Chapter One: After Midnight

Another had a smooth, featureless face, while eyes and a mouth appeared in the reflection beside him. A third remained quietly seated, though antlers spread from his shadow across the floor. Jianyue's first response was not to scream. It was to raise her camera. Professional instinct had saved her before. Tonight it might kill her. The viewfinder cut disaster into a rectangle she could understand: fifty-millimeter lens, aperture at two point eight, shutter at one sixtieth. She aimed at the drunk on the ceiling. Her finger touched the release. Then she remembered Zhou's warning. Don't photograph anything alive. She shifted the lens toward the window.