Darius stood in front of Jacky’s desk while Noctis stood at the window, staring out at his snow-covered yard.

“Five people in five days.”

“Jacky,” Darius said, “are they dead?”

“Yes.”

“You know for certain?”

“I would need their names to know for certain, but I can tell you more people have died in the past five days than can reasonably be expected for a town our size.” He flourished a skeletal hand in a shrug. “The exact numbers? Who they were? For that, I would need to know who I’m looking for.”

“Have any of their deaths gone wrong?”

“No. They passed without incident.” Jacky turned away from the window. “At least there will be no more ghosts.”

“At this point I might welcome a ghost,” Darius said.

“Three aren’t enough for you?”

“A more recently dead ghost might be able to tell us what’s going on.”

“Is there any more evidence?”

“We have the footprints that appeared on Wednesday morning. That’s all.”

“There are no other clues?”

“Only what we’ve learned from Emerra’s dreams.”

Jack Noctis pulled out his chair and sat down behind his desk.

He said, “I agree with you. Considering the similarities between what’s happening now and what Emerra’s dreamed, it’s reasonable to assume the presence of our ghosts and the presence of the monster are somehow related. It’s important for us to learn how they came here. I’ll begin working on that immediately. I have to meet with the Torr anyway—that will give me a chance to talk to Father Thorburn.”

Stolen story; please report.

“You think he can help?”

“I respect his experience with ghosts. At a minimum, he should be able to point out some possibility we might have missed. While I’m gone, I would like you to take measures to protect Mrs. Park.”

“I called her earlier. She prefers to stay at her house.”

“Then we must protect her house.”

“The best way to do that would be to find and destroy whatever’s killing those people.”

“That is our end goal, but since we don’t even know what we’re fighting yet, it might be worth our time to take a few intermediate measures.”

“Then we should do something to protect the town,” Darius said.

“The greatest form of protection we have is warding. Warding the entire town would be time consuming, and the ward would be weak. We can’t protect an area that size with the resources we have. Besides, it would probably be useless to ward the town since we suspect the monster’s already in it. However, we can protect Mrs. Park.”

“What about everyone else?”

“I’m under no obligation to protect anyone, but I will protect my household.”

The vampire scowled at the carpet.

“Your empathy is natural but impractical,” Jacky said. “If you can think of any reasonable measure we can take without undue cost to ourselves, I would be happy to listen.”

“We can start by protecting Mrs. Park.”

“Good. Inform Olivia immediately. She’ll need time to prepare before she goes out tonight.”

“Tonight?”

Jacky stopped and looked up. “Five people in five days, Darius. It’s a small town. I don’t think we can afford any delay.”

“But I’ve been called in! I have to leave in ten minutes.”

“That’s unfortunate. Is it important?”

“Yes!”

“Hmm.”

“Can you take her instead?”

“The Torr meeting is tonight.” Jacky tapped his finger bone on his desk several times. “If I recall correctly, Emerra knows how to drive.”

“She doesn’t have a license!”

“That’s right. Iset mentioned that we needed to get her paperwork. No matter. I’ll pay any fines she might incur.”

“You’re thinking of sending Olivia and Emerra out alone?”

“From your tone, I assume you find something about that disagreeable.”

“Given how long it will take Olivia to get ready, it’ll be dark by the time they start out.”

“I doubt either of them are scared of the dark.”

“Who’s going to protect them, Jacky?”

Noctis tilted his skull. “What makes you think either of us could protect them?”

The count’s head jerked back.

Jacky continued, “We don’t know the nature of the beast. If it doesn’t have a physical body, there’d be nothing we could do. Emerra, at least, will be able to see it, no matter what it is.”

“Mr. Noctis, it left tracks. It slashed up a pole! If we’re going to send those girls into town, I would feel much better if there was someone with them that could fight.”

“Then what are our options, Mr. Vasil?”