Day 28-29: 4,227 words; 50,051 total written so far. NaNoWriMo 2005 winner

Part 11: Old ghosts

Someone was knocking at the bathroom door. Politely and relentlessly. Tap, tap, tap.

I hid my face in Kirill's damp hair. "Can we pretend we're not here?"

Instead of answering, he just slid his hand down my back and thighs, and slipped in under my knees. The movement sent a pleasant shiver through me as his fingers caressed my sensitized skin, but I still made a wordless sound of complaint as he stood up in the bathtub, lifting me out smoothly. This bath had been the first downtime I'd got in thirty hours after chases and explosions and a day spent in debriefings in front of what seemed like half the Night folk in New Granada, so I'd have been perfectly happy to fall asleep in the warm water, even if the guest tubs in Darkspring Manor were a little less spacious than the one at Kirill's home.

Kirill stole another kiss from me before setting me down on my feet. Even though I hadn't been to my usual breath-holding tricks, he made it clear he wasn't complaining about my performance.

It took us a few minutes to get mostly dried out and presentable, all the while accompanied with insistent knocking at the door. Our impatient visitor turned out to be Eudokia, and she all but smirked at the annoyed expressions she was presented with.

"Arthur thought someone should make sure you haven't managed to drown the heroine of the day," she informed Kirill.

He answered her in something that sounded like Old Church Slavonic and too slang for me to follow. Judging by the way her eyebrows rose, he wasn't being up to his usual standards of politeness. Then again, Doxie's an old friend of his, if not of mine, and I guessed that allowed for liberties.

"You have forty-five minutes until the meeting." She opted for English, for which I was thankful. "The Oak Bedroom has been set aside for your use, and Rachel's clothes have been set out in the Lilac Bedroom."

I groaned. Fantastic slow sex notwithstanding, I was feeling more like sleeping in a coffin than attending a formal vampire occasion, and I was sure I looked that way. Even now Kirill's fingers were tangled possessively in my hair, and I was sure it wasn't doing it any favors.

Not that it stopped me from leaning into the kiss he gave me before leaving me with Eudokia. His fangs scraped against my bottom lip, a shade of a thought from drawing blood, and if it hadn't been for the meeting, I'd have been all for shutting the door in Eudokia's face and running another bath.

He swept off with a curt nod at the vampiress, and I was left leaning against the bathroom door and blinking sleepily. I waited for Eudokia to buzz off wherever it was that she had something to do before the meeting started, but she stayed put.

"I know where the Lilac Bedroom is," I muttered.

She looked me up and down, and her lips twitched. "You'll excuse me, but you don't look like you're in a state to dress yourself."

I tried making a face, but it was too much effort, so I just slunk down the corridor after her. "Since when do you care?"

"We can't have the star guest looking like something the cat dragged in," she shot back.

I tried to think of an appropriately catty comment to answer with that wasn't a your-mom kind of thing. Before I could pull my thoughts together, we were by the door to the Lilac Bedroom, one of the seventy or so suites that form the second floor of Darkspring Manor, and once I saw what was lying on the bed, all thoughts of retaliation fled from my head.

The outfit was simply gorgeous. The breeches were matte black velvet, with narrow legs designed to fit into the high, many-buckled riding boots, and the black suede of the latter was just discreet enough to skirt the edges of fetishism. The white button-up blouse had the kind of Chinese collar that wouldn't detract from even the most forgettable face, and the demure jabot and strategic pleats were aimed at enhancing any woman's assets. The coup de grace was the coat, softest, thinnest suede and silver lace appliqués in Russian motifs, billowing tails that brought it closer to a dress or a robe. The end effect, I knew, would be mid-way between European and Asian, between mage and vampire, human and preternatural, just androgynous enough to put the slightest doubt in the viewer's mind.

I fingered the collar of the shirt and wondered how the hell Eudokia had found out my exact measurements.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

I picked up the shirt and found a bundle of the appropriate underthings, not only in the right size, but also my favorite label. "It's perfect. What gives?"

