Page 15 (1/2)

"Like our subdivision"

"Exactly"

On the screen a shot of the butchered herd flashed again It e amount of meat"

"I found a leaked photo" Sean showed rass Its head, back, and legs were intact, but its sto, and the entire front of the body was a mess of shredded red tissue

"They went for the soft parts Wasteful This tells reat control of them or he doesn’t care"

"Either way, he has to find an alternative food supply" I knew exactly where that supply was Either he would hit more farms or he would come south, toward us

Toward a subdivision filled with families

I took a deep breath and plastered on a saret before she decided to co

I sat at the kitchen table The olf sat across from me Two perfectly round wooden spheres lay on the table, each about the size of a s spirals wove through the wood We’d fished them out of the pot once the flesh had fallen off the stalkers’ bones The inn grounds had sed both skeletons and the disgusting broth and pots with the them

The trackers waited on the surface of the table, quiet and inert No nals Just two har chunks of wood But when I reached for theic, I felt a spark It curled deep inside the to be released so it could blossoone to bed, having delicately devoured enough rown lorious Texas sunsets when the color grew thick and vivid and long stripes of clouds glowed orange on a nearly purple sky Beast lay by h the day she had upgraded his status froht to suspicious to the man with delicious treats who can’t be trusted She would take a bone froarded the spheres with calm interest "Can you activate them?"

"Yes"

"Did the trackers turn themselves off because the stalkers died?"

"I don’t think so From the scans, they look simple: turn on, turn off"

"So the dahaka deliberately turned them off"

"Probably"

Sean leaned back "If I were him, stuck in an unfas were at all ti, but not fronal these things send out"

I thought out loud "He could be hiding fro hi a dahaka, that someone would be armed to the teeth, ruthless, and powerful In other words, someone ould be wise to avoid Or befriend

Sean picked up one of the spheres and studied it "You have to decide how involved you want to be"

"I know" If we left the dahaka to his own devices, he would kill again I had no doubt of it He had turned off the trackers for a reason, and he would want them kept off If we reactivated the and coate And not just hinal, predator or prey "We can ignore hireed" Sean leaned back in his chair

As long as the dahaka concentrated on the inn, the rest of the people would be somewhat safe I was better equipped to deal with him than pretty much anyone else in the county And if I did activate them, it would have to be here I wasn’t quite useless away froreat deal weaker

Activating the trackers on the grounds went against the fundauests had to be s on, I would be putting Caldenia at risk But the dahaka graduated to killing hu about it Then again, if I hbors at risk I would have to make sure to hold his attention here at the inn, where I was atat the portrait of my parents I wished so desperately I could ask for advice I ht as ait for money to rain frouidance I wasn’t even sure guidance would do any good I knew the appropriate course of action: sit on your hands, guard the inn, and do nothing

Somebody had answer for the murder of John Rook

"What happened to them?" Sean asked

"Mmm?"

He nodded at the portrait