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"—Authorities have no new leads in their search for the perpetrator of several local homicides and are asking the public for their assistance in catching the person responsible. If you have any information, please call the number listed on your screen now...."

The news reporter on the screen stood with her back to a blockaded craftsman somewhere in the Pinegrove neighborhood, squinting in the fresh light of dawn streaming into her eyes. The caution tape was a startling contrast against the tree-lined, affluent community. The murder scene was old, so only a few official dregs of the investigation remained behind, their weary bodies sifting in and out of the camera's shot.

"This is Trisha Banderas reporting from the scene of the second murder in a series of crimes being attributed to the 'Klau Killer.' The victim in question, thirty-eight-year-old Jameson Beauford, was found dead at his home by his wife last Monday afternoon. Since his discovery, four more victims have been found, all employees at the technology giant Klau Incorporated, the flagship of Klau Incorporated International. Both company owner Jackson Klau and CEO Grace Amoroth have refused to comment, but authorities are prepared to treat these crimes as an act of terrorism against the corporation. The police are urging citizens of Verweald to be cautious until this criminal is brought into custody..."

My spoon clicked on the inside of the cereal bowl as I chewed soggy flakes and considered the news report playing on my television. Tara's cat curled about my ankles, then wandered off into the living room again. It's up to five now, is it?

Unexplained murders were an unfortunate and frequent occurrence in Verweald, though I suspected such crimes could be attributed to the presence of the otherworldly creatures I'd been blind to my entire life. Paris was called the City of Lights, Los Angeles named the City of Angels, and Verweald was known as the City of Blood.

Considering who the self-proclaimed master of this city is, I shouldn't be surprised. My spoon tapped the bowl again as I stared at the narrow stripes on sunlight squeezing through the slider's blinds. It'd been over a week since I'd seen the Sin of Lust, and I doubted the news of five deaths laid at her company's threshold had improved the prickly woman's demeanor. I shuddered at the thought.

A sound at the front door drew my attention from the television. Darius came in, trailing the scent of ash and brimstone, his t-shirt and jeans dirty with dust and soot as if he'd been crawling through an abandoned attic. His brow rose as he spotted me at the table with my breakfast, and the sound of the latch catching when he swung the door shut was almost strange in how common-placed it was.

I hadn't seen him much over the past week as he sought the location of Verweald's vampire den. Sometimes, in the lightless hours of the morning, I would lie awake and hear the hush of a door opening, or the creak of the armchair's leather adjusting to his weight. Sometimes, when my melancholy was particularly poignant, I would imagine it was Tara out in my living room, stopping by before reporting to the hospital for an early morning shift. I would fall asleep with the false hope of waking to find my sister alive and well, only to be disappointed when I crept from my sheets to wander an empty house.

I was up early this day and determined to catch the Sin passing through to pillage my fridge and pantry. I sat up when Darius appeared and tried to look somewhat confident, hoping to get more than a curt, two-word answer from the Sin. Of course, Darius tipped his gaze heavenward and passed the table without comment as he threw open cupboard doors with little regard to the paint on the walls.

I slumped over my cereal, frowning. Bastard.

Darius had an old box of muffin mix and was glaring confused at the faded print. I weighed the option of whether or not I should tell him the mix was expired or if I should let him choke on it for being so difficult. After a decisively delicate sniff, the Sin chucked the box over his shoulder and allowed it to land on the kitchen floor. A box of breakfast tarts and pudding mix met a similar fate.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I attempted to ward off the encroaching headache. "Darius."

He huffed, kneeling on the counter to peruse the upper shelves of the cupboards. "Don't start," he retorted. Plastic containers slid from their shelves and pinged off the floor as he pushed them aside in his hunt for food. "I need to eat, and there's nothing in this...." He cast a disparaging glance over the kitchen. "House of yours."

Dishes rattled and I worried my grandmother's china was going to join the plastic on the floor.

