"He's been acting so weird! He just-he won't eat, he sleeps all day, he's so pale ... I thought he had some kind of drug problem, but he doesn't even seem high!"

"How does he seem?"

She shakes her head miserably. "He hardly touches me. He disappears in the middle of the night. And he's ... meaner. It's not like him at all-he's such a nice guy, you know? But that's not the worst part. The worst part is crazy. I don't even know if I should tell you."

"It's okay. I know crazy, remember?" I give her what I hope is an encouraging-and-not-crazed smile.

"It's what happened when Sheriff Stoker came to arrest him. He just laughed and said he wasn't going anywhere. I thought the sheriff was going to threaten him with his gun, but he didn't. He threatened him with something else."

"What was it?"

"A cross. He pulled this stupid silver cross out of his pocket and held it in front of him, and backed Neil right into a corner. Neil looked angry and terrified and-and his eyes went all red, and the sheriff made him put the handcuffs on himself, like he didn't want to get too close to him-" She bursts into tears again. "I don't know," she wails. "I mean, I know how it sounds, but that's crazy! And I didn't know what to do or where to go and something made me think you could help, I don't even know why-"

"Take it easy," I say. "Look, you're not going to be able to help Neil if you're this upset, right? So just calm down."

It takes a minute, but she gets herself under control. I find a box of Kleenex and hand it to her, and she wipes her eyes and blows her nose.

"I get it," I say. "You're confused and scared and want to know what the hell is going on. Well, what's going on is so convoluted and bizarre I can't really explain it, but here's what you need to know. Yes, Neil is ... exactly what you think he is. And he's not the only one. You know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Vampires," she whispers.

"Yes. And-believe it or not-werewolves, too. Which, once you've wrapped your head around vampires, isn't that much of a stretch, right?"

She's staring at me, not blinking, trying to see if I'm kidding or out of my mind. I meet her gaze as evenly and sincerely as I can. "The two groups are about to go head-to-head, Alexis. Two gangs, same turf."

"So Sheriff Stoker's a werewolf?"

"I'm not sure." I consider telling her about the cult but decide it's too much to hit her with all at once. "He's in the middle of things, but I don't know whose side he's on. What you need to know is that this town is now very, very dangerous; the best thing you could do would be to leave."

"I can't. The roadwork crew has the highway shut down and nobody can get out."

Charlie returns, now dressed in khaki pants and a white button-down shirt. "Cassiar's gone. Must have taken off during his turn standing watch."

"Who's Cassiar?" Alexis asks.

"A friend," I say. "I hope."

"Let's say I believe you," Alexis says. "If Neil's a vampire, who turned him into one? And who's a werewolf?"

"We don't know for certain," I admit. "Except for a few people. Jimmy Zhang and Phil Isamu, for instance-they're both vampires. Well, Phil was, anyway."

"He got better?" she asks, a pathetic gleam of hope in her eye.

"He got deader. Believe me, that's a good thing."

"Who else?"

Charlie's giving me the "are you sure you want to do this" look, but I plunge ahead regardless. "Brad Varney and Don Prince are both going to be hairy and howling at the first full moon. Vince Shelly and Ken Tanaka would round out their little unbarbershopped quartet, if both of them hadn't met unfortunate accidents involving things that are either very sharp, very silver, or both."

"Uh-huh." She looks a little overwhelmed, and I've only touched on the actual situation. "So all of these people were bitten?"

"That's the traditional way, yeah-"

"So why don't I know about this? How can all this biting be going on without anyone noticing?"

"Because it's not being done in the traditional way-not the werewolf part, anyway." I point to one of her exposed shoulders. "That little red dot on your arm-you got an innoculation recently, didn't you?"

"What? Yeah, I got a flu shot from Pete-my dad made me go. The whole family got them-"

Her eyes go very, very wide. "Oh, no," she whispers.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "I think Doctor Pete was infecting his patients with the lycanthrope virus. Vince Shelly had a mark just like it on his shoulder."

Oddly, the news that she's now a werewolf-in-waiting calms her down. "This is why he was acting so weird toward me," she says wonderingly. She touches the innoculation mark with a single index finger, like it's an on/off button she can press. "I was feeling it, too, only I thought I was just angry at him...."

"Pires and thropes don't generally make good couples." At least not where I'm from. "But there's a solution. Kill the alpha wolf-the one that's doing all the infecting-before the first full moon, and none of the people bitten will transform."

"Kill Pete? But he's family!"

