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those pire parents have died—through accidents or violence—and left their children behind. Stranded in childhood. No parents, no siblings, sometimes no relatives at all. There’s no structure in place to take care of them. A thrope would just be absorbed into another pack, but pires are more solitary by nature.
    “It gets worse. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent, and that includes pires. Some of them discover they don’t want to be parents after all, some of them just can’t handle aging after decades or centuries of immortality. Whatever the reason, they decide to rescind the spell—and abandon the child.
    “Many of them wind up here, Jace. Vancouver is a dangerous place, a frontier city with little or no law. These children live on the streets, sleep under bridges, steal blood where they can or feed on urban wildlife: pigeons, rats, racoons. They prostitute themselves.
    “And this is where they’re stuck, Jace. Forever .”
    And now I see something else in his eyes. I’ve seen it before, usually on the faces of cops involved in really bad child-murder cases. Haunted is the only word for it; he’s seen something he can’t unsee, and he’d give just about anything to get it out of his head.
    But he can’t. He’s going to have to live with it. There are a number of different methods, most of them unhealthy: booze, drugs, sex, adrenaline, suicide … or going the proactive route and deciding to do something. Get involved, try to change the world so you can prevent that terrible thing from happening again.
    It doesn’t surprise me that Stoker would choose the world-changing method. Monster or revolutionary, that’s what he does.
    “These children have been disappearing, Jace. The only ones who’ve even noticed are the evil bastards that prey on them. And me. My comrades in the FHR certainly don’t care—which is why I’ve quit.”
    “What?” I blurt.
    “Intriguing,” Gretch mutters.
    “I don’t know who’s taking them, or why—not for sure, anyway. I have some leads, but I no longer have the resources to follow them up myself.
    “I know what you’re thinking, Jace. Where’s the proof? How do I know this isn’t just another of Stoker’s elaborate plans?”
    He shakes his head. “You can’t, I guess. Who’s to say I’m not the one responsible for this? I have every reason to lie, after all. So I guess I’ll just have to see if you believe someone else.”
    He reaches out and grabs the camera, swings it around. It focuses on—
    A child.
    She looks about eight. Tangled, filthy hair that might be blond. Ragged clothes that don’t fit right. No shoes. The clear green eyes of an angel in a face badly needing soap and water. She’s perched in an armchair with her legs underneath her—not curled up comfortably, more like a wild animal ready to spring.
    “Yeah, hi,” she says. “I’m Gertrude. I live in ’Couver, I guess. Five of my friends—Teddy, Jill, Goldy, Big Fred, and Kitty—are missing.” Her diction is clear and definite, with no hesitation. “Aristotle says you won’t believe him, but maybe you’ll believe me. I don’t know. I guess I’m supposed to convince you.” She frowns. “That’s hard . I could show you their stuff, I guess—but that won’t tell you much. Aristotle had a shaman try a locator spell, but it didn’t work. So that means somebody’s hiding them, right?”
    She pauses, obviously thinking. “I guess you could get a shaman to see if I’m telling the truth, but then you’d have to come here. I told Aristotle I could visit you, I don’t mind, but he says I can’t do that. The border’s too hard to get across, he says. I knew that already—everybody knows that .”
    I didn’t. But then, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, like detonating my apartment and making my boss disappear into thin air.
    “So I don’t know if you believe me.” She stares at the camera like she wishes she could reach right through it and yank us into the room.