His comment riled my nerves, but I ground my teeth to settle the emotion. "If you sit down, get out of my things, and give me some answers, I will make you breakfast!"

From above, the Sin grimaced at the cereal in front of me. "I need more than a bowl of shredded wheat and watered-down milk."

"I said I'd make you something. Get off my damn counter, Darius!"

He did, though not before slamming my cupboard door with enough force to vibrate the floor. He landed behind me with a surprisingly loud thud, and there he remained, shunning the chair I shoved out of place with my bare foot. He was just out of my line of sight, though I felt his unrestrained, alien presence slide over me in an unwelcome blanket of thought. I went to stand but Darius' hand landed on the back of the chair, keeping it in place. "You should be...careful, girl. Taunting starving beasts isn't healthy."

The uncomfortable pressure of his presence faded as his hand withdrew and he took the proffered seat. His brow rose and I got up to find a frying pan, conscious of the angry color burning in my face and the nervous twitch of my empty fingers. I knew better than to challenge Darius when his hunger tampered with his control, but a subliminal part of me wanted to keep pushing, to keep prodding until I could slide my fingers beneath that featureless mask of his and reveal the demon beneath.

If I could only look once more into the distrustful eyes of the creature from the churchyard, I knew I might find the mirror of the angry, lachrymose madness which gripped me so tightly in its clutches. If I could find that mirror, if I could study that reflection, perhaps I could finally understand.

Understand what? was my mind's impatient response. I grimaced as I found the ingredients for pancakes in the ransacked cupboard and set them on the counter. Flour puffed out of the torn bag, dusting my hands and front. I didn't know what I meant to understand. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe the only answer I'd unearth was that I understood absolutely nothing at all, and that I was a silly little human with petty, unrealistic dreams of vengeance and retribution—that in the grand scheme of our existence, I was nothing, and my sister was nothing, and the screaming loss in my soul that jerked me out of bed at three in morning and had my stomach twisted in ungodly knots was nothing.

I shook my head, jittery with anxiety. It was far too early for such deep ruminations.

"So," I said as I dumped approximate measurements of ingredients into a metal mixing bowl. I pulled out a slightly bent wire whisk from the utensil drawer and set about beating the mess together. "I should probably just ask if you've found the den yet?"

The legs of Darius' chair screeched on the floor as he turned his back away from me. "No."

My lips pursed. "And we can't ask Amoroth to simply tell us where they are?"

"You're entirely too trusting of our nature if you're willing to approach her again."

I shrugged and dropped the whisk to prep the pan. "Perhaps."

"I won't go to Amoroth again. Kings above and below know I wish I hadn't the first time." In a fit of pique, Darius shoved a mailer off the table, letting it fall. He was petulant when he hungry. "I can find one pitiful little vampire den without her, even in a city as large as Verweald."

I pursed my lips and ladled batter.

Darius wasn't impressed by my silence, nor my turned back. I heard the low simmer of his irritation stewing at the table. "I think you underestimate the enormity of such a task. I haven't been to Verweald for decades before accepting this foolish contract. I have not found it yet, but I will. Besides, it's not as if you could do better. You couldn't find the den given years, not days, to search."

I bristled. "If you haven't been here in years, how did you know about the witch, then? Saule?"

There was a marked pause in our exchange. When Darius spoke again, his tone was modulated, cold and threatening. "Careful, Sara...."

My ears reddened, but I concentrated on flipping the first pancake. I had returned to Baba Yaga's to see Saule last Monday, the only day during the week when I didn't have to shuffle my weary self into IMOR Advances. The witch hadn't been particularly pleased to see me, but after I assured her Darius wouldn't be making an appearance that afternoon, I proceeded to ask her a few questions about the world she was a denizen of. The uncertain healer hadn't given me any answers, but I feared it had more to do with the ineptitude of my questions than her unwillingness to impart information.

