“He fed on their emotions, ma’am. Too deeply.” Cody examined the father and daughter, making sure there were no head injuries to account for their condition. They endured it without complaint, standing like slack-jawed mannequins. He glanced at Stefan, his lip curling. “Tell me they’re going to be all right, Ludovic.”

“They will recover,” Stefan said quietly. “It will take some days. A week, perhaps. But they will recover.”

“They’d better,” Cody said.

“They will.”

A trio of Outcast arrived on motorcycles, wending their way past the police barricades. Two of them grabbed the still-unconscious Cooper under the arms and slung him into a sidecar. Cooper stirred and murmured a little, eyelids fluttering, looking almost as young and harmless as the teenaged girl he’d drained. It was hard to reconcile the sight of him with the ravening ghoul he’d been just minutes ago.

“Hel’s liaison.” Stefan inclined his head to me. I could see the strain on his self-control reflected in his widening pupils. “It is best that I go with them.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you. And Stacey Brooks owes you her life.”

“You did well.” He straddled one of the bikes, two of his henchmen doubling up on another without a word spoken. A faint smile touched his lips. “We will speak later of the folly of using the pneuma as a weapon before you were ready.”

I winced a little. “I know, I know.”

The motorcycles roared away into the night, taking the Outcast with them.

“I don’t understand how you can just let this happen!” the tourist mom burst out. “Let creatures like that walk the streets! We came here to be entertained, we came here to see ghosts, not, not . . .” She gestured at her daughter and husband. “Not this! God! Oh, God! What’s wrong with you people?”

My tail twitched. I wanted to tell the woman that she was an idiot for assuming that the eldritch community, a haunted eldritch community, for Christ’s sake, was safe, that it was the paranormal equivalent of Dollywood, everything sanitized for their protection. But it wasn’t her fault, not really. She’d done exactly what the PVB had encouraged tourists from all across the country to do.

Cody shot me a quick glance. He might not have been able to read my emotions like one of the Outcast, but he knew my temper. “One of those creatures saved a young woman’s life tonight, ma’am,” he said gently. “Are you staying in the area? Miss Johanssen and I would be happy to accompany you and your family to your car, or I can have an officer take you to your hotel if you’re not feeling up to driving.”

The tourist mom blinked away tears, sniffling. “We’re staying at the Ridgeway Motor Lodge. I can drive. I just want this all to be over.”