At last. After months of not having a single lead or clue, after weeks and weeks of not a single shred of evidence, the police finally got something. The unnamed girl, drained of all her blood, had finally been identified.

The photo had been published in every newspaper all over Victoria and even sent by the State Police to their colleagues in Queensland and New South Wales. But wouldn't you know, the call came from Melbourne. After all that, their mystery girl was only from seventy miles away.

Lucien had gotten a call from Matthew Lawson just after he and Jean and Mattie finished a late lunch. He'd finished with his patients for the morning and saved Jean the trouble of getting the phone when she was busy with the dishes.

"Doctor Blake," Lucien said, answering the phone.

"Lucien, we've got an identity for that girl in the morgue," Matthew told him, not bothering with any pleasantries. Lucien certainly didn't mind.

"And?"

"Her name is Sara McKenna. Her mother's been visiting a sick aunt in Northern Territory for the last two months. She came home to Melbourne to find the house empty, and she made inquiries about Sara and found her picture in the paper. Called here as soon as she saw it. Mrs. McKenna is coming in tomorrow to take her daughter home to bury."

Lucien's heart ached. It was one thing for that girl to be dead in such a horrific way, but knowing her name made her all the more real. Knowing that her mother would be coming to see her and take her home was absolutely awful. No parent should have to bury their child. Lucien knew that better than most. Though Lucien hadn't had any body to bury of his child.

Matthew went on, "Do you want to arrange things with the morgue?"

"Yes," Lucien answered immediately. "I'd like to talk to Mrs. McKenna. And…and offer my condolences."

"I had a feeling you would," Matthew grunted.

As soon as he hung up with Matthew, Lucien told everything to Jean, along with his plan. "I'd like Alice to be with me and see if she can get anything useful from Mrs. McKenna that she doesn't say out loud. Then, hopefully, we will at least have some idea what Sara was doing in Ballarat and perhaps who she might have been seeing."

Jean nodded. "Be careful, Lucien," she told him gravely.

He was slightly taken aback by that. He was just going to talk to the mother of a victim. What was there to need warning from? But he pressed a small kiss to Jean's forehead. "I'll be careful, Jean," he promised.

Talking with Mrs. McKenna had actually been simpler than Lucien had anticipated. He and Alice both spoke gently with the grieving mother. The body was prepared for transport as soon as Mrs. McKenna made the official identification for the police records and for the morgue to conclude its report. The official cause of death was exsanguination caused by an undetermined bite. Only Lucien, Alice, and Jean knew what had caused that bite. The problem remaining was who had caused the bite.

Lucien asked as many questions as he could without upsetting Mrs. McKenna unnecessarily. He did perhaps continue on a bit too long; her tone grew short, and he kept asking questions. It would be one thing if he could explain to the woman that they were looking for her daughter's killer. But he couldn't tell her that there was a killer to look for. Lucien just kept asking about why Sara might have been in Ballarat, whether she knew anyone here, whether she left any indication back in Melbourne about what she was doing here. Mrs. McKenna just insisted that she had no idea why her daughter was in Ballarat. Sara was a shop assistant at a large department store in Melbourne and did not have much outside of her job and her family—mother and a younger brother away at university.

By the time Mrs. McKenna was able to escape from the morgue, she was incredibly irritated with the whole lot of them. Luckily she would be able to take her daughter home the next day. And luckier still, Alice had been able to rifle through the woman's mind with great ease.

When the two of them were alone, Alice shared her findings. "Alright, she knows that Sara was seeing a man in Melbourne. She didn't have the name in her mind, but Sara had told her that he had a lot of money and liked to have a good time. Mrs. McKenna doesn't suspect that Sara's boyfriend has anything to do with her death, but she does think that might be why she came to Ballarat. I'm not sure if that helps at all."

Lucien's mind was whirling. He nodded, barely paying attention. "Yes, that helps," he said distractedly. He had more important things to think about beyond holding a conversation.