She was wearing one of those infuriatingly superior smiles again, but it melted into something more real. "You are the heroine of the hour. I thought it may go some way to rendering my thanks."

Oh. "How's Justin?" I asked.

"Recovering. He was still sleeping when I left him." She gave me an inscrutable look. "He hasn't talked to me about what exactly happened."

I sighed and let the bathrobe slide to the floor as I set about putting on Doxie's olive-branch outfit. She had been present for a lot of the talking I'd done over the day, but I could see where she was coming from. It was one thing to hear me giving the dry facts to a room full of people that could barely remain civil with each other, and another to talk about someone so close to her.

"The way I see it, what they tried to do was a binding ritual." I decided Doxie got extra brownie points for the garter belt. I hate self-supporting stockings with a passion. "I first got a hint of that when I saw they weren't targeting one blood clan, or just the blood clans close to the seat of power, but trying to snatch relatively low-powered people from as close to the head of the clan as possible. Even that second attempt on me might have been aimed to catch Antosha instead, though that only makes sense if their research is particularly sloppy - any vamp in town could have told them he and Kirill Yevgenyevich are only blood-related on the human side."

The boots fit like second skin, and I wondered how much those particular charms had cost. But the heels clicked even on the carpet as I tried a few steps, and that goes a long way towards making me like a pair of boots.

"I've never done a binding, but I've researched it, for obvious reasons," I continued. "Most books agree it involves taking a vampire's blood and subjecting it to magical influence. The principle is the same as a blood-parent's control over a child, and just as spotty. Logically, there is no reason why it couldn't be used to reverse the flow of control over the blood bond, since the only reason control is enforced from parent to child is because the parent is the one with more experience in exerting it."

"There's a long cut on Justin's arm." Eudokia was standing in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of the room, correcting the complicated braids of her hairstyle. "He wouldn't let me touch it."

"If it's like any other magical binding, it'd hurt like holy hell. And it wasn't the only thing that happened to him. They had him locked in the same room as the human victims, and they starved him. He was shackled, but that wouldn't have stopped him - they used him as a tool to torture the others."

"He didn't touch any of them." There was a quiet pride in Eudokia's voice. By doing that, Justin had showed himself a true vampire of noble blood, and his standing in the community would be increased tenfold.

"Nah. He even tried to protect the others - Alcibiades was pretty adamant on that. I think we've managed to win another one for the 'vampires are not that bad' camp."

"I'll be sure to tell Justin. What do you think I should do about him presently?"

"Just in case, I'd get him out of NG until we're done with those low-lives." I buttoned up the blouse. "And maybe yourself, too."

"Just in case?" Eudokia tutted at my clumsy attempt at dressing and set to straightening the clothes.

"Hell if I know," I admitted as I submitted to her ministrations. And to think I'd thought Anton was particular about my clothing.

Speak of the devil, because right at that moment he poked his head in the door before the perfunctory knock had time to echo from wall to wall. I had a feeling he was also the one to blame for Eudokia's detailed knowledge of the dress sizes I wore, but all was quickly forgiven, since he was holding a tray with a coffee urn and enough pastries to feed a small army.

"Father mentioned you might want to replenish your energy," he said cheekily as I descended on the supplies of sugar and caffeine. "Just in case the meeting takes longer than expected."

I threw a crumpet at him, but of course he caught it in mid-air.

"I like the clothes," he remarked to Eudokia. "What's she going to do about the hair?"

"I was thinking of putting it up." Out of nowhere, she produced a truly frightening assortment of pins. "Bohemian gothic with Medusa overtones?"

"And black eye shadow." Standing together, the two of them looked like horror hosts. The Vampire Eye for the Mage Gal, maybe. "Silver glitter lipstick?"

"Definitely."

