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her kind,” he replied, “and
I know what their possession can do. For humans it can pass
harmlessly out of their system, but for those of our kind it
festers inside until all that remains is a mindless husk devoted to
the monster that that felled it.”
    Lukas had heard enough of his father’s
diatribe. He belonged to the lady in red and she to him. He would
never understand, could never understand. So he turned from his
father in disgrace.
    “Something foul is spreading through the town
of Salem,” warned Bernhard as he wrapped a clawed hand around the
arm of his son. “Our pack must run together if we are to see it
through the darkness that comes. If we cannot do that there’ll be
nothing left of us at the end.”
    “That’s not my problem.”
    “In that, my son, we’re in total agreement,”
said a wistful Bernhard Wendish. “It’s everyone’s problem.”

Chapter Thirteen
    Night Kings: The Raven Watches
    Gregory Blackman

    Hunter or Hunted

    Back on the streets of Salem, a shaken Sarah
Matheson confided in the kindness of a stranger.
    “Look at you,” Ben said to the young woman.
“You’re shivering.”
    Ben took the fedora off his head and offered
it up to Sarah in a show of concern. The rain had died down since
the deluge they experienced earlier, but it hadn’t subsided
completely. Still it barred Sarah’s view and hid those that might
wish not to be seen.
    “And starving,” Sarah said with one hand on
her stomach and the other around Ben’s waist. “I haven’t eaten in
days.”
    “Why the heck is that?” Ben asked.
    “Don’t you live around here?” Sarah asked
innocently enough in return. It was good to feel the warm of
another once more against her side. She wouldn’t let that slip from
her fingers so easily this time.
    “I’m here on business,” Ben said.
    “Oh,” said Sarah, grinning from ear to ear,
“well, Salem’s not exactly the safest place these days.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Not sure,” she answered with her lips
pouted, “but there are a lot of scared people around. That always
means something in this city.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Sarah looked into Ben’s eyes and was for a
brief moment lost in his innocence. He was a good man. She’d come
to learn that and much more as they walked out of the frying pan
and into the fire.
    “It’s my job to know,” Sarah said with a
devilish smile. She’d waited long enough and decided the time was
right to thank the man for all he’d done for her. It was, after
all, the very thing she did best in this world.
    She led him by hand down the nearest back
alley. At first he hesitated, but she could tell that this was
something the man had thought of, as well. They always thought of
it around her.
    “What are we doing?” he asked, nervously.
    “Like you don’t know,” Sarah answered. She
pushed Ben against the brick wall wrapped her arms around his waist
in a passionate embrace.
    They continued on through the rain for some
time as they soaked up every moist drip each other had to give. It
wasn’t until Ben pulled back in pain that he realized his fervent
admirer was in this for much more than him.
    Blood dripped down his bottom lip into
clasped hands that hid abhorrent expression, for it wasn’t the
Jezebel with hair of fire that he looked upon any longer. It was
the face of a monster, one with a whole host of fangs, each one
meant from evisceration and death.
    “What the hell are you?” Ben cried out.
    But it was too late for him. He was already
dead. Ben struggled to liberate himself from her grasp, but there
wasn’t an inch to budge. His life was amusement to his unholy
attacker and it was the fear he produced she relished in at this
moment. And in Ben there was an endless supply of fear. While he
still lived.
    Before Sarah’s lips could press themselves to
the neck of Ben a hood was thrown over her face and tightened to
the point of suffocation. She fought and clawed her unseen
attackers, but there was