He looked down at poor Sara's face. Who did she know? Who was she with? Had her boyfriend brought her to Ballarat with him? Was he the vampire? Or had he known the vampire who attacked Sara? Or perhaps the boyfriend was unrelated altogether. There was a lot to consider.

And so it was that Lucien went for a drive after leaving the morgue. He should have gone home to see Jean, he knew. But hindsight and all that. No, he needed to think. He needed to have a look around.

His car took him to the street on the outskirts of town where Sara's body had been found. The police had combed the area and found nothing. Lucien knew there was nothing to find. But why had Sara been there? It did not seem likely that her body had been dumped, as the police had first thought. Once the autopsy showed that there was absolutely no sign of struggle, either from an attacker or from Sara trying to defend herself, the police had abandoned the theory of homicide.

But Lucien now had a different thought. Whoever the vampire was who killed Sara had not dumped her body. Not exactly. From what Jean and Alice had told him, he knew that draining a body completely like that would require a vampire to completely lose control. Some state of euphoria to distract from the fact that the person was dead, that there was no longer any flow to the blood as the heart was no longer beating. He also knew that draining a body like that took a long time.

It stood to reason, then, that the vampire would not have drained her here on the side of the road. Draining the body would take time and therefore privacy, as nothing and no one interrupted the vampire to prevent draining Sara entirely. But the frenzied loss of control that would take, the vampire must not have been thinking too clearly. Obviously the body had been taken to this place at the side of the road, but it must have been a relatively simple move. Lucien could not imagine this vampire was focused enough on consequences to truly cover his—or her—tracks.

The body must have either been carried out to the road or perhaps driven a short distance. And with that theory in mind, Lucien got out of his car and began to walk.

There land was almost entirely vacant. A few small hills to interrupt the wide fields. Barely any trees. But for the lack of fences, Lucien would have thought this was grazing land for one of the farms. It might be worth looking into who owned this land.

He crested a small hill and gazed around. Strangely enough, there was a building some distance away. Perhaps a barn or storage shed. Maybe even a house. Lucien headed in that direction to see what there was to see.

It turned out that there wasn't much to see at all. It was an old abandoned barn. Dust and cobwebs all over. A rusty pitchfork lay neglected beside a musty pile of hay. Other derelict tools Lucien could not name were strewn about elsewhere. At first glance, it seemed obvious that no one had been here in a long time.

But when Lucien was about to turn around and leave to go back home—after all, the sun was nearly gone now, and Jean wouldn't like him to be late for dinner—he caught sight of something of else. Just behind the hay, there was a dark patch in the dirt. He approached it, squinting in the dimming light and wishing he'd brought a torch, but as soon as he stood above it, Lucien instinctively knew. Blood.

"Hey!"

Lucien whirled around to the sound of the unfamiliar voice. And then everything went black. He had not passed out. He was aware that he was still standing. He could feel the wind through the open barn doors against his skin. But he could not hear. And he could not see. And he could not move.

He desperately tried to force something, but Lucien was stuck. His mind was awake and alive and screaming out in panic, but his body did nothing. His senses were seemingly gone, as though he had been plunged into a dark well with no chance of escape.

Then, suddenly, searing pain. All the air was knocked out of his lungs. He staggered back, clutching his chest. Wet. Hot and wet against his hand. Somehow he knew that he had been stabbed. His vision had returned, but it was blurry.

"Lucien! Come on, I've got to get you out of here."

The voice was desperate. It was a voice Lucien knew. Not the same one as before. But Lucien could not quite think of who was speaking to him. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. Dear god, he was about to die. He'd been stabbed in the chest and he couldn't breathe, so his lung must have collapsed. "P-pen," Lucien rasped, hoping that whoever was with him would help.

"What? You want a pen? Why do you need a pen?"

But the pen appeared. Lucien grabbed at it wildly. He had to let go of his chest to unscrew the pen apart, but he managed. And then, in a mad, blind act of pure faith, Lucien jammed the pen into his own chest to relieve the pressure. He gasped for air, finally able to breathe again.

And then he passed out.