“Something like that.”

“Bad idea,” I told him. “Kirsten isn’t a great person to mess with.”

He snorted. “Whatever. What’s she going to do, hex me with warts?” He had dropped the slightly dim, down-home act we’d seen at the bait shop.

“What do you want, Jared?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know who I am.”

“Yes. And I know about Emily.”

“You know nothing about Emily,” he countered, venom in his voice.

I finally pulled my knees to my chest, putting my cuffed arms around them, and hugging my legs. I didn’t want to look weak, but I was freezing. “I know that Joanna killed her and that you killed Joanna, and the vampire who was with her that night, and the vampire who only punished her for a few years instead of ending her. I know that you killed Ronnie, too, although I don’t know why.”

“Oh, that was for you.”

I felt sick. “Just to set me up?”

He rushed toward me then, and I cringed involuntarily, expecting a slap, but he dropped down a few inches from my face and grabbed my ankles, dragging them out so he could sit on my legs. He put one hand around my throat to pin me against the wall. He wasn’t strangling me, but I could feel the strength in his hands, how easy it would be. I tried not to move, not to draw any more attention. He looked down at my trapped legs, my stomach, his eyes lingering on my breasts. Holding me there, he leered. “Not just. What you do, you and that dead bitch, is a goddamned crime. You deserve to be punished for it. I thought it would be great for you to go to prison for murder; it had a nice ring of irony about it. But you were just supposed to be a bonus, a little footnote to the plan, and I got tired of you slipping away. I’ll settle for just killing you myself.”

“Then why don’t you?”

He gave me a wicked smile. “I need you first. One more job.”

“I won’t do it.”

He hit me then, a hard backhand that spurted blood into my mouth. I saw stars for a second, and when my vision cleared, he was smiling. “Not so tough now, are you?”

Oh, come on. Stubborn and sullen are my frickin’ trademarks. So I spat a glob of dark blood into his face. He screamed in outrage, jumping back a few steps and scrubbing at his face with the tail of his T-shirt.

“Feel better, you spineless son of a bitch? Does it make your tiny penis feel all big and hard to smack around girls? You think that would make Emily happy?”

He bellowed with rage, starting to crouch back down to pounce on me, but just as suddenly, he paused, smiled, and straightened up. “Nope,” he said cheerfully, bouncing a little on his toes, “not going to work. I’m not going to kill you just so you don’t have to help me. Besides, you want to help me.” He reached for his back pocket, and I tensed, but he just pulled out an old-fashioned Polaroid picture and flipped it to the ground in front of me.

I reached out my shackled hands and turned it over. It was Corry, with her mom and brother, unloading a suitcase in front of a big Holiday Inn sign. She wore the same jeans and green top I’d seen her in that evening. She was biting her lip, looking worried, but her mom was reaching a reassuring arm toward her daughter’s shoulders.

“Remember, you’re not the only game in town anymore. Little Corry is all safe and cozy—as long as you do what you’re told. If not, I slit your throat and go pick up our girl. I’m not particularly interested in having to kill her whole family to take her, but if you insist on making me kill you...” He grinned, and a shiver of fear passed through me.

It was coming to my attention that he was batshit crazy. I turned my head and spit the rest of the blood on the concrete floor. If Hess killed me, maybe Jesse would find my DNA somehow and catch the fucker.

“How did you find her?” I asked.

“Little Corry? Contacts.” He leaned back and spread out his arms, grinning. “I’ve got contacts all over town, on both sides of the Old World.”

“Both sides?”

He cocked his head, looking closely at me; then he giggled. “You really don’t know? You think there aren’t even a few humans who know what’s going on, who want to put the animals down?”

I stared. “Like...vampire hunters? You’ve gotta be kidding.”

He smirked at me.

I decided it wasn’t important for the moment. “What do you want?”

“I want him,” he hissed. “Dashiell. The one who makes this all possible. He let that vampire whore kill Emily and did nothing to keep her from doing it again. He hires bottom-feeding twats like you to keep everything covered up and makes sure the police find someone else to blame. Like a grieving sixteen-year-old.” He spat out the last few words with an intensity that would have terrified me if I weren’t already so numb.

“You want to kill Dashiell?” I asked dumbly. I have to admit, for an instant, I thought about just helping him do it. I would probably die anyway, but Corry would be safe. And it wasn’t as if I were feeling particularly loyal to Dashiell, who was planning to kill me in a couple of hours, regardless.

But after that instant of consideration, I remembered what Beatrice had said about lesser evils, and I knew she was right. There were other vampires in this town, and not all of them were willing to play nice with the werewolves, or make deals with cops, or keep their minions from killing without prejudice. Like Ariadne, who gave off more than a whiff of batshit crazy herself. Killing Dashiell wouldn’t solve my problems. It was just create more, and for everyone.