It was a full moon the night before Labor Day. Damon Benyu was restless; the moon called to him, as did the hunger for blood and sexual gratification. His last full-moon frenzy had been with the German woman. She had gotten lost on her way to meet friends when he came across her at dusk on a back road in the forest. Her contraption, her 'car,' had fallen into a ditch when she tried to turn around on the narrow path. Damon had soothed her fears about spending the night alone in the forest, speaking in German to the strapping blonde fraulein. He liked the way women of this era were dressing, displaying their bodies in clothing they called shorts, showing smooth expanses of leg, their breasts prominent beneath tight shirts. He hoped that she was a woman of faith that he could seduce, then have relations with while he drank her thick, foreign blood. All those plans went to hell when Gerta informed him, as he was laying his hand upon her ample breasts, that she preferred her own sex, thank you very much, but he'd better keep his hands to himself. Enraged, he dragged her from her car and into the beautiful green woods, beneath the Giant Sequoias she had come to America to see. He tore her apart, bathing in her hot blood as he drank of the crimson streams gushing from her neck and torso. When he was finished with her, he threw her remains in the ditch along with her car and covered them both with boughs and needles. It would be another month before they found her, and by then, the beast had already moved to another safe location. But Gerta Snobel had died meeting her goal: as the light went out in her eyes, they were fixed on the ancient green canopies stretching towards the heavens.

Benyu had sequestered himself in caves and old magnacite mines throughout the mountains. He felt safe in the abandoned mines, many of which still hadn't been blown upon their closing; the old powder magazines still remained where the miners had kept the dynamite for creating new shafts. Deep within the dark tunnels, behind the old wooden gates of the magazines, he rested during the day, returning to his old haunts to feed at night. He traveled swiftly, a rustling in the leaves the only sign of his passing.

Tiny Angela Craig was his last kill. He had come her across while she was smoking cigarettes in the alleyway behind the general store. After feeding on her meager supply, he relocated again. He felt fortunate to have found an empty cabin back in the hills above Damon's Canyon. It amused him that the town bore his name, although he did not understand how they could bury him alive, then give him honor at a later date.

The cabin was compact. He had watched it over several nights, waiting for the owners to come home. No one ever appeared, and so he became a squatter. The contents of the cabin were enlightening. There were machines throughout the house, something boxy and metal that seemed to serve as an icebox, and there was indoor plumbing, although the water did not run. He would have to figure out how to make it do so, he reasoned, for if he were to walk among the mortals and appear normal, he would have to be clean and therefore avail himself of the facilities.

There were books and periodicals throughout the place, modern enough for his purposes despite the fact that the last date on the news magazine was from November 1997. He studied the books. Histories of conflicts called World Wars and Vietnam. Novels written by authors far less talented than Mr. Dickens or Victor Hugo. Self-help paperbacks. Autobiographies of actors, who now performed in productions called movies and on a machine named a television rather than on stage, although many still did that as well. He was greatly interested in Broadway and planned to attend some plays there as soon as he had learned enough to leave this artistic wasteland.

The literature was a wealth of information on modern living. He was intrigued by man's ability to fly in aircraft and that they were flying in space. Damon never comprehended the mortals' misconception that vampires could turn into bats and fly away. That's a talent best left to the shapeshifters, he thought. The vampyr had to walk on this earth, just as regular people. They just did so at a faster rate of speed. He studied the men's magazines that populated the in the cabin for clues on how to present himself as a living man would. So many of the men in the advertisements seemed effeminate, others affected a rugged, outdoorsy look that seemed to attract women.

Thus occupied, Damon Benyu waited, and studied, and fed. One helping a week of human blood was enough. For now. He could survive on the blood from the domesticated animals in the meantime. It was part of his curse to avoid the wild creatures. He never understood why, but the wild beasts made him ill. He supposed it had something to do with the domesticated ones being servants of man. He didn't care; the wild ones were his kith and kin, enjoying the coppery taste of the blood as he did. As he grew stronger and his needs grew, he would have to feed more often, but that could wait until he traveled to larger towns and cities. There he could feast on an endless variety of rich, human blood.

So it was that as he was ready to move on to the next step, to test his appearance in society, Labor Day weekend dropped a monkey wrench in the works. Damon was returning to his lair on the Saturday night of the holiday weekend after having delivered the owner of the Setting Pretty Beauty Parlor of her prized Pekinese, Trudy and Rudy. Myra Hartley had let them out in the backyard of her home, which also housed her shop, so they could do their nightly duty before she went to bed. She gave her pups a few minutes of privacy while she brushed her teeth and applied her facial cream. When she opened the door to call for her darlings, they were nowhere to be seen. The chief's department would receive a tearful, hysterical call from Myra that very night, demanding that something be done about that horrible mountain lion that was eating everyone's pets.

