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talking. Did a hotel room count as a home?
    She rather doubted it.
    Worse, did the blood he’d taken from her allow him special privileges with her—to her? Would she become his Renfield?
    She rolled her eyes, impatient with her own stupidity. Renfield. Please.
    She took her toiletries bag to the bathroom and starting unpacking the little bit of makeup she’d brought with her. Sparkly eye shadow and glossy lips would help the scientists underestimate her. Fluffy reporters were nothing to worry about, after all. She’d already prepared the way through e-mails and phone calls so they thought she was there for a few sound bites on the wonderful medical breakthroughs humans and shape-shifters were making in the spirit of joint cooperation.
    Yeah. Right. Maybe that was happening somewhere, but not with this group. They had a deeper, darker purpose, and it was up to her to find out exactly who, what, where, when, and why. She set the gleaming tube of mascara on the counter and made the mistake of looking into the mirror. The smear of blood on her neck highlighted the two small puncture holes, and the black circles under her eyes from weeks of restless nights made her look like she was half-vamp herself.
    She wet a washcloth and poured half of the travel-sized bottle of antibacterial gel on it, then gritted her teeth and cleaned her neck. Once the blood was gone, the punctures were barely visible. A little makeup would cover up the evidence, so nobody at the conference would be able to tell she’d served as the equivalent of vampire Cheetos.
    A little snack.
    Bastard.
    Something scraped against glass, and she dropped the washcloth. The noise had been so subtle Atlantis Redeemed – Warriors of Poseidon 05
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    that she might not have heard it if her nerves hadn’t shot straight to hyper-alert during the encounter with the vamp.
    He was back. He was back, and unfortunately, there were no wooden stakes in the dish with the complimentary soap and shampoo. Calling for backup would only get someone else killed with her; she knew the speed and strength of vampires very, very well. She grabbed the small glass tumbler and filled it with water, then whipped around and faced the window, ready to bluff.
    Ready to lie. She was so very good at lying.
    “I’m not an easy target now,” she called out, pleased that her voice remained so steady. “This is a glass filled with holy water, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
    But it wasn’t the vampire’s face at the window. It wasn’t any face at all, but a strange fog that was almost corporeal, almost sentient, the way it moved back and forth across the outside of her window, as if it sought a way to enter.
    She knew some vamps could fly, but could they turn into fog? Or was she hallucinating from blood loss?
    Tiernan’s hand trembled a little, and the water in the glass rippled. “Whatever you are, stay out.”
    As if it heard her, the fog froze to utter stillness, then receded. In the space of two of her rapid heartbeats, it vanished entirely from the window.
    “This is where the stupid person walks over to the window to look out, and the zombie breaks the glass and eats her brains,” she muttered, putting the glass down with a little too much force on the counter. “If zombies could float.
    “A brilliant investigative reporter, however, calls for help.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and took a step toward the door. But then she dropped the phone from nerveless fingers to the perfectly ordinary carpet in her perfectly ordinary hotel room as the fog, or mist, or whatever the heck it was—not perfectly ordinary, oh, no, not at all ordinary—streamed into her room through the nonexistent cracks in the seam between the window and the sill.
    Her reporter’s brain toggled over to its “superobservant” setting, and she took in every detail, shaking her head back and forth, whether in denial or disbelief she had no idea.
    The fog coalesced into a sparkling,