OMEBODY ONCE SAID THAT THERE’S NO REST FOR THE wicked, and they were almost certainly talking about me, because for several days after I sent dear little Zander on to his just reward poor Dogged Dexter was very busy indeed. Even as Rita’s frenetic planning kicked into high gear, my job followed suit. We seemed to have hit one of those periodic spells Miami gets every now and then in which murder just seems like a good idea, and I was up to my eyeballs in blood spatter for three days.

But on the fourth day, things actually got a little bit worse. I had brought in doughnuts, as is my habit from time to time—especially in the days following my playdates. For some reason, not only do I feel more relaxed for several days after the Passenger and I have a night encounter, but I also feel quite hungry. I’m sure that fact is filled with deep psychological significance, but I am far more interested in making sure I get one or two of the jelly doughnuts before the savage predators in Forensics shred them all to pieces. Significance can wait when doughnuts are on the line.

But this morning I barely managed to grab one raspberry-filled doughnut—and I was lucky not to lose a finger in the process. The whole floor was buzzing with preparation for a trip to a crime scene, and the tone of the buzz let me know that it was a particularly heinous one, which did not please me. That meant longer hours, stuck somewhere far from civilization and Cuban sandwiches. Who knew what I would end up with for lunch? Considering that I had been short-changed on the doughnuts, lunch could prove to be a very important meal, and for all I knew I would be forced to work right through it.

I grabbed my handy blood-spatter kit and headed out the door with Vince Masuoka, who despite his small size had somehow grabbed two of the very valuable filled doughnuts—including the Bavarian cream with the chocolate frosting. “You have done a little too well, Mighty Hunter,” I told him with a nod at his plundered loot.

“The gods of the forest have been good,” he said, and took a large bite. “My people will not starve this season.”

“No, but I will,” I said.

He gave me his terrible phony smile, which looked like something he had learned to do by studying a government manual on facial expressions. “The ways of the jungle are hard, Grasshopper,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “First you must learn to think like a doughnut.”

“Ha,” Vince said. His laugh was even phonier than his smile, sounding like he was reading aloud from a phonetic spelling of laughter. “Ah, ha ha ha!” he said. The poor guy seemed to be faking everything about being human, just like me. But wasn’t as good at it as I was. No wonder I was comfortable with him. That and the fact that he quite often took a turn bringing the doughnuts.

“You need better camouflage,” he said, nodding at my shirt, a bright pink-and-green Hawaiian pattern complete with hula girls. “Or at least better taste.”

“It was on sale,” I said.

“Ha,” he said again. “Well, pretty soon Rita will be picking your clothes.” And then abruptly dropping his terrible artificial jollity, he said, “Listen, I think I have found the perfect caterer.”

“Does he do jelly doughnuts?” I said, truthfully hoping that the whole subject of my impending matrimonial bliss would simply go away. But I had asked Vince to be my best man, and he was taking the job seriously.

“The guy is very big,” Vince said. “He did the MTV Awards, and all those showbiz parties and stuff.”

“He sounds delightfully expensive,” I said.

“Well, he owes me a favor,” Vince said. “I think we can get him down on the price. Maybe like a hundred and fifty bucks a plate.”

“Actually, Vince, I had hoped we could afford more than one plate.”

“He was in that South Beach magazine,” he said, sounding a little hurt. “You should at least talk to him.”

“To be honest,” I said, which of course meant I was lying, “I think Rita wants something simple. Like a buffet.”

Vince was definitely sulking now. “At least talk to him,” he repeated.

“I’ll talk to Rita about it,” I said, wishing that would make the whole thing go away. And during the trip to the crime scene Vince said no more about it, so maybe it had.

The scene turned out to be a lot easier for me than I had anticipated, and I cheered up quite a bit when I got there. In the first place, it was on the University of Miami campus, which was my dear old alma mater, and in keeping with my lifelong attempt to appear human, I always tried to remember to pretend I felt a warm, fuzzy fondness for the place when I was there. Secondly, there was apparently very little raw blood to deal with, which might mean that I could be done with it in a reasonable amount of time. It also meant freedom from the nasty wet red stuff—I really don’t like blood, which may seem odd, but there it is. I do, however, find great satisfaction in organizing it at a crime scene, forcing it to fit a decent pattern and behave itself. In this case, from what I learned on the way there, that would hardly be a challenge.