As Damon neared the cabin, he realized he had company. Lights blazed from the windows, and smoke was trailing up from the chimney. He scented the air, his lips lifting in a lupine snarl. There were two here, a man and a woman. He could hear laughter and movement within the house. Peering in through a window, he could see the female in the bedroom where he had slept during the day.

"Barry, come here, look at this!" the woman yelled to her mate.

"What is it, Carla?" the man asked, joining her in the bedroom.

"There's been someone here. Look, there are clothes in the closet and in the dresser. This isn't your stuff. This is creepy."

Barry held up Damon's jeans and a tee shirt. "Maybe whoever we rented it to last left it here."

"Barry, we haven't rented this place out in two years. And this stuff is almost new. Look, some of it even still has the labels on it. I'm telling you, someone's been here. We should call the police."

"Oh, honey, not tonight. Maybe the agency rented it out and forgot to tell us. That's happened before. Let's just sit in front of the fire and have some wine. We came up here for the weekend to get away from everything. Just relax. Nothing's been damaged, and we had to turn on all the utilities, so no one could possibly be living here."

Damon chuckled. No one living.

Barry managed to soothe his wife, and they turned off the bedroom light and headed for the living room. Damon watched as the man pulled out a bottle of wine from the big icebox and poured it into glasses from the cupboard. He waited in the darkness as they drank the entire bottle and than began to make out on the sofa in front of the fire.

Barry had his wife's top and bra off and was suckling on her small breasts when he felt something hot sting the side of his neck.

"What's wrong, honey?" Carla asked as her husband stopped his amorous advances and started gagging. "My God, Barry, what is that?" she screamed as a hot, coppery-smelling liquid poured down upon her naked breasts.

Carla tried to rise up from the sofa, but was trapped by the dead weight of her husband's body. "Barry? Barry!" She managed to wriggle out from underneath him and stood up. Blood was pouring from a gaping wound in his neck. As he fell on the floor, his head turned towards her, his eyes rolled back, his mouth agape like a landed fish dying in the sun.

There was a shadow behind her and she turned, her eyes bulging from their sockets. It was a man, tall and lithe, with red-rimmed eyes. She tried to scream again, but he covered her mouth with his hand and grabbed her by the nape of the neck, pushing her backwards until she was against a wall.

"Hush, woman. You make too much noise. If I take my hand away, you must not scream, do you understand?" He spoke quietly, courteously, in a manner that calmed her. She nodded yes, and he removed his hand.

"Please, don't kill me. You can take our money, our jewelry, even the car. Please, just don't hurt me," she begged.

Damon traced a finger down her cheek and to her small breasts. He flicked a finger across the nipples. Carla whimpered and whispered, "Please don't rape me, please."

"I won't rape you. By the time I'm done, you will be asking for me to make love to you. You are useful to me right now. We shall become very close." He kissed her softly on her lips, darting his tongue into her mouth. She tasted the foulness of meat gone bad and gagged. The man yanked her head back by the hair. "You'll learn to appreciate the taste, my love, in time. For now, I must feed."

Damon shoved her into a kitchen chair and tied her up with her husband's belt. Then, hauling Barry's still dying form to his feet by the collar of his shirt, he drank, watching the woman with hot eyes as he did so. She cried and screamed. Finally, she resorted to mumbling a prayer, speaking in a language Damon recognized as Hebrew. Good, a woman of faith. Perhaps this was the one, the woman he could turn from her faith and destroy, then resurrect, all at the same time.

When he finished feeding, he dragged Barry's body out to the woodshed behind the cabin. He used an ax to chop off the extremities and to quarter the torso. He carried the pieces in a plastic bag (he learned of this useful material from the many ads in the magazines) and dumped it in a ravine behind the cabin. Let the mountain lions feed, he had no use for the flesh.

When he returned to cabin, he sniffed the air. He looked at Carla, who was lolling in her chair, her eyes glazed in shock. The woman had soiled herself and it offended Damon's senses. He untied her and lifted her to her feet, slapping her in the face to rouse her. He led her by the elbow to the bathroom. "Cleanse yourself, woman!" he ordered her.

She looked at him dumbly.

"You stink. Cleanse yourself."