"It may not come to that. Doctor Pete might be the alpha wolf, but he might not." I'm thinking of the attack in Doctor Pete's clinic-if he were the alpha, why didn't he transform and defend himself against the Gallowsman? No, it makes far more sense for somebody else to be the alpha, somebody with a more aggressive, take-charge personality. Don Prince fits that description, as does Mayor Leo, but both seem too obvious to me. I've got someone else in mind, someone who's only a minor thug here but a lot more ambitious in his natural habitat.

Tair.

If so, then he's really here in the flesh; he's not just a memory-implant imposter. But if the person I know as Terrance is actually Tair, then who is Doctor Pete? Did Ahaseurus manage to isolate each personality in a different body?

That actually makes sense. Tair as the alpha-powerful, aggressive, ruthless-with trustworthy-but-thoroughly-brainwashed Doctor Pete secretly infecting people until he's dragged into the bowels of the earth by the Gallowsman.

Sure. Unless Ahaseurus decided to be tricky and set things up the other way around. Hide the alpha inside Doctor Pete's unassuming, helpful facade, while parading Terrance around as a big fat red herring. That works, too.

Either way, they may have both been taken off the board: one locked up by Stoker, the other abducted and possibly killed by an evil creature the cult summoned.

I just don't know.

"We need to search Doctor Pete's place," I say.

"I might be able to get us in there," Alexis says. "I know where he hides a key. He'll be working in the clinic downstairs, though-we'll have to be real quiet."

"I think we can handle that," I say. No way am I going to tell her about what happened to Dr. Pete, not unless I have to. She's got enough to deal with already.

"All right," says Charlie. "We search the doc's place. Then what?"

"Depends on what we find. If he's the alpha, there have to be traces of thrope presence around. If not-" I shrug. "Then we go to plan B."

I leave Charlie with Alexis, out in the parking lot of the clinic. She tells me where to find the key-under a cement planter beside the front door-and I let myself in. Even though it'll screw up my plans, part of me is hoping I'll find Doctor Pete inside.

No such luck. His apartment is empty, the movie he was watching still on pause: an old western, just like he said.

But he was lying about something else.

He has a woman living with him. Hard to believe he managed to keep that a secret in a town this size, but anything's possible if you're motivated enough. I find high heels in the closet-more than one pair-along with women's clothes and some accessories. From the styles I'd guess she's going straight to work from here; from the sizes I'd put her at around six feet tall and maybe a hundred and forty pounds. A big girl.

The medicine cabinet is more revealing. She takes good care of her skin-lots of creams and lotions, all of them natural and unscented. No sunscreen, though, which seems odd considering the weather we've been having lately. She favors pads over tampons. She shaves her legs on a regular basis.

And she's a werewolf.

The fridge is what clinches it. Meat, meat, and more meat, with nary a fruit or vegetable to be found. It pretty much tells me that they're both thropes, or at least they're eating like they are. It could be that one's the alpha and the other's merely been bitten-the carnivorous urges kick in even before the first transformation. It's also possible neither one's the alpha and both of them are just bitees, since I don't find anything like telltale bits of fur or claw marks on the furniture.

I wonder who the woman is. The last female I saw Doctor Pete with was the new school teacher, Athena Shaker, but none of these clothes would fit her. I don't find a comb, but there's a brush beside the bed; the hairs caught in it are distinctive and easily identifiable. She's black.

Sure. Except there aren't any black women in town.

I go back downstairs and get in the car. "So?" Charlie asks.

"So Doctor Pete has an African-American girlfriend. Or maybe just African, I don't know-but whoever she is, she's practically moved in with him." I realize I sound a little jealous, which is embarassing and irrelevant. I move on. "She might be the alpha, or it could still be Doctor Pete. No hard evidence either way."

Alexis looks disappointed. "So what do we do now?"

"Plan B," I say. "We break Terrance out of jail. Assuming he's still there..."

"Tell me again," says Charlie, "why this is plan B. Because it seems like it should be considerably further down the alphabet."

"Because," I say, crouching down in the backseat, "we need Terrance for the second part of the plan. Even if he isn't the alpha, he's still Doctor Pete's identical twin."

"And if he is the alpha?"

"Then we've got him exactly where we want him."

"Sure. Because cozying up to a killer thrope is much better than leaving him behind bars."

"He's not doing us any good in there, is he?"

"He's not doing us any bad in there, that's for sure."

"He may not even be there. Which is something we need to know, and anyway, shut up."