And so it was with my usual cheerful good spirits that I sauntered over toward the yellow crime-scene tape, certain of a charming interlude in a hectic workday—

And came to a dead stop with one foot just inside the tape.

For a moment the world turned bright yellow and there was a sickening sensation of lurching weightless through space. I could see nothing except the knife-edged glare. There was a silent sound from the dark backseat, the feeling of subliminal nausea mixed with the blind panic of a butcher knife squealing across a chalkboard. A skittering, a nervousness, a wild certainty that something was very badly wrong, and no hint of what or where it was.

My sight came back and I looked around me. I saw nothing I didn’t expect to see at a crime scene: a small crowd gathered at the yellow tape, some uniforms guarding the perimeter, a few cheap-suited detectives, and my team, the forensic geeks, scrabbling through the bushes on their hands and knees. All perfectly normal to the naked eye. And so I turned to my infallible fully clothed interior eye for an answer.

What is it? I asked silently, closing my eyes again and searching for some answer from the Passenger to this unprecedented display of discomfort. I was accustomed to commentary from my Dark Associate, and quite often my first sight of a crime scene would be punctuated by sly whispers of admiration or amusement, but this—it was clearly a sound of distress, and I did not know what to make of it.

What? I asked again. But there was no answer beyond the uneasy rustle of invisible wings, so I shook it off and walked over to the site.

The two bodies had clearly been burned somewhere else, since there was no sign of any barbecue large enough to bake two medium-size females quite so thoroughly. They had been dumped beside the lake that runs through the UM campus, just off the path that ran around it, and discovered by a pair of early-morning joggers. It was my opinion from the state of the small amount of blood evidence I found that the heads had been removed after the two had burned to death.

One small detail gave me pause. The bodies were laid out neatly, almost reverently, with the charred arms folded across the chests. And in place of the severed heads, a ceramic bull’s head had been carefully placed at the top of each torso.

This is exactly the kind of loving touch that always brings some type of comment from the Dark Passenger—generally speaking, an amused whisper, a small chuckle, even a twinge of jealousy. But this time, as Dexter said to himself, Aha, a bull’s head! What do we think about that?, the Passenger responded immediately and forcefully with—

Nothing?

Not a whisper, not a sigh?

I sent an irritated demand for answers, and got no more than a worried scuttling, as if the Passenger were ducking down behind anything that might provide cover, and hoping to ride out the storm without being noticed.

I opened my eyes, as much from startlement as anything else. I could not remember any time when the Passenger had nothing to say on some example of our favorite subject, and yet here he was, not merely subdued but hiding.

I looked back at the two charred bodies with new respect. I had no clue as to what this might mean, but since it had never happened before, it seemed like a good idea to find out.

Angel Batista-no-relation was on his hands and knees on the far side of the path, very carefully examining things I couldn’t see and didn’t really care about. “Did you find it yet?” I asked him.

He didn’t look up. “Find what?” he said.

“I don’t have any idea,” I said. “But it must be here somewhere.”

He reached out with a pair of tweezers and plucked a single blade of grass, staring hard at it and then stuffing it into a plastic baggie as he spoke. “Why,” he said, “would somebody put a ceramic bull head?”

“Because chocolate would melt,” I said.

He nodded without looking up. “Your sister thinks it’s a Santeria thing.”

“Really,” I said. That possibility had not occurred to me, and I felt a little miffed that it hadn’t. After all, this was Miami; anytime we encountered something that looked like a ritual and involved animal heads, Santeria should have been the first thing all of us thought. An Afro-Cuban religion that combined Yoruba animism with Catholicism, Santeria was widespread in Miami. Animal sacrifice and symbolism were common for its devotees, which would explain the bull heads. And although a relatively small number of people actually practiced Santeria, most homes in the city had one or two small saint candles or cowrie-shell necklaces bought at a botanica. The prevailing attitude around town was that even if you didn’t believe in it, it didn’t hurt to pay it some respect.