Damon watched with curiosity as Carla removed her clothing, trying to hide her privates from him. She twisted knobs in the stall behind the glass door and water appeared in a steaming stream. This would be helpful in keeping himself clean. He made her keep the door open as she washed her hair with something she poured out of a bottle, then cleansed her body with a bar of sweet-smelling soap. She turned off the water and reached for a towel. She flinched as Damon handed it to her and watched her dry herself, avarice flaming from those dark pits of sight.

"Make yourself presentable. And get rid of that!" he ordered, pointing at her heap of soiled clothing. She complied, wrapping herself in a terrycloth robe. She stuffed the dirty clothing in a plastic wastebasket. He followed her out to the back of the house where she dumped the wastebasket into a large plastic container with a lid. She padded listlessly back into the house then turned to look at him with dull eyes.

"That is much better. Now, I have questions for you, and you must answer them." There were still many hours left until daylight.

Carla answered his questions that night, and the next, and for the entire week after that. She was a well-read woman, able to fill him in on history, art, medicine, and society in general over the last century.

During the day, while Damon slept, he tied her with clothesline and made her lie next to him, placing a cloth gag in her mouth. After the first several days, when she wet herself waiting for him to arise at night, he boarded up the bathroom window from the outside and kept her in the bathroom during the day. He left food in there with her, supplies that she and her husband had brought with them from the city.

During the night, Damon seduced her with words and touch, his hypnotic eyes breaking down her willpower. She was not ready to have sexual relations yet. He hadn't gotten that far, but her walls were crumbling. She no longer prayed aloud and she no longer turned away from him in disgust when he kissed her after having fed on animal he had taken from the town. On his forages to town, he would tie her up in the bathroom and close the door. She stayed there, afraid to break free, afraid of what would be on the other side of the door if she opened it.

Knowing that the couple's plans were to stay only for a weekend, he made her call on the telephone to their employers, letting them know she and Barry had extended their vacation for unforeseen circumstances. Damon remembered the invention of the telephone, and thought that Mr. Bell would be amazed at the level of communications these people had now.

A week passed. It was time to feed again. Damon decided that now was the time to learn how to drive the automobile. With that, he could travel long distances quickly and efficiently. He liked the sleek lines and shining metal, the smell of the leather interior, the glow of the dials on what the woman called a dashboard. These modern machines were sensual in their own way.

"Show me how to drive." He lead her to the car. He had found the keys on the kitchen counter, recognizing that they were necessary to start the engine from his previous encounter with the German woman and the man in the yellow automobile.

She looked at him with confusion. "You don't know how to drive?"

"No. I want you to show me. Now." He shoved her in behind the steering wheel and he climbed in the passenger side.

Carla turned the key and the engine roared to life, an exciting, powerful sound to the vampire. Yes, this woman would get him far in life. She would make a good mate. Carla's eyes darted to the right, just for a millisecond. She moved a hand down towards the seatbelt, then stopped.

"What are you waiting for?" the thing beside asked impatiently.

"Just making sure you're watching," she said in a raspy voice.

Carla turned on the headlights, illuminating the dark road ahead of her, and put the car into drive. She accelerated slowly, and they crept forward down the narrow, overgrown path towards the main highway. The needle on the speedometer rose. Five miles and hour. Ten miles. Fifteen.

They rounded a curve and Carla saw the giant boulder that Barry always said reminded him of her ass. Weathered and rain-beaten for centuries, it did bear a slight resemblance to her behind, a feature that her beloved husband had dearly enjoyed. Well, Barry, this one's for you. She nailed the accelerator to the floor and steered in the direction of the boulder. The impact threw her through the windshield and dead on into the rock, smearing her across its surface. Carla Sheinblum died a quick and merciful death that night.

Damon looked down from the top of the rock, then jumped gracefully to the ground. When he realized what Carla was doing, he had hit the door handle and sailed out of the car right before it smashed into the rock. It wouldn't have hurt him, but no use in destroying a good set of clothing.

"Stupid bitch," he swore at Carla's lifeless remains. "You could have had everything. Not even enough left of you to drink. Damn you to hell!"

Damon thought a moment. The night was still young, and he was still hungry for human blood. He ruminated while looking at the car for a moment, then started walking down the dirt road in the direction they had been driving. He came to where the path met the main road and walked swiftly down towards town. He heard a rumble behind him and turned to see headlights coming in his direction. Damon stuck out a hand to flag the driver down. The huge flatbed truck loaded with logs downshifted as it eased by him, then pulled over in a turnout just ahead of him.