Three cups of coffee later, I was feeling almost human, but by that time my hair was arranged in charming disarray and my face had been painted with artful gloop that somehow managed to do all the right things and not look like clown paint. I'd hoped for a horde of beauty-minions that would distract those too-focused stares, but apparently even Byzantine vampire princesses subscribed to the universal vampire creed that taking care of your looks was best done yourself, just to make sure everything was perfectly as you wanted it.

My lips curled in a bitter grin as I stood in front of a mirror. Pale face, highlighted cheekbones, black and dark and silver. "I guess most vampire groupies don't go to these lengths."

"The right outfit for a vampire's consort, though." Anton threw an arm around my shoulder and ignored my glare.

Eudokia did a double-take. "You mean Kirill finally-"

I hissed, loudly.

"I think the way he put it was that he values his continued existence." Anton proved even better at dodging hairpins than crumpets.

I left the two of them to their snarking as I stormed out of the room. With my luck, I ran straight into Kirill.

"You look radiant," he declared as he kissed my hand.

"Like a corpse." I still smiled at him, because I knew he meant it as a compliment. I noticed he was in black and white as well, and the lace at his throat was woven in the same motifs as the ornaments on my coat. I wondered whose else compliance Eudokia had enlisted in her attempt to thank me for saving Justin's existence.

He caught on quick. "I think I left you in a better mood."

"Just Anton pulling my leg again." I rolled my eyes as we walked down the corridor, my hand on Kirill's arm. "And Doxie was helping him. I swear, one more person starts nagging me, I'm going to get a ring just to stop the Spanish Inquisition routine."

"I do hope you'll let me be the one to supply it." He said this in a perfectly serious voice, but with mischief in his eyes.

Even with all the coffee, I wasn't feeling up to arguing. "Topazes are nice," I said instead. "Which reminds me, my apartment isn't exactly livable now - I haven't checked in except that one phone call from the P.D., but it's bound to take a few weeks before I get the renovations done. Can I impose on you for that long? Because if not-"

He stopped me with a finger on my lips. "Do you really need to get that apartment renovated?"

"Cats," I reminded him. "Nosy neighbors that actually care. A place to go to so that I don't snap and kill you in the night."

"Your success seems to have made you vicious."

"Nah, that's because I didn't get to kill anyone. Want to help me work that off once we're free to go home?"

He laughed that deep fallen-angel laugh that never failed to send shivers down my spine. "Careful. I think Arthur would prefer we didn't disappear too quickly."

I schooled my face into a polite smile, since we were nearing the parlor and guests could be roaming the halls. "I didn't think I had the power to distract you that much."

"Rachel-" in Russian, my name was an endearment on Kirill's lips, the H soft and deep "-I trust you to get yourself out of difficult situations. Yet that does not mean I like it when you get into them."

I wanted to make a flippant comment, something that would make us both laugh at how overprotective he could be at times, but we were already at the doors to the parlor. I'd fallen into Kirill's rhythm, and now he slowed it down as we all but glided over the threshold.

Heads turned, and I was grateful to Eudokia's ministrations for the admiration in saw in people's eyes. For once I didn't have the feeling that I was a shabby-haired mongrel an aristocrat had taken an inexplicable liking to, but someone whose rightful place was in a place like this, on a handsome vampire's arm.

It would be seven years in January. I'd thought of running, briefly, in the pre-dawn light in the Latin Quarter, of letting the destruction of my home be the impulse to move and change and drift, but then, what was the point? I'd had my eightieth birthday the year before. High time to grow up, Rachel Malory.

The crowd, if larger, was similar to the one that had gathered at Darkspring Manor the previous Tuesday, but the mood was much different. Celebration, and preparations for war, I thought as Kirill and I separated to circulate around the room. They know who their enemies are, and they know they can be fought. There wouldn't be a group discussion, but a quiet consensus reached through the thrust and parry of verbal fencing, and then Ralph Green and his cohorts would have something to have nightmares about.

Arthur was certainly in better spirits as he intercepted me. "Rachel. I'm glad to see the trials of the past few days have failed to leave their mark on you."