As I said, it should have occurred to me at once. But my foster sister, now a full sergeant in homicide, had thought of it first, even though I was supposed to be the clever one.

I had been relieved to learn that Deborah was assigned to the case, since it meant that there would be a minimum of bone-numbing stupidity. It would also, I hoped, give her something better to do with her time than she had appeared to have lately. She had been spending all hours of the day and night hovering around her damaged boyfriend, Kyle Chutsky, who had lost one or two minor limbs in his recent encounter with a deranged freelance surgeon who specialized in turning human beings into squealing potatoes—the same villain who had artfully trimmed away so many unnecessary parts from Sergeant Doakes. He had not had the time to finish with Kyle, but Debs had taken the whole thing rather personally and, after fatally shooting the good doctor, she had devoted herself to nursing Chutsky back to vigorous manhood.

I’m sure she had racked up numberless points on the ethical scoreboard, no matter who was keeping track, but in truth all the time off had done her no good with the department, and even worse, poor lonely Dexter had felt keenly the uncalled-for neglect from his only living relative.

So it was very good news all around to have Deborah assigned to the case, and on the far side of the path she was talking to her boss, Captain Matthews, no doubt giving him a little ammunition for his ongoing war with the press, who simply refused to take his picture from his good side.

The press vans were, in fact, already rolling up and spewing out crews to tape background shots of the area. A couple of the local bloodhounds were standing there, solemnly clutching their microphones and intoning mournful sentences about the tragedy of two lives so brutally ended. As always, I felt reverently grateful to live in a free society, where the press had a sacred right to show footage of dead people on the evening news.

Captain Matthews carefully brushed his already perfect hair with the heel of his hand, clapped Deborah on the shoulder, and marched over to talk to the press. And I marched over to my sister.

She stood where Matthews had left her, watching his back as he began to speak to Rick Sangre, one of the true gurus of if-it-bleeds-it-leads reporting. “Well, Sis,” I said. “Welcome back to the real world.”

She shook her head. “Hip hooray,” she said.

“How is Kyle doing?” I asked her, since my training told me that was the right thing to ask about.

“Physically?” she said. “He’s fine. But he just feels useless all the time. And those assholes in Washington won’t let him go back to work.”

It was difficult for me to judge Chutsky’s ability to get back to work, since no one had ever said exactly what work he did. I knew it was vaguely connected to some part of the government and was also something clandestine, but beyond that I didn’t know. “Well,” I said, searching for the proper cliché, “I’m sure it just needs some time.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure.” She looked back at the place where the two charred bodies lay. “Anyhow, this is a great way to get my mind off it.”

“The rumor mill tells me you think it’s Santeria,” I said, and her head swiveled rapidly around to face me.

“You think it’s not?” she demanded.

“Oh, no, it might well be,” I said.

“But?” she said sharply.

“No buts at all,” I said.

“Damn it, Dexter,” she said. “What do you know about this?” And it was probably a fair question. I had been known on occasion to offer a pretty fair guess about some of the more gruesome murders we worked on. I had gained a small reputation for my insight into the way the twisted homicidal sickos thought and operated—natural enough, since, unknown to everyone but Deborah, I was a twisted homicidal sicko myself.

But even though Deborah had only recently become aware of my true nature, she had not been shy about taking advantage of it to help her in her work. I didn’t mind; glad to help. What else is family for? And I didn’t really care if my fellow monsters paid their debt to society in Old Sparky—unless, of course, it was somebody I was saving for my own innocent pleasure.

But in this case, I had nothing whatsoever to tell Deborah. I had, in fact, been hoping she might have some small crumb of information to give to me, something that might explain the Dark Passenger’s peculiar and uncharacteristic shrinking act. That, of course, was not the sort of thing I really felt comfortable telling Deborah about. But no matter what I said about this burned double offering, she wouldn’t believe me. She would be sure I had information and some kind of angle that made me want to keep it all to myself. The only thing more suspicious than a sibling is a sibling who happens to be a cop.

