"Hello, hello?"

The static crackling stirred her, jarringly, out of sleep, even though the voice speaking wasn't that loud. It took her a moment to recognize the sound for what it was, and then Abby seized her headset mike.

"King?"

"Live and uncensored." There was water running in the background, but it was a distant, persistent sound. Meaning Feliar was occupied, but not he.

"Everything go all right?"

He hesitated. "Define 'all right.'"

"Did she make you as a spy?"

"Let's just say we had a nice long chat about my tattoo."

Abby grinned, teasing him, "Then she got that far at least."

"Oh, no, she got farther," King poked right back. "I'll give you a hint: I'm not sitting down right now, and I don't expect I will be for a while. And," he sounded more disgruntled as he went on, "you better cut your fingernails before I get back."

"Why?"

"Take a wild fucking guess, Abby. And don't laugh."

"You agreed to this."

"You pushed me."

"You don't need to be pushed, King. Anyway, enough, what did you find out?"

"Not much, yet. I don't think she trusts me."

"Wonder why?" Abby said aloud, then, "Forget it. What did you learn?"

"There's only a few familiars and her in the hotel that I saw. The guys are walking stereotypes, and half had the glyphs right on their hands."

"Between the thumb and index finger?" That was a common place to find it.

"Yeah."

"And what's this about stereotypes?

"Big guys, definitely been eating their spinach."

"Like you-big or like Jarko-big?" Outside of television pay-per-view smack-downs, she'd never seen anyone as massive as Jarko Grimwood. If there were more than one of them running around the conference, confidence in her abilities wouldn't cut it. They'd need more muscle.

"Jarko-big. I didn't get a chance to see them in the locker room, so I have no idea if they're me-big. Me heap big, in case you forgot."

She smiled, biting her lower lip; had he been in the room, she would have given herself away completely. She cleared her throat, coming back around to business. "Any clue who they belong to?"

"Weeell, the pretty ones are hers," King mused, "and the ugly ones are from out of town. Those guys don't stay here."

"They must represent the visitors from overseas. Gidge has a sheet of private planes that were chartered through SFO, some of which he's linked to your new girlfriend."

"Hey, don't be like that."

She sniffed, trying to pretend she didn't know what he meant. "Like what?"

"My new girlfriend has a little too much in common with my old girlfriend for my taste." It was hard to imagine a woman who could match Danica Talos in King's low esteem, but she had a sneaking suspicion that one hedonistic, psychotic vampire vixen wasn't all that different from another.

"What are you going to do?"

"Stick with her I guess. How many days till the conference?"

"Four."

"Christ, it's only been a day? Can I come home yet?"

"Get a grip, King."

"I tell you what, Abby."

"What?"

"Next time, you can swap with me. I'll sit around and do the boring Sherlock Holmes routine, and you can be a vampire's bitch for a few days."

"You're better at it than me. You have more experience."

There was a pause; she heard him take a deep breath. "That was cold, Whistler."

"Sorry. There've been some discouraging developments here."

"Such as?"

"We got some ugly news about Leung." Way ugly, in California parlance. As detachedly and professionally as she could, she related the details Gidge presented to them last night and Fox's commentary on it.

King whistled. "That's messed up."

"You have a talent for understatement."

"I have many talents."

"And Alyssa's pregnant."

"Ouch," he said, cheerfully. "Bad timing."

"She was wigging out when Gidge told her about Leung."

"That's fair. Underneath my calm, stoic façade, I was wigging when I agreed to do this."

It was the third time he'd complained about this assignment. Any teasing repartee they built up vanished as she was silent, considering this.

"Whistler? You haven't fallen asleep on me, have you?"

"I'm here," she whispered, then, more strongly, "You're okay, right?"

There was static from a rush of air, like King snorting into the receiver. She understood his incredulity and amusement: she'd almost sounded worried about him

"I'll live. I might even have a date later. I'm looking forward to it."

"Where are you going?"

"Haven't heard, but I think it's business, so that's good news for us. Leung might be there. I think I heard his name mentioned."

"When?"

"Tomorrow, or today, what day is it?"

"Been up all night?"

"Do I need to answer that?"

"It's Monday."

"Tomorrow, then."

"Did she give a reason why she wanted you to meet him?"

"I'm not meeting him. Not officially. I doubt she'll talk much in front of me. I can get a good look at him though. I'll remember him."

His words were clipped and terse, hinting at violent urges as yet unrealized in flesh. She was reminded of his recent behavior towards Zoe, how distressed he'd been over her welfare of late. Children in danger, a sore spot he shared with Fox. She catalogued it as a negative for both of them in the running columns she kept in her head.