I decided rolling my eyes did not go with the high-class vampire-groupie get-up. "And I'm glad to see you're getting into the swing of political untruths. I don't have to talk to everyone, do I?"

"Just the ones who wish to render their thanks for your daring rescue. I should hope it won't take more than an hour, but I'm expecting a distinguished guest and I would like you to be present when he gets here." He steered me towards the refreshments, giving me a break before I would have to hold court, and I saw some heads turn again as we walked past. I guessed my black and silver stood out in the company of Arthur's blue coat, and while he was a little shorter and lither than Kirill, the Prince of New Granada wasn't anything to scoff at.

"Promise you'll get someone to prop me up if I fall asleep on my feet?" I accepted a glass of champagne.

"I think I'll let Kirill Yevgenyevich do the honors in that regard. Far it be from me to infringe on his territory."

He accepted my glare with good grace, and then propelled me back into the fray. Virgil was at my side the second Arthur had disappeared. The werewolf leader looked positively civilized in evening clothes and with his long hair pulled back in a neat queue.

"I believe I owe you a large favor," he said.

"I'll be sure to collect." I bestowed a brilliant smile on him. "Or should I hoard it?"

He shook his head, turned serious. "You take it lightly. You saved a pack-mate's life. The pack will answer, when you call."

"That's a first." I looked into my glass, watched the play of light on the bubbles. "I value the gift and will not make ill use of it. May the Night look upon us and favor us with her grace."

Virgil's eyes lit up again, and he smiled like the predator he was. "And good hunting, Mallory. I hope you'll tear their throats out."

"I'll do my best. Unless others decide they would be better at leading the next stage of the assault?" It wasn't impossible - my specialty, so far, had been investigation, not urban warfare, not for a long time now.

"People used to wonder why the vampires valued your insight. I think you've proved that, today."

He put his hand on my shoulder in a way that brought him a little too close to me for comfort. I threw a pointed look across the room, where Kirill was just turning to glare at Virgil in what, for a vampire, was a restrained and polite manner of 'get your hands off my property', and the werewolf apparently felt it political to comply. Sometimes, the territorial vamp instincts can come in handy.

Once I'd pawned off Virgil on a resplendent Eudokia, I had to undergo the same treatment, save the sexual harassment, from Ophelia, the other pack leader in attendance. A quick exchange with Simon, consisting mostly of his griping about not letting him tag along on the real fun, thankfully ended my werewolf obligations for the evening before my graciousness got even more strained.

Natalie waylay me by the canapés. She was wearing white robes with a plunging neckline and a lace mantilla that made it clear the exposure to vampire fashion was working its magic.

"I didn't think I'd see you here," I said as I looked the buffet over. Predictably, everything was sugared or chocolate, and I didn't feel like adding another sugar rush to the caffeine and champagne and thirty-plus hours without sleep.

She looked down. "I think I owe you an apology. A confession. You know."

"Let me guess - you're not in New Granada to write your Finisterra thesis."

"How did you-"

"As much as I hate sounding like a valley girl, DUH." I exchanged my empty glass for a full one. "Since you're here, I take it you're not in the employ of Magdalene Publishing."

"Well, no." Her fingers were hopelessly tangled in a long strand of blonde hair. "I am writing a thesis, that's why he told me to come here, but I was also supposed to kind of keep an eye out. Last night, when you disappeared from that warehouse, when the news hit Alhambra, I told Magister Lowell, and I called - him - and he said he'd come as soon as possible."

I raised my eyebrow. So Arthur's 'distinguished guest' was little Natalie's boss. "And how does a Finisterra undergrad get into the spying business?"

"Investigations," she corrected me. Her eyes lit up as she told me, "I'm strong. I know I don't look it, but I really am, and in Finisterra if you're gifted, you get a mentor."

I nodded. Mine had been Theramenes, that old goat.

