Tiggy.
She was running. Throwing the door open. Visionsof kittens impaled by tiny stakes in her mind.
It wasn't Tiggy on the front porch. It was Ash. He was lying flat in the purple twilight, little moths
fluttering around him.
Mary-Lynnette felt a violent wrench in her chest.For a moment everything seemed suspended-and
changed.
If Ash were dead-if Ash had been killed ...
Things would never be all right. She would neverbe all right. It would be like the night with the moonand
stars gone. Nothing that anybody could do wouldmake up for it. Mary-Lynnette didn't know why-itdidn't
make any sense-but she suddenly knew it was true.
She couldn't breathe and her arms and legs felt strange. Floaty. Out of her control.
Then Ash moved. He lifted his head and pushed up with his arms and looked around.
Mary-Lynnette could breathe again, but she still felt dizzy. "Are you hurt?" she asked stupidly. She didn't
dare touch him. In her present state one blast of electricity could fry her circuits forever. She'd meltlike
the Wicked Witch of the West.
"I fell in thishole, "he said. "What do you think?"
That's right, Mary-Lynnette thought; the footsteps hadended with more of a crash than a thud. Not like
the footsteps of last night.
And that meant something ...if only she couldfollow the thought to the end... .
"Having problems, Ash?"Kestrel's voice saidsweetly, and then Kestrel herself appeared out of
the shadows, looking like an angel with her golden hair and her lovely clean features. Jade was behind
her, holding Tiggy in her arms.
"He was up in a tree," Jade said, kissing the kitten's head. "I had to talk him down." Her eyes
were emerald in the porch light, and she seemed to float rather than walk.
Ash was getting up, shaking himself. Like his sisters, he looked uncannily beautiful after a feeding,with a
sort of weird moonlight glow in his eyes. Mary-Lynnette's thought was long gone.
"Come on in," she said resignedly. "And help figure out who killed your aunt."
Now that Ash was indisputably all right,she wanted to forget what she'd been feeling a minuteago. Or at
least not to think about what it meant.
What it means, the little voice inside her head said sweetly, is that you're in big trouble, girl. Ha ha.
"So what's the story?" Kestrel said briskly as they all sat around the kitchen table.
"The story is that there is no story,"MaryLynnette said. She stared at her paper in frustration.
"Look-what if we start at the beginning? We don't know who did it, but we do know some things about
them. Right?"
Rowan nodded encouragingly. "Right."
"First: the goat. Whoever killed the goat had to bestrong, because poking those toothpicks
through hidewouldn't have been easy. And whoever killed the goat had to know how your uncle Hodge
was killed, because the goat was killed in the same way. And they had to have some reason for putting a
black irisin the goat's mouth-either because they knew Ashbelonged to the Black Iris Club, or because
they be longed to the Black Iris Club themself."
"Or because they thought a black iris would represent all lamia, or all Night People," Ash said.
Hisvoice was muffled-he was bent over, rubbing hisankle. "That's a common mistake Outsiders make."
Very good, Mary-Lynnette thought in spite of herself. She said, "Okay. And they had access to two
different kinds of small stakes-which isn't sayingmuch, because you can buy both kinds in town."
"And they must have had some reason to hate Mrs. B., or to hate vampires," Mark said.
"Otherwise, why kill her?"
Mary-Lynnette gave him a patient look. "I hadn't gotten to Mrs. B. yet. But we can do her now. First,
whoever killed Mrs. B. obviously knew she was a vampire, because they staked her. And, second ...
um...second . . ." Her voice trailed off. She couldn't think of anything to go second.
-240 "Second, they probably killed her on impulse," Ash said, in a surprisingly calm and analytical
voice."You said she was stabbed with a picket from the fence, and if they'd been planning on doing it,
they'd probably have brought their own stake."
"Verygood." This time Mary-Lynnette said it out loud. She couldn't help it. She met Ash's eyes
and saw something that startled her. He looked as if itmattered to him that she thought he was smart.
Well, she thought. Well, well. Here we are, probably for the first time, justtalking to each other. Not
arguing, not being sarcastic, just talking. It's nice.
It was surprisingly nice. And the strange thing was, she knew Ash thought so, too. They understood
each other. Over the table, Ash gave her a barely perceptible nod.
They kept talking. Mary-Lynnette lost track of timeas they sat and argued and brainstormed. Finally she
looked up at the clock and realized with a shock that it was near midnight.
"Do wehave to keep thinking?" Mark said pathetically. "I'm tired." He was almost lying on the
table. So was Jade.
I know how you feel, Mary-Lynnette thought. Mybrain is stalled. I feel ... extremely stupid.
"Somehow, I don't think we're going to solve the murder tonight," Kestrel said. Her eyes were
closed.
She was right. The problem was that MaryLynnette didn't feel like going to bed, either. Shedidn't want
to lie down and relax-there was a rest lessness inside her.
I want ... what do I want? she thought. I want ...
"If there weren't a psychopathic goat killer lurkingaround here, I'd go out and look at the stars,"
shesaid.
Ash said, as if it were the most natural thing inthe world, "I'll go with you."
