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mounted the steps to home.
     
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    A loud slapping sound woke Veronica, and she jerked upright on the couch, startled. She cocked her head, listening for the arcane sound to repeat itself but nothing came.
    Moving her head from side to side, she stretched her neck. A sharp pain in her back reminded her why she should have slept in the bed last night.
    The apartment building, Palm Oaks (once a shoe factory that fell victim to a wave of new development) sat facing the bank of the Mississippi River. She’d considered a larger apartment, but the river view kept her there, despite the fact that in only a few days, she felt she’d outgrown the tiny space.
    Since childhood, Veronica felt a weird attraction to water. Watching vast amounts of it rush downstream, caught her attention as a child. The Mississippi River was her favorite. She marveled at its course and the history behind it thanks to Mark Twain’s majestic adventures.
    She released an audible breath as she turned her head to look out of the window. The leaves on the trees that banked the edge of the river were in the middle of changing colors. Her gaze drifted near the red asphalt bike path to the old gazebo. Now weather beaten, its white paint cracked and peeled at the edges. Its once-detailed walls were nonexistent, destroyed by the harsh Minnesota weather.
    Yep, I’m in a great location.
    The apartment building was also located near many of the dance clubs and bars littering downtown Hennepin Avenue. The area seemed perfect for her. At night, the street came alive with tourists and Minneapolis citizens crowding the sidewalks along with young adults who bar-hopped to relieve themselves from the job pressures of corporate America.
    Hennepin Avenue ran the length of two miles from east to west, beginning at the bank of the river and ending near the freeway. Its warehouse district rested near the eastern edge, close to Dark Sepulcher. With huge, boarded-up vacant buildings, the district felt desolate and quiet until nightfall; except for the occasional police sirens in the distance. It agitated her that many of the buildings, part of original downtown Minneapolis, were shamefully left to rot in disrepair. Finally, the city decided to renovate half of the buildings, turning them into condominiums and businesses instead of tearing them down.
    Veronica stretched her arms overhead, then reached for the remote control on her coffee table and flicked on the TV. In her still-groggy state, she paused on a breaking story about a house fire near the warehouse district. The camera crew panned on the ruins of the destroyed home behind the newscaster. The report showed a crowd gathering across the street from the fire, watching smoke escape into the sky from smoldering pieces of wood and debris.
    A newswoman dressed in a bright red shirt with short, carrot-colored hair, spoke into the microphone about the fires. The news surprised Veronica. Before coming to San Diego, she thought she’d researched all there was to know about the state of Minneapolis until her best friend, Sean warned her about the fires. Crime wasn’t high but from the news report, anyone else not knowing about the city would have thought differently. She didn’t know what this had to do with her search, but the news report gave the impression that the fires were frequent and out of control.
    The camera panned right to left, filming the other homes on the block. Old Victorian homes with bright green lawns and brick lined porches came into view. Tall red oak gates separated the properties and expensive cars parked on the streets and driveways.
    Sean told her that the Deamhan in Minneapolis now violated their Dictum—basic rules laid down by their ancestors centuries ago on how to survive in the human world without risking your privacy. Now the Deamhan of today in Minneapolis released their transgressions on each other. Besides the fires, they killed each other by the hundreds. Veronica knew