Catherine screamed.

The gargoyle-faced man advanced on her, his red eyes eerily reflecting the dim light filtering through the boarded windows of the abandoned building. Catherine backed away from him, the terror in her rising, until she felt her back come into contact with something.

That something was a someone and she jerked around to face them. The person standing behind her wore a long, black cloak with a collar. His skin was unnaturally pale, with slicked back black hair and piercing eyes. He reminded her of Bela Lugosi in the old, black-and-white Dracula films. But Catherine had only a moment for this observation to hit her before his lips curled back to reveal unnatural-looking fangs.

“Cathy!”

Behind her, Isaac yelled her name, and the vampire looked away in surprise. Taking his distraction as an opportunity, Catherine brought her knee up hard into his groin. As the caped man crumpled forward, she did not wait to see if vampire anatomy matched that of humans and instead sprinted for the stairwell.

She almost made it when a hand grabbed her upper arm, pulling her forcefully around.

Gargoyle Man had her. His red eyes were even more terrifying up close, and long, silvery hair framed his unnatural face as he leaned towards her.

Catherine tried to use the same move on him that she had on Dracula, but he was too quick, using his extra height and strength to twist her arm around behind her. Then his other hand moved to grip her throat.

Isaac bellowed out, “Let her go!”

But before he could reach them, Dracula recovered himself. Scrambling back to his feet, he revealed a knife and slashed at Isaac.

With her friend now engaged with the other assailant, Catherine knew she had to rescue herself. While Vincent might be on his way to her, there was no telling how long-

Below them on the ground floor, she heard the familiar snarl which heralded Vincent’s arrival. The sound startled Gargoyle Man. As his grip on her arm momentarily loosened, Catherine turned in the other direction and brought her own nails around to scrape at his face. They were not as sharp as a knife, but they raked across the man’s neck, disturbing what she realized was actually a gargoyle mask.

But between her resistance, the unexpected appearance of Isaac, and the very real sound of Vincent’s growls and footsteps making their way up the stairwell, Gargoyle Man stepped back from her. He pushed her down, and Catherine landed roughly among a pile of loose debris. With a glance in Isaac’s direction, she witnessed Dracula lunge close enough to stab him before also retreating back into the building. In mere seconds, both of the strange men were gone.

And then Vincent was there.

“Catherine!” he gasped, kneeling beside where she had fallen on the floor.

She almost pointed him in the direction of the assailants, but then she hesitated. There were two of them and only one of Vincent. One had a knife, and it was possible they might have guns. Plus Isaac-

Isaac was bleeding. She crawled across the floor towards him and, taking quick stock, noticed he had a deep puncture wound in his abdomen. But Isaac was still awake as he looked up at her and Vincent.

“Hell of a time to officially meet,” Isaac said, addressing Vincent, “but man, am I glad to see you.”

Three hours later, after seeing Isaac to the hospital and giving her report to Mike Juarez regarding the encounter with the vampire cultists, Catherine crossed the threshold of her building, descended the ladder, and walked straight into Vincent’s waiting arms.

“Are you all right?” he asked, holding her a little closer than usual.

“I’m fine,” Catherine assured him. “And so is Isaac. The puncture wound was deep, but it missed all his vital organs.”

Pulling away from him just enough to look up into his eyes, she explained, “They say he was stabbed with an icepick. And the wound was consistent with the women who have been attacked recently by this vampire cult. Maurice, the man I was there to meet, was killed in the same way.”

“Why do you think they were there?” Vincent asked.

“I think they’re looking for Lucy and her friend, Tammy. I suspect that Tammy was one of the victims of this cult, but she survived. She might even have some clue about how to identify them. Lucy was looking for her when she disappeared.”

“Do you have any idea who these… men are?”

While he hesitated to use the word, Catherine acknowledged silently that they were indeed men. But with a shake of the head, she admitted, “No, and with both Lucy and Tammy missing, we’re out of fresh leads in the case.”

Solemnly, Vincent promised her, “I will look for Lucy. If she is still alive, I will find her. But Catherine… you must be careful. These men know what you look like. They might come after you.”

“I will be careful.” With a smile of reassurance, she put her arms around him again. “But we have to stop these people from hurting anyone else.”

Exhausted after such a long, stressful afternoon, Catherine returned to her apartment and fell asleep fully clothed on top of her bed. But a few hours later, she awoke to the setting sun and the ring of her telephone.

“Hello?” she answered. Then, after listening for a moment, she said, “Oh, Brenda, I haven’t forgotten. I just had a rough day. I’ll be there as promised…”

She placed the phone back on the cradle and began undressing, mentally chastising herself for having forgotten the hospital benefit. With a glance at the clock, she determined she had just enough time to shower, change, and be there only fashionably late.

