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were still maintaining those pages, then she must have been loved by them. The big reward put up by them and the community was a sign of love too. So why had she gone missing? Most runaways do so because of trauma from home, but this girl was well loved and, by all indications, happy. So how did she get to Georgia as a bloodsucker?
    â€œDid your research turn up anyone in her circle of friends who disappeared with her?” Kat shook her head. Happy runaways generally leave on an adventure, but they almost always take someone with them. “Any ties to Georgia you can find? Friends or relatives in the area? Interests she had that might lure her here?”
    â€œNo, she has no family or friends who are from here. There is no reason she would be in Georgia that I can find.” If Kat couldn’t find a reason, it wasn’t there to find. She is a magician on the Internet.
    â€œOkay. Isn’t Western Jim still in Texas?” The blond ponytail bobbed up and down. “We should call him and see if he knows anything.”
    â€œDone and done. I left a message on his phone about two hours ago when I found Alyssa in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Kids network. He hasn’t called back yet.”
    This was not worrisome. Western Jim was a monster hunter like me. He had been a Texas Ranger in the seventies when he ran up against a Thessalonian blood-cult and had to shoot it out with an ancient entity bent on reinstalling human sacrifices. He was a crotchety old bastard and quick as a rattlesnake with his six-gun. We had worked together a few times when we were chasing monsters and wound up in each other’s territory. He would call when he was free, but it might take a bit if he was knee-deep in a hunt. Kat’s face turned sad.
    â€œI called Detective Longyard and let him know that the girl would not be found so he could contact her parents. He wanted to know if you needed any help.”
    â€œNot yet. Tell him I will call if I need him.”
    Detective John Longyard was the lead investigator on the murder of my family. He is a good man and knows what I do. He is my go-to guy on the police force and helped me cut around them when needed. He gets me information if I need it, gets me into crime scenes, and gets me out of complications that come from having to skirt the law when things get hairy. Or scaly. Or fangy. It was hard on him sometimes, but he did it out of duty to his fellow man. My feet dropped to the floor as I sat up.
    â€œSo now we have a newly turned girl from Texas who is in Georgia and acting as a setup to try to get me killed.” I looked around the table. “Anybody have any ideas how to start figuring this one out?”
    Larson coughed and cleared his throat. His cheeks burned red. A pale hand drifted over his forehead as he began talking, the words stumbling from his mouth in nervousness. “New vampires don’t travel very far, not by themselves. They don’t have the control over their urges to feed. From all evidence she was turned in Texas and then came here, so she didn’t travel alone. She would have had to have a stronger vampire to keep her in check or it would have been a bloodbath between Texas and here.” He sat back with pride on his face under the flush of his embarrassment from when he started.
    So he actually knew a thing or two about a thing or two. That’s fine. He had no practical knowledge whatsoever. He had actually sat and talked with a vampire without being able to spot her for what she was. It was a little like saying he had been petting a puppy and not noticing that it had rabies.
    â€œSo, we are talking about a new vampire in town.” Father Mulcahy blew smoke toward the ceiling. Kat looked at him shaking her head.
    â€œNo, that is not possible. If there was a new powerful vampire in the territory, there would have been a turf war. I would know about it because vampire activity would have spiked.” She