WITCH

The man was a predator.

Rahne could smell it on him-not literally, not the way the Garou could parse the chemical signatures of fear and arousal and guilt. But sixteen centuries of reading human nature had given her instincts that functioned just as well. The way his eyes tracked the young woman stumbling out of the alley. The practiced casualness as he angled toward her. The smile that never reached his eyes.

She'd been watching him for three nights now.

The first night, she'd seen him sell to a teenager. Fourteen, maybe fifteen-hollow-eyed and shaking, already too far gone to save. He'd taken her money and her dignity in the same transaction, his hand lingering where it shouldn't.

The second night, she'd followed him to a house in City Heights where he collected payments from people who had nothing left to give. She'd watched through a window as he explained, patiently, what would happen to their daughter if they didn't find the money by Friday.

Tonight, she'd decided, was the third night.

He noticed her outside the bar on El Cajon Boulevard. Of course he did-she'd made sure of it. Small, red-haired, alone. The kind of woman who looked like she'd wandered into the wrong neighborhood. The kind of woman men like him had been underestimating since before this country existed.

"You lost, sweetheart?"

Rahne looked up at him with wide eyes. Emerald green, though he probably couldn't tell in this light. "I was supposed to meet someone. I don't think he's coming."

"That's a shame." He moved closer. Cologne and cigarettes and underneath it, the sour tang of someone who hurt people for pleasure. "Pretty thing like you shouldn't be out here alone."

"No," she agreed. "I probably shouldn't."

She let him buy her a drink. Let him lean too close, his hand finding her knee under the bar. Let him believe every word of the story she spun-new to the city, bad breakup, looking for a little excitement to take her mind off things.

Men like him never questioned their luck. They assumed the world owed them whatever they wanted.

"I know a place," he said, an hour later. "Quiet. Private."

"I'd like that."

The motel was the kind that rented by the hour and didn't ask questions. He'd clearly been here before-knew which room, knew the desk clerk wouldn't look up from his phone. Rahne filed that information away. Evidence of pattern. Confirmation of intent.

Not that she needed it anymore.

He locked the door behind them. Three locks-deadbolt, chain, the flimsy push-button on the knob. Rahne watched him do it, noting the practiced efficiency. He'd done this before too. Locked women in rooms where no one could hear them.

"Make yourself comfortable," he said, gesturing toward the bed.

Instead, Rahne walked to the room's single chair and began unbuttoning her blouse.

He sat on the edge of the mattress, watching. Hungry. Certain of what came next.

She folded the blouse carefully. Set it on the chair. Started on her skirt.

"Why bother folding them?" He was already loosening his belt.

Rahne looked at him. Let him see her eyes clearly for the first time-the ancient, cold thing that lived behind the pretty face.

"I don't want to get blood on them."

His expression flickered. Confusion first, then the beginning of fear. But he was too slow. They were always too slow.

She crossed the distance between them before he could draw breath to scream.

Afterward, she stood in the bathroom, watching rust-colored water spiral down the drain.

The mirror showed a woman who could have been mid-thirties. Red hair slicked back from a face that had launched a thousand bad decisions, cheekbones that photographers had once called "architectural," a body that looked delicate until you understood what it could do. The only signs of what had just happened were a smear of red on her collarbone and the satisfied looseness in her shoulders.

She hadn't needed to kill him. That was the truth she never spoke aloud, not even to herself. The hunger could be fed other ways-willing donors, the ethical arrangements of the Red Room, the carefully negotiated transactions that kept Eclipse running.

But sometimes the cage felt too small.

She thought about that as she dressed. The cage she'd built for herself-neutrality as philosophy, as protection, as penance. Eclipse as sanctuary. Rules that kept her contained. I don't choose sides. I don't interfere. I provide neutral ground and let others fight their wars.

Eighty years of telling herself that was enough.

She looked at the body on the bed. He'd stopped moving several minutes ago.

The cleanup took longer than the kill-it always did. She dressed him, wiped down surfaces, hauled him out the window and into the scrubland behind the motel. A coyote could have done this, if you didn't look too closely. An animal attack, another transient who wandered too far from the road. San Diego had enough of both that no one would question it.

Vampire. She grimaced at the word even as it crossed her mind. Centuries of that ridiculous folklore, and humans still couldn't get it right. The Valensi were something far older than their movie monsters. Something that didn't dissolve in sunlight or recoil from crosses or leave convenient fang marks for investigators to find.

Just a body in a field. Just another predator who'd met something higher on the food chain.

Neutrality, she thought, is just another word for permission.

She pushed the thought away. Locked it back in its box. There were reasons for the cage. Good reasons. Reasons written in blood and snow and a grief so old it had calcified into something harder than bone.

She checked the mirror one final time. Perfect. Composed. Not a hair out of place.

The witch of Eclipse had appearances to maintain.

The club was still busy when she returned-would be for hours yet. Valensi kept late schedules, and the humans who frequented Eclipse had learned to adapt. She slipped in through the back entrance, past the staff who knew better than to comment on her absences, and emerged behind the bar like she'd never left.

"There you are." Seth appeared at her elbow, two glasses of wine in hand. Her favorite vintage-he always remembered. "I was starting to think you'd abandoned us."

Rahne accepted the glass with a smile that showed none of her teeth. "Just needed some air."

"At two in the morning?"

"The best time for it. Fewer people asking questions."

Seth laughed. He had a good laugh-warm, genuine, the kind that made you want to trust him. She'd known him for almost forty years now, and he'd never given her reason not to.

"Fair enough." He clinked his glass against hers. "To fresh air and fewer questions."

"To fewer questions," she agreed.

She drank, watching her kingdom over the rim of the glass. Valensi and Garou mingling under the soft lights. Humans who knew exactly what they were drinking with, and humans who didn't. The carefully maintained illusion of civilization.

Neutral ground, she reminded herself. Safe harbor. That's what this is. That's what it has to be.

But somewhere beneath her ribs, in the hollow space where human hearts kept their secrets, something stirred. Restless. Hungry.

Not for blood. She'd had her fill of that tonight.

For something else. Something she couldn't name.

She smiled at Seth, asked about his evening, laughed at his jokes. Played the gracious hostess, the untouchable queen. Let no one see the bars of her cage or the thing that paced behind them.

But later, alone in her office, she stood at the window and watched the city lights and felt the truth she couldn't quite outrun:

The cage was getting smaller.

And she wasn't sure how much longer she could stand it.