And within the hour, Catherine entered through the venue doors, pausing to accept a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. It felt odd to her, attending such an up-scale event only hours after she had wrestled with a masked murderer in an abandoned building.

Making her way across the room, illuminated with the splendor of several crystal chandeliers, Catherine located her friend within a group of people she did not recognize. Brenda quickly spotted her and stepped aside to greet her with a welcoming hug.

“Cathy, I’m so glad you made it!”

Immediately, Brenda paused to introduce her friend to those in the circle with her. While Catherine absently filed away the names of each, she was suddenly struck with familiarity. “And this is Rick MacLaren.”

Glancing up, Catherine recognized the lawyer she had met with the previous day to discuss Lucy’s case. She smiled in polite surprise and greeted him, “Mister MacLaren.”

“Miss Chandler,” he responded, also taken aback by her sudden appearance. “I had no idea you knew Brenda.”

“I guess it’s just a small world.”

“Such a small world,” MacLaren remarked, the tone of his voice striking her as just a little odd. Then he gestured to the man beside him. “This is Charlie Emerson. An old friend of mine.”

“And a doctor! Charlie is a trauma surgeon at Lenox Hill,” Brenda told her with a wink.

Without speaking, Charlie reached out his hand, and Catherine thought it a bit odd the way he looked at her. There was something about his eyes which bothered her, something she could not identify. And when she shook his hand, his grip was weak and limp.

“A pleasure to meet you,” she told the doctor as he simply stared at her.

But as she pulled her hand away, he turned to look at MacLaren, and then Catherine saw it. Had it been any other time on any other person, it might have gone completely overlooked. No one else in the group seemed to notice it. But Catherine recognized the sight immediately.

On Charlie Emerson’s neck, just at the edge where a mask might have sat, she saw several scratches. Looking down at her own painted and manicured fingernails, she knew without a doubt that those scratches were exactly where her fingers had grazed the man who had tried to assault her in the abandoned building hours before.

Blindly, Lucy stumbled along another tunnel. She had made her way from an abandoned subway station she knew of where the homeless often took shelter from the worst winter storms. No one she knew stayed there. The area tended to house a rougher crowd, and it really wasn’t safe for working girls. But she was desperate.

Whatever that thing was that had followed her to her apartment, it knew where she lived now. She could not return home. And worse, she could not find Tammy anywhere. When she had gone to where Maurice had been hanging out lately, she had found the building surrounded by police cars and she had immediately bolted. The last thing she needed was to get arrested again for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

From the defunct subway station, Lucy picked her way along the darkened tracks using a cheap flashlight she had bought at a corner store. Someone had told her there was a side tunnel further up, and that led to a boiler room with some steam pipes. From there, she hoped to find her way into the maze of tunnels beneath the city she had heard tales of from others.

And – hopefully – she would find Vincent.

She had not seen him since that fateful night the Silks had chased him into the old Beaumont Hotel. But she had met his lady friend, Catherine Chandler, a few times. As a lawyer with the prosecutor’s office, she’d been unable to step in as Lucy’s defense lawyer. But Catherine had put in a good word for her when she’d gotten into trouble and even helped her file for public services when she’d been down on her luck.

Catherine seemed like a nice person, but not someone powerful enough to protect her from the demon incarnate she’d glimpsed through the gap in her apartment curtains. No, the only one she could think of who could save her from that monstrosity was the extraordinary-looking man she had once helped escape from Python and the other Silk gang members.

The papers had not published much about their deaths, but she’d heard through the street all the grizzly details.

Except, as Lucy rounded yet another corner and saw no end in sight to the rock-walled tunnels in which she now found herself, she feared that she had become hopelessly lost. What if she never stumbled upon Vincent? What if there were skeletons down here, the bodies of people who lost their way and died? Or what if she ended up in one of those rooms full of bugs and spikes, like that Indiana Jones movie Tammy had made her watch?

But there was no way to go but forward, so she continued on, her heart racing as she swept her flashlight through the darkness. Only when she paused to get her bearings did she notice it.

Laughing. Children laughing.

The sound carried down the tunnel from far away, and she could not quite tell from which direction it came.

“Hello?” she called. “Is someone down here?”

The laughing stopped, and Lucy regretted calling out. She should have just followed the noises. But what if it wasn’t children but someone else who might do her harm? There was a very good reason most of the working girls avoided that abandoned subway station-

Then she heard it again – children’s voices. They were closer this time, and she could discern where they came from. Slowly, she began to move in that direction.

But it was so dark, and the battery in her flashlight was beginning to wane. The light it gave off was becoming progressively dimmer with every step she took, until she could barely make out the tunnel walls in front of her.

“Is anyone here?” Lucy called out again, growing more frightened. “Please! I need help!”

She began to take another step forward, but before she could move, a voice called out from behind her.

“Stop!”