A small crowd had started to gather, other prostitutes drawn to the flashing lights, keeping a wary distance from the cops.

Strasser was at the edge of the gathering. He was watching one of the cops flapping open a blanket, letting it settle over Jevy's body, covering her hard little features.

Strasser stared at the blanket, depressed by how small her presence under it was, how symbolic of her short, no-chance life. It started to bring thoughts of his sister Claudia, who had died young, too. She had been pulled into a cult thing and had killed herself. Jumped off the Palisades cliffs onto the rocks by the Hudson River, near where they grew up in southern New York State. They found LSD in her system and the cult leader she'd devoted herself to had disappeared right after. Had fled his flock. There was a history of young female followers of his disfiguring or killing themselves. Some former followers believed that the women, all of them young, did it at his command.

Strasser had vowed to find him. And if the stories about him were true, kill him.

Strasser had been only nineteen at the time, but he knew he'd one day keep the vow.

Claudia had been a musician, borderline genius he thought. He'd played saxophone, she could play just about any instrument. She gave him tips and sisterly inspiration – checking his fingering, listening to his phrasing – and got him to be as good as he could be. But it wasn't good enough, and after a couple of years he gave up the horn and concentrated on his sports.

He got himself a basketball scholarship and went off to college. Claudia started doing spiritual readings, psychic projections. Had a knack for it just like the music and it caught the cult guy's attention. When Strasser came home for Thanksgiving vacation, Claudia had moved out. Their parents were always going off on some mystical retreat, or having some séance at their house. Strasser had to believe that their lifestyle – the oddball friends, the ceremonies with the weird music, the homegrown weed and dark head-trip stuff they got into – helped kick off the occult thing for Claudia.

He never saw her again.

And now here he was trying to work with Zanya, trying to tune into that satanic wavelength – to get the bad guys that never got paid back for the shit they had done. But that relationship with her, if there was ever to be one, needed some adjusting.

And as if his thoughts were some homing device, he sensed a presence at his side. Before he even turned, he knew who was there.

Looking perfectly normal in her faded jeans and black sweater. Totally recomposed.

Her face had gone back to its green-eyed, alabaster beauty. No fangs, least that he could see. Instead of brimstone there was a fragrance now that could have been, what, cinnamon.

Strasser gave her the cold eye, the woman staying serene. Unthreatening smile with just the right bit of melancholy. She looked down at Jevy's blanket-covered form, keeping any smugness to herself at the sight of her revenge. Her get-back.

"What are you doing here?" Strasser said.

"I saw the lights. What happened?"

Strasser couldn't help but be caustic. "Apparently something panicked her."

"That's terrible."

"Yeah, right."

Zanya looked around. "Does anyone know who she is?"

Strasser said, "Zanya, please..."

One of the hookers standing nearby, an Afro-Asian girl named Kumi, was staring down at the shrouded corpse.

"She was my roommate," Kumi said.

Strasser turned to her, took in her somber expression. "I'm sorry."

Kumi kept her stare on shrouded Jevy.

"Anything I can do?" Strasser said.

Kumi looked up at him. "What?"

"I mean... I knew her a little."

Kumi's look hardened, probably taking him for one of Jevy's customers – which, come to think of it, he was.

"You can find me another roommate," she said.

Strasser had no answer for that. Kumi went back to staring at Jevy.

Zanya eased away from Strasser, stepped back into the shadows. She took out her iPhone and pointed it covertly at Kumi. Snapped her picture, checked it on the screen.

Kumi's image was staring back at the lens, her face having turned that way just as the picture was taken.

Zanya looked up from the phone, looked across the sidewalk, saw Kumi herself frowning back. Like, What's your fucking problem?

Zanya slipped the phone back into her jeans and went back to stand by Strasser.

Other eyes were on Zanya as well, from the neon-lit entrance to Rocksy, the bar across the street. She felt them, the black guy over there with his goatee, decked out in leather.

She moved closer to Strasser who was still gazing at the contours of Jevy under the blanket. Zanya slipped her hand under his arm, tugged at it gently. No response. She waited, tugged again.

After another moment of staring Strasser shook his head and turned away from the blanket. Zanya kept her arm in his, the two of them walking off, brushing past people coming toward the scene, Strasser aware he was retracing the steps he'd taken with Jevy.

Across the street, Boxboy watched. Waited for a bus to pass, jogged through a break in the traffic. He let the pair get further ahead, went to where he could covertly peer after them. Waited a couple of beats, then followed. Liked the look of that woman, wouldn't mind getting some. Didn't like that asswipe with her, wouldn't mind putting him down.

Kumi was back there watching them, stood staring after Boxboy and Strasser and Zanya. One of her friends, a hooker named Layla, came over and stood beside her.

"What're you looking at?" Layla said.

Kumi's eyes focused on the departing couple. "That is one strange chick there."

"Uh-huh," Layla said. "More than you know."

Kumi's eyes turned to her. "Whatta you mean?"

"I mean I took her picture after I saw her taking yours. Except I didn't."

Kumi frowned. "I don't follow."

Layla still had her phone out and showed Kumi the screen. "Take a look."

The picture on the phone clearly showed Strasser as he was walking away from the camera. But there was no one with him – Zanya didn't show. There was just a hazy ghostlike presence where she should have been.

"She's not there," Kumi said.

The two women looked in the direction Strasser and Zanya went.

"But she was," Layla said. "I mean there. You saw her yourself. She's with him now."

She and Kumi watched the couple disappear around a corner.

Layla said, "I heard him call her Stanya or something."

Layla's eyes then picked up Boxboy jogging to the corner. "And why's asshole following them?"

Kumi didn't have an answer, but she knew she had to follow Boxboy and see what this turned into.

"Where you going?" Layla called to her back.

"I'll call you later," Kumi said as she took off after Boxboy.