Kestrel and Jade looked at their brother in disbelief. Rowan bent her head, not quite hiding a smile.
Mary-Lynnette said, "Um ..."
"Look," Ash said. "I don't think the goat killeris lurking out there everyminutelooking for people
to skewer. And if anything does happen, I can handle it." He stopped, looked guilty, then bland. "I mean
we can handle it, because there'll be two of us."
Close but no cigar, buddy, Mary-Lynnette thought. Still, there was a certain basic truth to what he was
saying. He was strong and fast, and she had the feeling he knew how to fight dirty.
Even if she'd never seen him do it, she thoughtsuddenly. All those times she'd gone after him, shining light
in his eyes, kicking him in the shins-and he'd never once tried to retaliate. She didn't think it had even
occurred to him.
She looked at him and said, "Okay."
"Now," Mark said. "Look ..."
"We'll be fine," Mary-Lynnette told him. "We won't go far."
Mary-Lynnette drove. She didn't know exactly where she was going, only that she didn't want to go to
her hill. Too many weird memories. Despite what she'd told Mark, she found herself taking the car
farther and farther. Out to where Hazel Green Creek and Beavercreek almost came together and the
land between them was a good imitation of a rain forest.
"Is this the best place to look at - stars?" Ash saiddoubtfully when they got out of the station
wagon.
"Well-if you're looking straight up," MaryLynnette said. She faced eastward and tilted her head
far back.
"See the brightest star up there? That's Vega, the queen star of summer."
"Yeah. She's been higher in the sky every nightthis summer," Ash said without emphasis.
Mary-Lynnette glanced at him.
He shrugged. "When you're out so much at night,you get to recognize the stars," he said. "Even if you
don't know their names."
Mary-Lynnette looked back up at Vega. She swallowed. "Can you--can you see something small and
bright below her-something ring-shaped?"
"The thing that looks like a ghost doughnut?"
Mary-Lynnette smiled, but only with her lips."That's the Ring Nebula. I can see that with my telescope."
She could feel him looking at her, and she heardhim take a breath as if he were going to say something.
But then he let the breath out again and looked back up at the stars.
It was the perfect moment for him to mention something about how Vampires See It Better. And if he
had, Mary-Lynnette would have turned on him and rejected him with righteous anger.
But since hedidn't,she felt a different kind of anger welling up. A spring of contrariness, as if shewere the
Mary in the nursery rhyme. What, so you've decided I'm not good enough to be a vampire or something?
And what did I really bring you out here for, to the most isolated place I could find? Only for
starwatching? I don'tthink so.
I don't even know who I am anymore, she remembered with a sort of fatalistic gloom. I have the feeling
I'm about to surprise myself.
"Aren't you getting a crick in your neck?" Ashsaid.
Mary-Lynnette rolled her head from side to side slightly to limber the muscles. "Maybe."
"I could rub it for you?" He made the offer from several feet away.
Mary-Lynnette snorted and gave him a look.
The moon, a waning crescent, was rising above thecedars to the east. Mary-Lynnette said, "You want to
take a walk?"
"Huh? Sure."
They walked and Mary-Lynnette thought. About how it would be to see the Ring Nebula with herown
eyes, or the Veil Nebula without a filter. She could feel a longing for them so strong it was like a cable
attached to her chest, pulling her upward.
Of course,that was nothing new. She'd felt it lots of times before, and usually she'd ended up buying
another book on astronomy, another lens for her telescope. Anything to bring her closer to what she
wanted.
But now I have a whole new temptation. Something bigger and scarier than I ever imagined.
What if I could be-more than I am now? Thesame . person, but with sharper senses? A Mary-Lynnette
who couldreally belong to the night?
She'd already discovered she wasn't exactly whoshe'd always thought. She was more violent-she'd
kicked Ash, hadn't she? Repeatedly. And she'd admired the purity of Kestrel's fierceness. She'd seenthe
logic in the kill-or-be-killed philosophy. She'd dreamed about the joy of hunting.
What else did it take to be a Night Person?
"There's something I've been wanting to say toyou," Ash said.
"Hm."Do I want to encourage him or not?
But what Ash said was "Can we stop fightingnow?"
Mary-Lynnette thought and then said seriously, "Idon't know."
They kept walking. The cedars towered around them like pillars in a giant ruined temple. A dark temple.
And underneath, the stillness was so enormous that Mary-Lynnette felt as if she were walkingon the
moon.
She bent and picked a ghostly wildflower that wasgrowing out of the moss. Death camas. Ash bent and
picked up a broken-off yew branch lying at the footof a twisted tree. They didn't look at each other.
They walked, with a few feet of space between them.
"You know, somebody told me this would happen," Ash said, as if carrying on some entirely
different conversation they'd been having.
"That you'd come to a hick town and chase agoat killer?"
"That someday I'd care for someone - and itwould hurt."
Mary-Lynnette kept onwalking. She didn't slow or speed up. It was only her heart that was suddenly
beating hard-in a mixture of dismay and exhilara tion.
Oh, God-whatever was going to happen washappening.
"You're not like anybody I've ever met," Ash said.
"Well, that feeling is mutual."