“It was a mess. An entire town united only in fear.

“I just wanted to find Angelina’s hiding place before she moved on.

“And then I saw him. A kid, hanging out on the fringes of the crowd. He had a look on his face, a cockiness, a standoffishness in his attitude. He knew where she was, I was sure of it.

“But by the time I’d been introduced and told them what I knew about her, told all the townsfolk about my years of tracking her and what we’d found in her wake, there were too many questions and explanations. I couldn’t keep my eyes on him.

“He was a kid, though, and the only one there. No kid was staying home from school those days in Wilton. Escorted to and from and no one was left alone or at home. Except this kid. He knew something, he had to.”

The fear I felt upon awakening was a painless pressure—clearly recognizable as fear, only it held no physical reaction as it does for mortals with normal responses. Like the ache in my legs, which had become a physical heaviness, so too the fear was a sensation of weight, of pressure.

I felt cool and clear, calm and knowledgeable. I had tarried too long in Wilton, and now I was being tracked—hunted by the best. My senses came to life, sharpened by this fear.

Boyd had come for me.

Boyd. The thought of him brought back memories—strange memories that seemed steeped in confusion, but then they were from a different time, a different age; they were experienced by a different Angelina.

Boyd. What would it be like to see him again, to talk with him, to be close?

Could we hunt together, Boyd and I?

Yes, Angelina, I told myself. He is hunting. He is hunting you.

I backed up from my—romantic?—notions and began to plan. It was time to move on. Maybe I had made mistakes in Wilton that I would not make elsewhere. Maybe I would change my habits. The time had come to put away my childish fantasies. The time had come to indulge only enough to ensure my survival and put my energies instead into discovering a companion, a friend, a confidant, a comrade.

A lover of the night.

I moved to slide from my sleeping cell, but something was different. I felt the walls around me—they were different, they were solid. I pushed up on the top with all my strength, but it didn’t budge. Fear hugged me close and I stopped struggling and began to think.

Daniel. Of course. He knew I was there and he had told me that he knew; he had hung the crucifix to alert me, and I had foolishly done nothing about it. And now, while I slept, he had imprisoned me, nailed me securely inside a freshly built coffin.