The ghosts swirled around me, urging me to hurry, to run. I did, but down to the weapons stash I’d created in the escape tunnel rather than to the front door. I fastened several automatics to the thigh clips on my pants, then strapped two of the slender machine rifles—which I’d adapted to fire small sharpened stakes rather than bullets—across my back. Once I’d grabbed a bag of flares and threw several ammo loops over my shoulders, I was ready to go. But I knew even as I headed for the main doors that no amount of weaponry would be enough if the vampires caught the sound of either the child’s heartbeat or mine.

The dome’s security system reacted far faster than mine, the doors swishing open almost instantly. The pass-codes might change daily, but I’d been around a long time and I knew the system inside out. Not only had the motion and heat sensors installed throughout the museum been programmed to ignore my lower body temperature, but I’d installed an override code for the outer defenses that didn’t register on the daily activity log. I might be flesh and blood most of the time, but as far as the systems that protected this place were concerned, I was as much a ghost as the children who surrounded me.

Once the laser curtain protecting the front of the dome had withdrawn, I headed for the trees. Cat and Bear came with me, their ethereal forms lost to the gathering darkness. The others remained behind to guard the door. It would take a brave—and determined—soul to get past them. The dead might not be the threat that the vampires were, but the astute didn’t mess with them, either. They might be energy rather than flesh, but they could both interact with and manipulate the world around them if they so desired.

Of course, the smaller the ghost, the less strength they had. My little ones might be able to repel invaders, but they could not hold back a determined attack for very long. I just had to hope that it didn’t come to that tonight.

City Road was empty of any form of life and the air fresh and cool, untainted by the scent of humanity, vampire, or death. No one—living or dead—was near.

So where was the child? And why in hell was she alone in a park?

I ran into the trees, breathing deeply as I did so, trying to find the scent of the child I’d heard but gaining little in the way of direction.

Thankfully, Cat seemed to have no such trouble. Her energy pulled me deeper into the park as the stamp of night grew stronger. Tension wound through my limbs. The vampires would be rising. We had to hurry.