"You shouldn't be out in the dark hitchhiking, fella," the giant, bearded driver said as Damon stuck his head in the passenger window.

"My, uh, car broke down on the side road back there and I need to get back to town. Can you give me a lift?"

Paul Ferguson eyed the man warily. The man seemed pleasant enough and he hated to think what could happen to someone out here on these lonely roads all alone. Besides, at 6'6" and 280 pounds, Paul Ferguson feared no man. "Yeah, get in. And put the seatbelt on, I'd hate like hell for you to end up with your face in the windshield if we have an accident."

The man climbed in and settled into the seat, glancing quickly at how Paul had his seatbelt fastened before snapping the buckles together. "Thanks, buddy, you're a real lifesaver," the man said as Paul pulled back out onto the highway and began his descent.

Diana slept, dreaming of the illusive writer who had come into her life. She dreamed that she had been painting in her studio. There was a full-length mirror before her, and she was naked, adorned simply with a copper bracelet that wound around one graceful wrist. She was painting a self-portrait and was finishing the final strokes upon her cascading red hair. She stood back and examined her work, tilting her head so that her hair fell over one swelling, creamy white breast. Sunlight never laid its damaging rays on this part of her body. The mounds nearly gleamed pearlescent beneath the tanned vee of her sternum. The nipples deepened to a dusky pink, like rosebuds longing to blossom. She laid her paints upon a table and stepped out onto the deck through the French door that had been letting in the cool autumn air. The sun was setting, casting a blazing glow upon the far horizon. A breeze hushed through the pines, wafting the sweet scent of the conifers through the air. She propped her elbows on the railing and leaned forward. There was a step behind her, stealthy, furtive. Yet she heard it. A hand brushed against the eggshell white skin of her ass.

"You're cold," Duncan said, running his hand up her back.

"Come warm me up, then," Diana answered, not turning around.

Duncan pressed himself into her backside, his prick warm against her chilled ass. He reached around her for her breasts, cupping their heaviness in his hands. Diana rotated her ass into his crotch, mewing as he kneaded and pinched her nipples.

"You can warm me up inside, too," she purred.

Duncan pushed inside her, incredulous that her pussy could be even hotter than his sizzling stick. His hands slid down to entrap her hips as he pumped into her.

Diana locked her elbows and spread her feet apart. "Come on, Duncan, slam that dick into me. You know what I like. Give me what is mine!"

The writer plowed into her rosy field, his seed spurting and filling her grasping groove. His cries rang out into the night air, and in the distance, the screech owl shrieked its mocking response.

The jangle of the telephone startled Diana out of her dream. She had fallen asleep on the small couch in her study, and scrambled stiffly to reach the phone.

"This better be good," she barked into the receiver. Her fingertips brushed against her inner thighs and came away wet.

"Afraid not, Diana." It was Seth.

"What?"

"Do you remember Paul Ferguson? The logger?"

"Yes, we went to school together. Big sucker, but a real sweetheart."

"He was hauling a load of logs down the hill last night, but he never made it to the sawmill. I sent some of my people up and down the highway to check it out. Found his rig down in a ravine, all smashed to hell, logs everywhere. Looks like he lost control of the truck."

"Paul was an expert driver. He never took chances..."

"I said 'looked like,' Diana. We found his body just down the embankment below the road, like he'd been thrown out. Except he's got deep slashes on his throat. Teeth marks. You tell me how he got those falling out of the truck."

"Our vampire again?"

"That's not all. The game warden shot a mountain lion that was bothering one of the local horse ranchers the past few weeks. Seems like when they did the necropsy, they found human remains in its gut."

"So?"

"Well, the remains turned out to be the left hand of a male, approximately forty-five years old. Had a wedding band still attached to the ring finger. There was an inscription on the inside, Barry and Carla, May 15, 1979. We're going to have to some computer searches, but I just thought it might be something. We haven't had any reports of big cats attacking for quite awhile. At least, none that I know of that can cut a man's hand off at the wrist with an ax blade."

"It wasn't torn off?"

"Nope. Somebody did some slicing and dicing."

"Let me know what you come up with. And Seth, start praying. We're all going to need it." Diana hung up. Hell's breaking loose everywhere, she thought.

Damon felt refreshed after draining the big trucker. He raced back to the cabin, plotting and planning as he ran. He'd have to move again. With both Barry and Carla dead, there would be no more phone calls to their bosses. Someone would come looking for them sooner or later. He gathered his belongings, including the small cloth bag of his native earth that he carried from lair to lair, and stuffed them into the couple's two overnight bags.

