Free Seize the Night: New Tales of Vampiric Terror by Charlaine Harris, Tim Lebbon, David Wellington, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dan Chaon, Brian Keene, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Kelley Armstrong, Michael Koryta, Scott Smith, Joe McKinney, Laird Barron, Rio Youers, Dana Cameron, Leigh Perry, Gary A. Braunbeck, Lynda Barry, John Langan, Seanan McGuire, Robert Shearman, Lucy A. Snyder Page A

things to worry about.
    “I’ve called the crew that brought her in; I’m sure they just put her in the wrong drawer.” The medical examiner held up her hands, expression baffled. “Don’t shoot the messenger. We’re looking for her now.”
    “I have her parents waiting to identify the body,” snapped the officer. A little too loudly: Mary’s head came up, eyes questing in his direction. He hunched his shoulders, turning partially away. “We need to be sure. The ID was made from a library card in her pocket, and that’s not sufficient.”
    “Look, we’re doing everything we can,” said the medical examiner. “You have to give us time to figure out where she is.”
    “This is a little girl we’re talking about here,” he said. “Find her.”
    “I will,” she said.
    They didn’t.
    By the time they sent Mary home—wrung out and exhausted from her crying, with Spenser standing like a sullen shadow by herside—they had turned the entire building upside down repeatedly, only to find no trace of the thirteen-year-old girl who had been found on the hillside. Lou was, quite simply, gone.
    T he sky was bruised black and silent, unmoving. The rain had stopped somewhere between the cruiser’s leaving the police station and pulling up in front of Mary and Spenser’s home. The streets remained empty; no one wanted to risk being caught in another torrential downpour. Both of them had been silent for the entire drive, Mary sunk deep into confused grief that was beginning to mingle with denial, Spenser dwelling on the way he’d been treated. By the time the police dropped them off and drove away, he was a powder keg, ready to explode.
    Mary dug for her keys as she stepped onto the porch. Spenser tried the doorknob. The door swung open. That was the spark that he’d been waiting for.
    “Well, would you look at that,” he said in a wondering tone. He prodded the door with his finger. It swung open wider. “Some dumb bitch didn’t lock the door. Let’s go in and see what’s worth stealing, huh? I bet we can clean these dummies out before they get back. What do you think, Mary?”
    “Please, Spenser, not right now,” she said, voice little more than a moan. “I’m sorry I didn’t lock it, but no one was out in this storm. No one except for . . . except for . . .” She began crying again. She stopped after shedding only a few tears. There just wasn’t that much moisture left inside of her.
    “We don’t even know if those police were telling the truth,” scoffed Spenser. “It could have been someone else’s kid. It could have been a fucked-up prank. Who knows what these cops get up to when nobody’s keeping an eye on them? Crooks, the whole lot of them. We should sue the bastards.”
    Mary stared at him, eyes wide and wet and uncomprehending.“What are you saying?” she whispered. “Are you saying that they lied? They lied about my Louise?” Her daughter’s full name fit oddly in her mouth. She used it so rarely, usually when the girl was in trouble. Lou had been her name since the day she was born, and it should have been her name now, on the night she’d . . . that she had . . .
    “I’m saying the police twist the truth to suit themselves,” said Spenser. He seemed oblivious to the fact that they were still standing on the porch, exposed to the night air: he had his teeth in something that would allow him to work off some of his aggression, and he wasn’t letting go. “She’s a pretty thing. Maybe they couldn’t find her because they’re the ones who snatched her, and she’ll show up in the morgue when she’s good and used—”
    Her palm caught him across the cheek, rocking his head back more from surprise than from the actual pain of impact. Mary squealed and snatched her hand to her chest, cradling it there like an animal with an injured paw. Spenser’s eyes went wide. Then, slowly, his eyes narrowed, the color flaring up in his cheeks like a flame.
    “Did you lay a