That cynical voice in his head laughed. Yeah, sure. Dead bodies can’t walk, either, but Danner sure bossanovas with the best of ’em, doesn’t he?

Stiles sighed with frustration. What happened to the rules? There had always been a game plan before. Vampires were just bodies and bodies cannot walk if you screw with their legs and they cannot eat if you screw with their mouths and they can’t do a damn thing if you cut them in half with a little autofire. But this one . . .

He caught himself starting to shiver and stifled it. You’re out of practice. That’s all. Your mind-set’s gone bad, you’re letting the superstitions get to you instead of analyzing the situation. C’mon, dissect it. Hold it up to the light of cold human reason. The rules are still in place. Only the circumstances have changed.

Danner was lucky, that was all. The boys had come through the woods with their Halloween gear, doubtless intent on scaring Del and Bart, and the groping creature had merely happened upon them or vice versa. Once one was dead, the others probably panicked and became lost in the dense woods. It would have been easy enough to follow the sounds of their frantic cries and given them new reasons to scream.

Stiles fought his anger. Cool rational thought. What about the wall?

Danner could have found a tumbledown section to cross, or squeezed through a break in the stone. Maybe he burrowed under it, which would have been easy enough considering the length of his nails, or . . . A picture popped into his mind, one of a frantic young man careening through the woods with a hellish stick figure riding his shoulders like the old man of the sea. Its face was gone, shot away, but the bared gullet that remained was suctioned to the boy’s torn throat like a leech. That was it, he decided. Danner rode over the wall. Carried to freedom even as he drained the life from his mount.

The mental image disgusted Stiles; he discarded it, but the damage had been done. He was angry again, and that was the one thing he didn’t need. He was still itching for a fight; another dose of righteous indignation would have him spraying the bushes at the next strange sound.

Calm down. You’ve still got a wait on your hands.