Where to go? He thought about the conversation he had with the logger. The man had asked where he was staying since all the campsites were closed for the season and everything would be locked up, even the little nature museum up near The Rock. Damon had said he was staying at a friend's cabin and questioned the driver about the campground.

"It's a pretty nice campground up about the 8000 foot elevation. Lots of big shady trees, shower facilities, but they close it up because it gets hit with winter storms early. There's a fire lookout tower a couple of hundred feet above the campgrounds, built on a big rocky outcropping that looks out over the valley. That's why they call it "The Rock." The museum's neat for the kids, not very big, but it's a sturdy little place. It's been up there since I was a kid."

Paul turned on his interior lights and produced a map of the mountain area for Damon, pointing to the site of The Rock as he kept one eye on the road. It was the last of many nice things that Paul Ferguson did for someone in his lifetime. When he turned to hand the map to his passenger, he noted red stains on the man's shirt.

"Hey, you've got blood on you, buddy. What happened back there?" Paul demanded.

Damon looked down at his shirt as he pocketed the map. Hellfire and damnation. He must have touched some of Carla's blood when he slid off the rock. He unlatched his seatbelt and looked up into Paul Ferguson's wide eyes. He grabbed the logger by the throat with one hand, ripping the driver's seatbelt from its moorings with the other as he pulled Paul out the passenger door. The vampire was already feeding when the logging truck hit the bottom of the ravine and spilled its load.

Damon tasted the air with his tongue, darting it out into the cool night like a snake. Fall was coming fast, he'd have to find a secure place before the weather changed. His prey would become sparse up in these parts and he knew he had to be down in the town where he could more readily feast. He looked at the map, the mountains etched with roads that had not been there a century before.

Up. He would go up and make the museum his lair. The logger said it was closed down for the season, it would be secure. Damon left the cabin, carrying his belongings, his camouflage, and headed through the safety of the woods towards the campground.

Seth Mulavey showed up in person at Diana's front door the next Saturday morning.

"Come on it. Want some coffee?" Diana led the chief into the kitchen where she was baking bread.

He accepted a cup and laid down some papers on the countertop.

"We found a match for that wedding ring. There's been a missing persons report on Barry and Carla Sheinblum from San Francisco. They have a cabin back in the hills just below The Log Jam. Seems like they headed up there for a weekend visit, then Carla called their bosses and said something had come up. No one's heard from them since September fourth. We contacted their kids who are away at college and they haven't heard from them since before Labor Day."

"Have you been up to the cabin yet?" Diana placed the bread on the counter to cool.

"Not yet. I wanted to have you in on this. I've got several of my officers on call to meet me at the highway where the road to their cabin intersects it. Better bring your gear, we might get lucky and catch our boy napping."

Diana slipped on a light jacket and picked up her gym bag. She followed Seth down the highway toward the turnoff to the Scheinblums' cabin where they were joined by two Damon's Canyon squad cars.

It was overcast along the road, even in the daylight, and eerily quiet. The birds didn't sing here, and the chipmunks and squirrels, normally racing around storing up their winter larder, were in absentia. As they convoyed around a bend marked by a huge boulder, Seth slammed on his brakes and swore. The patrol car behind him nearly rear-ended him trying to stop. Everyone got out of their vehicles and stood around to view the mess that had once been Carla Scheinblum and her car

"Looks like she's been dead about a week, judging from the amount of decomposition," Diana said, taking photographs of the carnage. Scavengers and insects had been busy since the night Carla had slammed her car into the rock trying to eliminate the foul leech that had killed her husband.

"Doesn't look like any wounds on her neck, other than what was caused by her flying through the windshield," Seth judged.

"Footprints," Diana pointed out. It had been damp the night of the crash, and the imprint of size ten hiking boots were clearly visible in the dried mud.

Seth ordered his officers to start going over the wreck for evidence, while he and Diana made their way up the road towards the cabin. They stopped briefly at the spot where Carla had desperately gunned it, the mud and dirt flung out of the ground where the tires had bitten in.

"She went into that rock on purpose," Seth said with amazement.

"She must have been trying to get the hell away from something pretty awful to do that. It was suicidal. Did you see her seatbelt? It hadn't been buckled," Diana responded.

They walked with stealthy footsteps to the cabin, Seth pulling his service weapon, while Diana quietly chambered a round into her pistol. Seth stepped up on the porch, the boards complaining with a tired squeak. He tried the door knob; it was open, and he turned it, pushing the door inward. It was dark inside, and they were blindsided with a stench of decay and blood and human urine.