It was Monday once more, and I had the entire day to myself. I wanted to question Saule again, particularly about the Verwealdian vampires and the Sins, but I didn't want Darius to know about it. While I was of the opinion that Darius would approve of my drive to learn more about the supernatural and their role in society, I didn't think he'd like hearing I had made contact with the witch again in order to do so.

"So?" I said as I balanced a free hand on my hip. "How did you know?"

I shoveled the first pancakes onto a plate as Darius answered. "Baba Yaga's is older than Verweald. Before this land was cultivated into fields or sectioned into developments, the priestess—blood witch—Baba Yaga, had a wagon that would rest there and offer healing. Her apprentice took over, and so on and so on through the generations. It's an old witch tradition. As their lands have been settled and urbanized, witches have modernized and assimilated as well. In a hundred years, Verweald very well may be dust, but you could safely assume Baba Yaga's would still be there, in some shape or form."

"Hmm." I was intrigued and I wanted to know why Darius had gone looking for a healer all those years ago, but I wrangled my interest and kept my face smooth. I slid a plate of teetering pancakes in front of the Sin, not bothering to offer syrup or butter as I clicked off the stove's burner and returned to my bowl of soggy wheat. "So you knew where to find the witch, but don't know where to find a vampire?"

"As foully bred and ill-mannered as they are, the vampires have some measure of cunning. They are not easily found, and will scatter to the winds if startled. If that happens, we will not be able to find the vampire who was present at your kin's murder."

"It's not like I would be able to recognize him or her, anyway." This had been a point of contention between us for a number of days now. He said finding the vampire would be a simple feat once the den was located, but I didn't understand how and Darius hadn't explained. "Cloaks and hoods, remember?" I gestured at my own face, shadowing it with my hand. "I only saw one of them, and he...I can't be certain, but he didn't feel other. With you and Envy, Amoroth, and even Saule, I get an impression of...otherness? Just a...feeling, I guess. I can't describe it, but I can sense it."

A sound of disinterest left Darius as he ate. Entire pancakes disappeared into his mouth and down his throat with little chewing involved. "If you had not known we were other, as you say, you would not have noticed any differences. Humans are incorrigibly unobservant and ignorant to the existence of those not within their own genus."

I scowled. "You can't blame humans for being ignorant of the existence of the preternatural."

His mouth formed the word preternatural, lip curling in dislike. "Yes, I can."

"No, you can't. We're told for our entire lives that things like you and witches and mages and magic don't exist. People who believe in this stuff are called insane, and in the past, they were burned alive or committed to asylums. We aren't unaware or unobservant; we see your differences, feel the wrongness of your presence, but self-preservation forces us to rationalize those differences into something deemed logical." I shoved my spoiled breakfast away and slopped milk on the table. "To think us stupid simply because we lack knowledge of your kind proves your own arrogance, Darius."

The pancakes vanished, replaced by a smattering of crumbs spread on the empty plate. The pan was still hot on the stove, and yet the Sin had already eaten the entire stack I'd put before him. The chatter of the news report continued in the background. "It is not arrogance. It is realism. The two often cavort in the same guise." He stood and wiped his mouth on a paper towel I'd handed him with his meal. "As you say, humans are willfully ignorant, persecuting those who see the world in shades of gray rather than in black and white. It's worse than being unobservant, Sara."

"I suppose."

Fed and satiated, Darius surprised me by clearing the dishes from the table, setting both my bowl and his plate in the sink. He even stooped to pick up the boxes and Tupperware he had thrown earlier. "You are ignorant as well, but not from lack of trying. I find that...admirable. It sets you apart from the other humans around you."

Admirable? I blinked, processing what he had said. Darius thought me admirable? "That's not exactly a compliment," I replied.

"No, but it is an improvement." His napkin landed on the puddle of milk I had spilled. "We will speak later." Before I could argue, he vanished in a breath of burnt air, leaving me alone once more.


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