The figure was feminine, but the dark clothing and tight black cap obscured most details. Her head tilted back and finely formed nostrils flared slightly in the cool night. The pale jaw immediately clenched and her throat flexed as she swallowed in a nearly uncontrollable reflex.

Pausing, the woman seemed to gather herself, head tilted as if listening. Then she was simply gone, disappearing so fast it was as if she had been snatched away by the hand of God. The dying night settled again, just the soft ping of the vehicle cooling disturbing the silence.

At the back of the dental office, the shadow of a leafless lilac bush suddenly swelled outward as if pregnant, birthing the slim figure in black in complete silence. The woman opened the door so slowly that not a single bell jingled or chimed. It closed behind her just as softly, leaving no disturbance to mark the woman’s passage.

Minutes ticked by and the building sat waiting. In the east, the sky changed from star-sprinkled blackness to a deep purple. On the street, the Prius stopped ticking; metal finally cooled in the fall temperatures of northern Vermont.

The door suddenly opened, still without a sound, yet much faster than before. The figure in black exited quickly, closing the door with exquisite care. She paused, the pale flesh of her face just visible in the purple of the astronomical dawn. She swallowed again, a hungry sort of thing, before looking first at her gloved hands, then at the ground by her soft-soled boots. Glancing at her right shoulder, she grimaced slightly as she pulled a single strand of hair from her clothing. A stray glimmer from the nearest streetlight illuminated the hair, revealing it to be a golden blonde color.

With a glance at the lightening sky, she paused to think. Then she was gone again and a moment later, the Prius’s driver door clicked shut and the hybrid vehicle pulled away with almost no sound.

Chapter 1

“I’mmmm hunting babies. Where are the little tasty babies?” the man said as he opened the playroom door and peered inside. Purple eyes took in the toy-strewn madness, then he pushed the door open the rest of the way and strode inside, closing the only exit off behind him.

His loose gray t-shirt clung to a musculature defined to an improbable degree. It was as if all the fat had been vacuumed off the body of the world’s greatest Cross Fit champion. His dark hair was short, his sculpted face clean shaved. He moved with an easy, fluid grace.

“Where are the little morsels I crave?” he said, wincing at his own words.

There was no sign of the owners of the plastic trucks, stuffed animals, and children’s books that covered the floor in a pattern closer to bomb debris than any sort of organization.