Seth clicked on lights. They eased through the kitchen into the living room.

"Seth," Diana whispered, "there's blood on the floor over here." She pointed to a black stain where Barry had lain dying two weeks earlier. They checked the fireplace; the hearth was cold.

Seth pointed to the back of the cabin, holstering his weapon and pulling a stake and the mallet from the gym bag. They crept towards the darkness of the bedroom, the smell of urine getting stronger. Diana took a quick look at Seth, then crouched and entered the room as he towered over her, weapons ready. Seth flicked on the bedroom light switch. Nothing. Diana opened the closet door, her gun held ready. Empty, save for some of the Scheinblums' clothes.

Turning, they made their way to the small bathroom and Seth yanked open the shower stall door. Empty as well. They noted the boarded up window and the remnants of the clothesline.

"Someone was holding her captive, that's for sure," Seth said in a normal tone of voice.

"Let's check the shed out back. He might be in there," Diana suggested as she headed out the front door.

Seth opened the door to the woodshed. An ax lay on its head against one wall, covered with bits of dried gore and gristle. No bodies, dead or undead, but there were black spatters on the wall. Backspray--what little blood was left in Barry Scheinblum thrown backwards from the ax every time the beast upraised it during his hellish task.

Diana sighed with disappointment. "Gone again, like a ghost. At least we can guess what happened to Mr. Scheinblum," she said, gesturing at the ax.

Seth radioed for several of his officers to get their tails to the cabin and start processing the place for evidence. Looked like they had a killer on the loose.

Diana and Seth made their way back to the porch. When the officers arrived, turning up their noses at the stench, the duo were inspecting the cabin. Diana looked around the bathroom. She caught a glimpse of a metallic glitter on the floor behind the toilet. Bending down, she reached behind it and lifted out a medallion on a thin gold chain.

"What is it?" Seth asked, standing in the doorway.

Diana held up the jewelry. "Star of David. Looks like it was torn off her neck. There's hair and blood in the chain links." She glanced down and frowned, then got down on her knees again next to the toilet.

"There's a message written here on the wall with eyeliner. "Golem lives."" She got up and dusted off her hands. "He was here."

"How do you know? Who's Golem?" Seth asked.

"Not who, what. A Golem is an ancient creature of Jewish lore. It was created from clay and brought to life by invoking the sacred name of God. It was a soulless being that ended up running amok and having to be destroyed. It is sometimes said that the Golem was a physical vessel for Satan to dwell. She equated Damon Benyu with the Golem." Diana walked over to the bed and laid her hand down upon the covering. She picked up some fine particles of dark dirt. "He's still carrying the earth from his coffin."

Diana studied the room, noting the stacks of books and magazines on the floor and on the dresser. She thought a second, and opened the closet door again, going through the clothing that was hanging there.

"Looks like our bird forgot something," she said with satisfaction, pulling out a pair of dress slacks on a hanger. She held up a pair of Barry's slacks to compare. "Looks like Damon's about 6'2", 6'3" and rather slender in the hips. Has good taste in clothing. And small feet for his height." she remarked derisively.

"I think Damon's been reading up on what he's missed the past hundred years," Diana continued, motioning to the stacks of reading material. "I'm betting he kept Carla alive to grill her-sorry, poor choice of words-to get information out of her, as well, and maybe to seduce her into becoming his mate. She was a devout woman, judging from the necklace and the reference to the Golem. Looks like she was having no part of it and took the opportunity to either escape or just end her misery."

"Now what?" Seth asked, after directing his canine handler to the shed to see if they could track down the absent Mr. Scheinblum.

"I'm not sure. He's getting used to our world, I think, or at least learning about it. I think he's getting ready to make a move back into society. He has clothing, he has intelligence, and making a guess from the two sets of towels in the bathroom, he understands cleanliness. He's going to want to someplace he can be safe and where he can take time to groom himself before he preys again."

"Do you know how many cabins are scattered through these mountains? He could be anywhere."

"He chose one close to Damon's Canyon, he's not going far. "

"I'm going to get hold of some of the local property management people, the ones who handle the cabin rentals. Then, I'll see if we can get a list of the owners who live here year round. At least give them some sort of warning."

One of Seth's officers double-timed into the cabin, out of breath and an ugly shade of pea green. "You'd better come take a look, sir. The dog found Mr. Scheinblum. Or, at least, bits and pieces of him."