"Fox might beat you to him if she's not too busy with Feliar. She looked pretty keen on destruction tonight."

"Oh, shit, I almost forgot."

"What?"

"She might know Fox is around. People have come in and out since Saturday morning acting pretty squirrelly."

"Okay," Abby thought this out. "She got into a fight with some of the familiars from the club. She pinched some credit cards, drivers' licenses and stuff." In Fox's scant positive column, she'd noted this: pretty decent pickpocket. "Give us a call if they're onto her. She's not going to sit out unless she's made." And even then, who knew?

"If I can."

"What about the missing surfers and hobos? Has Feliar given any hints she knows where they are?"

"Oh, she knows," King intoned, sarcasm dripping off every word. "She's holding a vampire picnic, Whistler. You think she's just going to bring the fruit salad?"

"Fuck you, King."

"Right, because apparently that's all I'm good for."

"You have your moments."

"I remember," he said, bitterly. "I should go. I have another call to make."

"King," she blurted out, suddenly anxious that he shouldn't leave on their usual pseudo-aggressive note.

"Yeah?"

"Watch your ass."

"Not much of it left at this point, but I appreciate the thought. Say hi to the squirt for me."

And he was gone. Reluctantly awake, Abby sat up on her bed to find Zoe standing in the doorway.

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine," Abby answered her, faking a smile. She didn't bother to ask how Zoe knew it was King. Zoe just knew things, sometimes. Abby envied this talent, this intuition, and wondered when adults lost it.

"Is he coming back?"

"You know it, kiddo." She held her arms out to Zoe, and the girl walked towards her and sat on the bed, hugging her. "You all right?"

"I don't want you to leave me."

Surprised, Abby pulled away to look in Zoe's eyes. "I'm not going to leave you, Zoe. I promise."

Eyes bright and dry, Zoe betrayed no sign of weakness, worry, or melancholy. "I don't want anyone to leave any more." Oh, Abby realized, hugging Zoe again. Right.

"King will be back."

"What about the other guy?" Abby thought about it for a minute. Oh, him, the other guy. Zoe didn't even remember his name.

"Blade? He'll be around, I'm sure."

"I want to show him."

"Show him what?"

Zoe stuck out her chin, raising it proudly. "That I can be bad, too."

"You should be careful, you might scare him." And this wasn't a lie, Abby rationalized. Some days, Zoe scared her. "Let's go get some water and get you back to bed, okay?"

Zoe nodded, taking her hand as she slid off the front of her bed. They turned into the kitchen to find Fox there, posture rigid and attentive. In a heartbeat, Abby knew why.

"You heard?"

Fox nodded. "Anything new?"

"Not much." She took out two bottled waters from the fridge, handed one to Zoe and scooted her off. "Go on back to bed, Zoe."

Zoe hesitated, dragging her feet for a few steps before giving in. Abby waited until her door closed before she turned back to Fox.

"King says the familiars are all huge, body-builder types."

"Smart move on their part," Fox snarled, stubbing out a cigarette butt into an ashtray. Abby blinked at her. She hadn't even realized Fox smoked. Fox noticed her astonishment - she'd never been a very good actor. "I quit ages ago, right after I dropped out of med school." Her eyes narrowed as she removed another cigarette from a nearly fresh pack. "Old habits, like old friends, die hard."

"Kick one, kick the other?" She looked at the ashtray. The previous cigarette, barely half-way smoked, still smoldered.

Fox grinned. "Let us hope so."

Abby sipped absently at her water as she watched, fascinated and repulsed, as Fox puffed heartily on her cigarette. It was an addiction she never understood, so pointlessly destructive, invasive, and pervasive; smokers you could spot - and smell - at a distance. She preferred the anonymity of a healthful lifestyle.

Again, Fox stubbed out her cigarette before it burned down past half its length.

"Why do you do that?"

"Control, honey," Fox ground the stick into the ash until it bent and broke, dropping the squashed pieces into the glass dish. "Addiction implies a loss of control, physical, psychological, spiritual. I am never out of control."

Abby disagreed, but she kept it to herself. "King said you might have been spotted."

Fox raised one eyebrow at this, pausing and posing with a fresh cigarette between her index and middle fingers. "Is that so?"

"Your tattoo, maybe. It's noticeable."

"Hmm," Fox hummed, bringing a cheap pink plastic lighter to the end of her third cigarette. Flame popped out of the metal end of the lighter with a chuh-wip, and the end of the cig glowed. She took a long drag, a full breath's worth, held it for ten seconds, tilted her head up to the ceiling and expelled gray smoke in one long stream. Then she stubbed this last one out, too.

"I'm done then, am I?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Give it a few days. We'll see how it goes."

