He established a perimeter around the spot where he found the gun and began to comb every inch of it, upturning rocks, sifting through leaves. On the northern edge he found a footprint. Another perimeter was marked off, another search conducted. Another find, this time a tennis shoe to match the footprint, and beside that a handprint. Complete with inch-long nails. Another footprint further on, this one a boot, set deeper in the soil and accompanied by scuff marks alongside it as if its creator had rested its weight on one leg and had . . . dragged the other. Stiles swallowed and picked up his pace, heading in the general direction the clues pointed in. Toward the house.

There was something lying in the trail up ahead. The Red Chopper had broken just below the ax head and the handle was nowhere to be seen. He picked up the head and ran a finger along its blade. It came away smeared not with blood but a milky white film, like thin gauze, dry and tough.

Skin.

He started to run. The clues were that numerous and that obvious. A hockey mask here, a pair of plastic fangs there, a half empty pack of Winstons. The trail was veering away from the house and cutting a wildly erratic course through the woods. Stiles cut back on himself several times and tried to imagine the terror that had spurred such flight. He finally slowed at the foot of a tall birch. The tree was bleeding. A huge gout of blood had splattered the trunk, running in crimson rivulets, absorbing into the veins of the bark. Stiles pursed his lips and stared. It didn’t look real. He’d seen enough blood in his life and this just wasn’t right. He touched it, sniffed his fingers. A syrupy, almost plastic smell. What is this, a joke? He stopped to look around the base of the tree and quickly located the empty tube of Vampire Blood. It had been flung against the bough. But on purpose? Who was setting him up?

As he moved, the soil underfoot belched wetly and the mud sucked at his boot before letting go. The sole came away stained red. “What the . . .” He stepped down again in the same spot. Shallow crimson rose around his boot, bubbling as if it were still in a human body. My God. He dipped a finger and sniffed. This time it was real. And it was all around him.

The trail was just that now, a congealing trail of blood that soaked into the soil, and it led him onward and stoked his anger. Much of his fury was directed inward; he blamed himself for allowing this to happen, for not stopping the vampire when he could. But he reserved a special hatred for Sebastian Danner. He had lost hope of saving the three boys, not with that much blood gone. But their trail might lead him to the vampire. He might find it, whiling away the daylight in hiding, still draped in the gore of its feast and bloated like a fat tick. And then the boys would be avenged . . .