Johnny B would keep an eye on Heath. The truth was that she was glad to be rid of him and jealous Erik for a little while. The two of them made her appreciate Dallas. He was simple and easy. He was her kinda-sorta boyfriend. The two of them had a thing, but it didn't get in the way of stuff. Dallas knew Stevie Rae had a lot to deal with, so he let her deal.

And he was there for the off times. Easy-peasy, cute and breezy! That was Dallas. Z could learn a thing or two about handling guys from me, she thought as she trudged through the grove of old trees that ringed Mary's Grotto and buffered the abbey's land from busy Twenty-first Street. Well, one thing was for sure--it was definitely a crappy night. Stevie Rae hadn't gone a dozen paces before her short blond curls were soaked. Dang, water was even drippin' off her nose! She backhanded her face, wiping off the cold, wet mixture of rain and ice. Everything was so weirdly dark and silent.

It was freaky that there were absolutely no streetlights working on Twenty-first. Not one car was on the street--not even a cruising TPD squad car. She slipped and slid down the incline. Her feet met road and only her super-good red vampyre night vision kept her oriented. It seemed like Kalona had run away and taken sound and light with him. Feeling skittish, she backhanded the sopping wet hair from her face again and pulled herself together. You're actin' like a chicken, and you know how stupid chickens are! She spoke aloud and then got double spooked when her words sounded bizarrely magnified by the ice and darkness. Why in the world was she so jumpy? It could be 'cause you're keepin' stuff from your BFF, Stevie Rae muttered, and then clamped her lips shut. Her voice was just too loud in the dark, ice- filled night. But she was gonna tell Z about the other stuff.

Really she was! There just hadn't been time. And Z had enough on her mind without more stress. And . . . and . . . it was hard to talk about it, even to Zoey. Stevie Rae kicked at a broken, ice-covered branch. She knew it didn't matter if it was hard. She was gonna talk to Zoey. She had to. But later. Maybe a lot later. Better to focus on the present, at least for right now. Squinting and cupping her hand over her eyes to try to shield them from the sting of the icy rain, Stevie Rae peered up into the branches of the trees. Even with the darkness and the storm her eyesight was good, and she was relieved not to see any big dark bodies lurking above her.

Finding it easier to walk on the side of the road, she made her way down Twenty-first Street heading away from the abbey, all the while keeping her eyes up. It wasn't until she was almost at the fence line that pided the nuns' property from the upscale condo beside it that Stevie Rae smelled it. Blood. A wrong kind of blood. She stopped. Looking almost feral, Stevie Rae sniffed the air. It was filled with the wet, musty scent of ice as it coated earth, the crisp, cinnamon smell of the winter trees, and the man-made tang of the asphalt beneath her feet. She ignored those scents and instead focused on the blood. It wasn't human blood, or even fledgling blood, so it didn't smell like sunlight and spring--honey and chocolate--love and life and everything that she'd ever dreamed of.

No, this blood smelled too dark. Too thick. There was too much of something in it that wasn't human. But it was still blood, and it drew her, even though she knew the wrongness of it deep in her soul. It was the scent of something strange, something otherworldly, that led her to the first splashes of crimson. In the stormy darkness of the sunless predawn, even her enhanced vision saw it only as wet splotches against the ice that sheeted the road and covered the grass beside it. But Stevie Rae knew it was blood. A lot of blood. But there was no animal or human lying there bleeding. Instead there was a trail of liquid darkness thickening in the sheeting ice, moving away from the street and into the densest part of the grove behind the abbey.

Her predator's instincts kicked in instantly. Stevie Rae moved stealthily, hardly breathing, hardly making a sound, as she tracked the blood path. It was beneath one of the largest trees that she found it, hunkered down under a huge, newly broken branch as if it had dragged itself there to hide and die. Stevie Rae felt a shudder of fear pass through her. It was a Raven Mocker. The creature was huge. Bigger than she'd thought they'd looked from a distance. It lay on its side, head tucked down against the ground, so she couldn't see its face very well. The giant wing she could see looked wrong, obviously broken, and the human arm that lay beneath it was weirdly angled and covered with blood.

Its legs were human, too, and curled up like it had died in a fetal position. She remembered hearing Darius firing a gun as he and Z and the gang had ridden like bats outta hell down Twenty-first to the abbey. So, he'd shot it from the sky. Dang, she said under her breath. That must've been one heck of a fall. Stevie Rae cupped her hands around her mouth and was getting ready to holler for Dallas so he and the other guys could help her drag the body somewhere when the Raven Mocker twitched and opened its eyes.