much consternation.

Then I heard it.

The faint crying of a child.

A young child, not an older one, if the tone of her voice was anything to go by.

She was in the trees. At dusk, with the vampires about to come out. An easy meal if I wasn’t very quick.

I spun and ran for the stairs. The ghosts gathered around me, their energy skittering across my skin, fueling the need to hurry. I paused long enough to slam down the hatch and shove the bolts home, then scrambled down the steps three at a time, my pace threatening to send me tumbling at any moment.

At the bottom I again stopped long enough to lock up behind me. I might have an instinctive need to save that child—a need no doubt born of my inability to save the 105 déchet children who’d been in my care the day the shifters had gassed this base and killed everyone within it—but I wouldn’t risk either discovery or the security of our home to do so.