We're not in Charlie's car anymore. Too conspicuous. Instead we're in Isamu's junky old Toyota, which was parked next to the diner with the keys in it. We're across the street from the police station with the engine running, while Alexis is inside trying to see Neil. There's no guarantee that Stoker will let that happen, but the fact that Alexis is the mayor's niece gives us a little leverage; I'm hoping that the threat of a major, dramatic breakdown will be enough that he'll give in just to keep her happy. I coached her carefully beforehand, and she seemed to understand exactly which buttons she has to push. I have faith in her.

We've been waiting for half an hour. Enough time for Alexis to cajole, threaten, and sob her way inside, enough time for her to talk to Neil and get him up to speed. His relationship with Alexis may be rocky, but I'm willing to bet he'll kiss and make up awfully quick to get out of a jail cell.

Charlie and I are here to make sure he's got somewhere to go. It's mid-morning now, the autumn sun bright and warm overhead, not exactly what a pire wants waiting for him. The thunderstorm that threatened my life yesterday is still there, lurking on the horizon and flickering with the odd flash of lightning. I'll bet if I tried to leave town it would get a lot closer real quick.

The door of the police station-hastily repaired with plywood and two-by-fours-opens, and Alexis comes out. She doesn't walk directly to the car, going the opposite way instead and circling around the block. She jumps into the back seat a few minutes later.

"He's in there," she says "Terrance, I mean. In the cell right next to Neil."

I turn in my seat to face her. "How'd it go?"

She looks troubled, but better than I hoped. "About how you guessed. Stoker was a real hardass at first, but halfway through my meltdown he started to reconsider. I saved Uncle Leo for the closer, and he went for it."

"What about Neil?"

"He's ... he's with us." Now she looks more sad than anything. "Except he's not really him anymore, is he?"

"No," I say. "He's not."

Who he is, though, I'm not exactly sure. Someone from my past-but an ally or an enemy? Alexis showed Charlie some pictures, but he didn't recognize Neil from them. I guess we'll find out, though....

Stoker's down a man and his station has been damaged. That gives us an edge, though not much of one. The main thing is that he can't be in two places at the same time, and he can't secure his building very well while he's gone.

Charlie sighs. Again. "Damn shame about the car, though."

"It's sacrificing itself for a noble cause." I rigged a simple bomb in Charlie's car by lugging a propane cylinder from a barbecue into the back seat, opening the valve all the way, then tossing a kitchen timer wired to an electric lighter in the front. The interior fills up with gas, the timer runs down, the lighter sparks, and KABOOM! Stoker should easily be able to hear the explosion from the station.

I check my watch. "Here we go...." The timer's only about thirty seconds off, and the boom! is satisfyingly loud. A cloud of black smoke blooms into the sky, and a moment later Stoker steps outside to shade his eyes against the sun and study it. He goes back in again, but only for a minute; when he returns, he locks the door behind him, strides down the steps, gets into his car and drives off.

"You're sure nobody else will get hurt?" Alexis asks.

"We parked it in a field at the edge of town," I answer. "And anyway, how many people have you seen on the street this morning?"

Alexis glances around. "None. All the businesses are closed, too. It's creepy."

It is, but I'll take deserted over filled with bloodthirsty supernatural beings any day of the week.

"Let's go," Charlie says.

We don't have time for subtlety. Charlie pulls up on the sidewalk, and I leap out with the tow chain we scrounged from his garage. One end gets hooked to the recently repaired station doors, the other to the front of the Toyota's chassis. Then I get back in, Charlie throws the car in reverse, and we yank the plywood out by the nails.

I look around as we all get out of the car, but nobody so much as peers out a window. Not that I can see, anyway.

I unhook the tow chain from the car, and all three of us dash inside. There's another locked door between us and the cells, but that's operated by a buzzer under the front desk. We get into the holding cell area and peer through the small, wire-reinforced glass windows set into each door. Terrance is in the first cell, Neil in the second. Even though Neil apparently just woke up, he's still wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket. He'd look incredibly cool if it weren't for his hair, which seems crazy enough to require a straitjacket. Even vampire musicians need combs, I guess.

"Morning, sunshine," I say.

"I'm not mourning anything, actually," he says with a smile. He seems to have acquired a British accent along with his fangs. "I just woke up from the most amazing dream. Very educational, among other things."

"Terrific," I mutter. All about how I killed your pet bat and you swore undying revenge on me, right? "We'll have you out in a minute, okay?"

I don't wait for his reply, moving on to Terrance's cell instead. He's already at the little window, staring at me. "Jace," he says. "What the hell's going on?"

"Checkout time," I say. "You could sleep for another hour, but then you'd be charged for an extra day. Or, you know, murder."

"I didn't kill anyone!"

"You did where I come from," I say under my breath. "Take it easy, all right? We're getting you out of there."