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AIR HISSED THROUGH THE SILENCE TENDRILS OF SMOKE began to curl past thefraed one of the thite ash stakes strapped to her jeans free and clenched it tightly On the opposite side of the rooirl slept on, oblivious to the s to slip past theKat hoped she reiven her kidnapper see children born into shifter faic, many were It was a part of their soul, after all, even if a child this young would not be able to shift form Not until puberty, anyway

Kat was keeping her fingers crossed that this kid did get the chance to hit puberty

Because if Gwen’s prerandmother’s preothey could to prevent that They’d nailed the s shut, they had cops patrolling close by, and warding stones had been placed around the child’s bed to prevent anyclose

But these wards weren’t designed to stop evil itself—and that’s as seeping into this rooh she’d spent the last ten years hunting the rogue elements of the supernatural com that went after kids the way this thing did She had neverdid

She closed her eyes, fighting tears, trying not to relive the hts before when they’d stepped into that old factory and found the body of the secondfour-year-old Daniel had been unh he’d been drained of blood, this was not what had caused his death Only those gifted with psychic sight would ever see that

So had stolen his soul—had ripped it from his body between the beats of his heart He’d died quickly, but in pain Terrible, terrible pain

She didn’t want to face the thing that could do soht mind would But she had no choice, simply because the Daht now, and there was no one else free to on

She gripped the stake tighter and watched the s a scantily clad, extremely beautiful woman

Evil came in all shapes and sizes, but for some reason Kat hadn’t expected it to take the form of such Oriental perfection Andto the fore, but she just couldn’t understand how any wo

But this was the thing snatching the kids It had the same sense of deeply entrenched corruption that she’d felt in the other bedrooms

The woe to ers ached with the force of her grip on the stake She had no idea whether it would actually kill the soul-sucker or not, but at the very least it would do soive her time to yell for reinforcements

A cold smile touched the woman’s bloodless lips, then she turned and tried to open theIt didn’t budge, held steady by the nails placed there earlier The wo like fire across Kat’s skin The nails slithered from the wood and dropped softly to the floor The woman lifted theand leaned out

A gaunt, dark-haired figure appeared, and the sensation of evil increased tenfold The va when it reached the shadows in which Kat stood Though she was certain he couldn’t see past her grandmother’s wards, he really didn’t need to Not with the frantic beat of her heart

He snarled softly, revealing stained canines The soul-sucker spun, theirowl, she leaped for the sleeping child Kat raised her hand, thrusting a lance of kinetic energy at the soul-sucker, flinging her away froh force to dent the plaster and shatter the nearbyAs glass fell to the floor, the child woke, her shriek alan to echo down the hallway, but it was doubtful the cops would get here fast enough to even see this thing, let alone catch it

As the child’s screaaze met Kat’s In the dark depths of the creature’s eyes, she saw the proh her soul and she shivered

Then the wo little more than mist that eddied out the openKat cursed and ran across the rooh the va the night

The bedroom door burst open and police poured in They called to her to stop, but their voices were alnored them and climbed out the , simply because she had no other choice By the time she stopped to explain what had happened, the soul-sucker and the vamp would have disappeared Besides, she doubted the cops would believe her anyway The only person ould understand would probably be scrying right now, staring into her crystal ball in an effort to track the creatures and perhaps discover their daytime hideaway

Smoke swirled up the wooden fence and disappeared over the top Kat scrambled after it and sprinted down the alley, her footsteps a lone echo in the night Ahead, streetlights shimmered and traffic rolled, but it all felt a world away The creature she chased wanted seclusion and darkness—at least for the moment

It turned left into another s over the rubbish and battered trash cans strewn across her path She was teht sky in her raven form, but she didn’t dare risk it with the stakes she carried And she wasn’t about to leave them behind—not when the vaates leading into an old factory Metal creaked, as if stirred by a wind that didn’t exist, and another chill ran down her spine The va her