Fox shrugged at this pronouncement, and Abby stilled a shudder that wanted to work its way from her shoulders down her spine. She couldn't get a bead on Fox. She was mental; she was clinical. She was excitable; she was methodic. She seethed; she planned. This last attribute worried her most.

"Don't do anything stupid, Fox. Stay in for a couple of days. Let's get you clear. You can still make it to the conference." In deference to her sympathies, she would find a way to use Fox. Not as a fighter - her pitiful appearance as a result of a run-in with mere humans ruled her out for that - but there had to be some way her expertise could contribute to the take-down to come.

"I was thinking about that," Fox tapped her fingernail against her upper teeth. "You still want to use Daystar, don't you?"

"Yes." Absolutely. If they had to worry about line-backer familiars, the least they could do was eliminate the vampires first.

"What your little virus needs is a better vector."

"A what?"

Fox grinned, biting girlishly on the tip of her index finger. "A better way to distribute the virus. Aerosol infections are all well and good for an instantaneous local response, but if you want this thing to travel home to vampire nests, you're going to have to adapt its method of delivery."

"Huh," was about as articulate as she felt confronted with this problem. Why hadn't Sommer ever mentioned this? Perhaps because the doctor had enough on her plate getting the thing to work in the first place.

"I'll suggest a few things to Caulder when he gets up. A blood-born vector would work for inoculations."

She was beginning to catch on. "You mean to infect the blood supply?"

"Or our own," Fox shrugged. "Even on good days you can't be sure you'll get a kill-to-death ratio of one-to-one. If we could inject ourselves with the virus, at the very least we'd be sure any one of us that was bitten would do some serious damage to the biter."

"Wouldn't that prevent it from spreading to another vampire?" High school biology class was so far behind her, and she'd never been a very good student. Still, wasn't there some kind of biological stuff that would keep a blood-borne virus from spreading through the air?

"True, depending on the stability of the virus. However, I doubt we'd have to worry about it. If Daystar is already transmittable by air, it's stable enough to transition between methods of infection." Fox waved off a question rising in her throat. "Don't ask me any more questions. I'm not a virologist. I'm not even a real doctor."

"Closest thing we got." That was the problem, really. Recruits were survivors, and survivors tended to be nobodies normal people wouldn't miss. A shut-in nerd like Hedges, a personal trainer from a bad neighborhood like Dex, a drunken, libidinous frat kid like King, a bastard child from a dead home like her. Sommer, Caulder, Fox, they were people with well-funded educations and were in too short a supply.

"Hnn," Fox drummed her fingers on the counter top, shaking Abby's reverie. "That's funny coming from you."

"What do you mean?"

"I was under the impression," Fox began and then stopped. If she'd started out being coy, she rapidly abandoned it and went for the direct approach. "You don't like me, do you?"

"I don't know you," Abby held up her hands, "but no, not very much." Honest to a fault, her mother always said. Some people thought it was rude. Not Fox, apparently. The other woman nodded, not offended by this. She still felt obligated to mitigate the harshness of her words. "I don't get you a lot of the time, Fox."

"It would be easier if you hated me, wouldn't it?"

"Not really." Hating her might make it worse. She only half-trusted Fox to be rational and sane as was. Hating her for whatever personality or psychological flaws she had would ruin any sense of unity in their common purpose.

"It would be easier, trust me," Fox sighed, pushing away from the counter, her back cracking as she stretched her arms up over her head. "It's always easier to hate people than to understand them."

Proclamation delivered, Fox hopped off her stool and walked around the island past Abby without further comment. Her door clicked open and shut a moment later, and only then did Abby let out a slow, calming breath.

This turned into a hiccup of alarm when Stone tapped her on the shoulder. She hadn't heard him approach.

"Fuck," she gasped, "don't do that."

"Sorry," he winked cheekily at her. "I'm headed out to the Bay." His dive gear was slung over his shoulder in a dark blue polyester duffel bag. "Got an e-mail from Gidge. He matched one of my boats to a name off of one of the IDs Fox pinched."

This was promising. "What are you going to do?"

Stone frowned, rubbing his chin uncertainly. "Not sure. Follow him back to his hole, drop in some RAID."

"Maybe he can lead us to the farm."

"Ah," Stone tapped the side of his nose. " 'S what I'm thinking. Ciao." He passed her, waving.

"Stay in touch," she called after him, chewing on the mouth of her water bottle, debating what to do. It was five-thirty, plenty of time to either get more sleep or put in a little extra practice.

Less than ninety-six hours to get ready for the conference. That decided for her. She pulled her hair back with the tie around her wrist, padding off to her bedroom for her workout gear.