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physical communications and headed for the stairs to Aunt Cate’s apartment.
    No comforting cocoa was waiting for Ivy at the top of the stairs, but four mortal women and one vampire were gathered around the low central table in Cate Bailey’s living room. Ivy recognized Aunt Cate’s human guests as priestesses of area covens. None were familia, but they were all powerful witches. And they all turned worried gazes toward her. One of the women looked at her with eyes red from crying.
    Ivy stopped dead, and all the cold rushed back. All her senses jarred and jangled with their grieving pain. She instantly forgot her own concerns. “What happened?”
    “Sit down,” her aunt said. “Please.”
    Ivy slid into the nearest empty seat. She saw that a deck of divination cards was set between a pair of tall beeswax candles. Her aunt’s black dagger was also lying on the table, unsheathed. This wasn’t Aunt Cate’s regular athame, but a leaf-shaped, six-inch-long piece of flaked obsidian set in a bone handle. Ancient. Dangerous in its own right. This was the blade she used for serious work, dark work. This was the hag’s blade.
    Ivy couldn’t look at the black knife for more than a moment. It still sent a shadow creeping over her soul.
    Hungry bitch,
Ivy thought.
    Something deep was going on here, something bad. She wanted nothing to do with it.
    Aunt Cate caught her gaze, held it. Her voice was low and grim when she spoke. “I’m sorry, Lilith.”
    Ivy barely kept from gasping at the sound of her secret name. She didn’t look at the vampire and other priestesses, not wanting to show how uncomfortable she was with their sharing this chip of her personal knowledge.
    “I wouldn’t have called you to join us if I didn’t need your special gifts.”
    As solemn as everyone around her was, Ivy almost laughed. “You didn’t call me,” she said. “I came by because I need to talk to you.”
    “I called you three times. Didn’t you check your voice mail?”
    Ivy shook her head. “I never have my cell on at work and—Wait a minute, what happened?”
    She became uncomfortably aware of the attention on her from the women she barely knew. Something was so verywrong. Something to do with her. And the hag. She shuddered.
    She’d come to talk about the English vampire, but she doubted the others were here for that reason. These women weren’t involved with monitoring strigoi activity. They were from the magical enclaves in DeKalb, to the west of Chicago; Evanston, just to the north; and Aurora, also west of the city. There weren’t nests of vampires in any of those towns. A few vampires lived in Elgin and Schaumburg, but the concentration of the area’s strigoi lived in the city.
    “What happened?” Ivy asked one more time.
    “Jimmy Marsh’s body was found today,” the priestess from DeKalb said. She wiped tears away with a tissue. She shook with a sob before she could pull herself together and say, “His girlfriend is still—most of his girlfriend is still missing. Her right hand was found in his mouth. They were new to the craft, just learning to control their talents.”
    Ivy’s soul twisted with horror. She’d been vaguely aware of news stories about a pair of missing Northern Illinois University students in DeKalb. It was horrible to hear the gruesome details. Even worse to find out the victims were part of the magical community.
    Vampires,
was Ivy’s first thought. But she backed off on the accusation right away. The bodies of vampire prey were never found. But—
    Could it be that maybe English vampires didn’t know that?
    “The community is under attack,” one of the other priestesses said. The one from Aurora. “The threat crawls through my dreams.”
    “I feel it like black smoke. It is starting to gather over the city,” Aunt Cate said.
    “Demons,” said the one from Evanston.
    Ivy flinched at the word.
    Lawrence gave her an apologetic look.
    “We don’t know that anyone supernatural is