Sure enough, she was convinced I was holding out on her. “Come on, Dexter,” she said. “Out with it. Tell me what you know about this.”

“Dear Sis, I am at a total loss,” I said.

“Bullshit,” she said, apparently unaware of the irony. “You’re holding something back.”

“Never in life,” I said. “Would I lie to my only sister?”

She glared at me. “So it isn’t Santeria?”

“I have no idea,” I said, as soothingly as possible. “It seems like a really good place to start. But—”

“I knew it,” she snapped. “But what?”

“Well,” I started. And truly it had just occurred to me, and probably it meant nothing at all, but here I was in mid-sentence already, so I went on with it. “Have you ever heard of a santero using ceramics? And bulls—don’t they have a thing for goat heads?”

She looked at me very hard for a minute, then shook her head. “That’s it? That’s what you got?”

“I told you, Debs, I don’t got anything. It was only a thought, something that just now came to me.”

“Well,” she said. “If you’re telling me the truth—”

“Of course I am,” I protested.

“Then, you’ve got doodly-squat,” she said and looked away, back to where Captain Matthews was answering questions with his solemn, manly jaw jutting out. “Which is only slightly less than the horsepucky I got,” she said.

I had never before grasped that doodly-squat was less than horsepucky, but it’s always nice to learn something new. And yet even this startling revelation did very little to answer the real question here: Why had the Dark Passenger pulled a duck and cover? In the course of my job and my hobby I have seen some things that most people can’t even imagine, unless they have watched several of those movies they show at traffic school for driving drunk. And in every case I had ever encountered, no matter how grisly, my shadow companion had some kind of pithy comment on the proceedings, even if it was only a yawn.

But now, confronted by nothing more sinister than two charred bodies and some amateur pottery, the Dark Passenger chose to scuttle away like a scared spider and leave me without guidance—a brand-new feeling for me, and I discovered I did not like it at all.

Still, what was I to do? I knew of no one I could talk to about something like the Dark Passenger; at least, not if I wanted to stay at liberty, which I very much did. As far as I was aware, there were no experts on the subject, other than me. But what did I really know about my boon companion? Was I really that knowledgeable, merely because I had shared space with it for so long? The fact that it had chosen to scuttle into the cellar was making me very edgy, as if I found myself walking through my office with no pants on. When it came down to the nub of things, I had no idea what the Dark Passenger was or where it came from, and that had never seemed all that important.

For some reason, now it did.

A modest crowd had gathered by the yellow tape barrier the police had put up. Enough people so that the Watcher could stand in the middle of the group without sticking out in any way.

He watched with a cold hunger that did not show on his face—nothing showed on his face; it was merely a mask he wore for the time being, a way to hide the coiled power stored inside. Yet somehow the people around him seemed to sense it, glancing his way nervously from time to time, as if they had heard a tiger growling nearby.

The Watcher enjoyed their discomfort, enjoyed the way they stared in stupid fear at what he had done. It was all part of the joy of this power, and part of the reason he liked to watch.

But he watched with a purpose right now, carefully and deliberately, even as he watched them scrabble around like ants and felt the power surge and flex inside him. Walking meat, he thought. Less than sheep, and we are the shepherd.

As he gloated at their pathetic reaction to his display he felt another presence tickle at the edge of his predator’s senses. He turned his head slowly along the line of yellow tape—

There. That was him, the one in the bright Hawaiian shirt. He really was with the police.

The Watcher reached a careful tendril out toward the other, and as it touched he watched the other stop cold in his tracks and close his eyes, as if asking a silent question—yes. It all made sense now. The other had felt the subtle reach of senses; he was powerful, that was certain.

But what was his purpose?

He watched as the other straightened up, looked around, and then seemingly shrugged it off and crossed the police line.

We are stronger, he thought. Stronger than all of them. And they will discover this, to their very great sorrow.

He could feel the hunger growing—but he needed to know more, and he would wait until the right time. Wait and watch.

For now.