"I went through three. We just - didn't get along. And then two months ago Magister Ewig came to consult with someone in the Research Cathedra. I just fell into talking with him, and when he wrote to me a few weeks ago, asking for my help, well, he mentioned he used to be a mentor at Finisterra and-"

"Let me guess, he's tall, dark and handsome to boot?"

Her blush told me the rest.

"And he's working for?"

Natalie shook her head. "It's just a question of interest. It was like he knew something would happen."

I dropped my gaze to the glass in my hand. A few weeks ago, no-one had been kidnapped. A few weeks ago, Ralph Green's second book had hit the shelves, and the author himself had been completing the move to New Granada.

I was looking forward to meeting Natalie's Magister Ewig.

Muriel Phearieal swept me off next, all but genuflecting in thanks and dropping not particularly subtle hints that the job offer Alcibiades had extended was still valid. By the time I extricated myself from her clutches, my head was starting to hurt, so I tried to make my way over to the safer side of the room, the one full of velvet, lace and other vampire fashion staples, but it seemed like half of Alhambra wanted to make sure I'd noticed them, their gratitude and the way they hoped very much that the vampires would continue to efficiently take care of the problem.

I made a mental note to throw their words in their faces the next time the New Granada Propheteer published a cover article on vampire murders and the savagery of the undead.

The crowd was slowly starting to thin, but my headache was getting proportionally worse. I was looking around for a free bit of wall to prop myself against when Kirill materialized by my side. I was grateful for the support of his arm, and we made our way to the center of the vampire crowd. Arthur had disappeared somewhere, and Kirill and Eudokia were holding court, smoothly stoking the egos and allaying the fears of all the Alhambra prominents in attendance. I stood by Kirill's side, looked reasonably pretty and listened to Anton and Simon's subdued bickering about which of them was a better brawler, just in case either of them decided to test the other's claims.

I was looking at Natalie's face when the murmur in the room rose, heralding Arthur's return, and by the way she lit up I knew he had her mentor in tow. I took another sip of champagne and wondered how much longer this would all take until I could go home and finally fall asleep.

"Everyone," I heard Arthur say in an even voice that still managed to make itself heard over the crowd, "I would like to present our guest, Magister Gabriel Ewig. He is interested in the recent matter that had us preoccupied, and I hope that his insights will help us in our current predicament."

I was standing a little behind Kirill, and he was between me and the new arrival, but I could see the crowd parting as Arthur ferried Magister Ewig around, making introductions and exchanging pleasantries. I wondered how it was that Arthur, for all his military mean and penchant for curt efficiency, was so good at the diplomacy thing, never losing his patience without an aim behind it.

Then the crowd parted, and my breath caught in my throat.

Dark eyes met mine, and he froze as well. A beard again, I thought, less silly than that goatee.

There was a pain in my chest, tiny daggers stabbing from the inside.

A sharp sound, like breaking glass.

My hand hurt.

Distantly, I heard Arthur's cultured British accent. "-Yevgenyevich Rossov, a pillar of the city's commerce, and an activist in the council, and this of course is the heroine of the hour-"

A step, a movement in the room that stood stock still and oh gods and goddesses and spirits, he was going, I couldn't let him touch me-

"Rachela." A catch in his voice.

So quiet, all eyes upon me again. I needed to acknowledge that, yes?

"Jibril."

My voice was steady, and the fire of pride warmed me. My hand was warm too, warm and hurting like Rachela Tepper who was dead and buried and in pain.

And then he reached out to me, and my hand moved faster.

The shards of the shattered glass cut three lines on his cheek, and the champagne mixed with my blood splattered redly on his face. He closed his eyes.

I turned on my heel. There were six steps to the door, then just lift my hands, studied, graceful movement, and open them, clearing my way with the poise I'd studied for so long, the style I envied in vampires. I had the key to it, finally, in this ice and fire and hunger and despair, and a flash of happiness shook my body in a silent sob.

I stood still until the door closed behind me, and then I ran.

There was a staircase in the north tower, abandoned and dusty. I curled up on the landing by the window that stretched the whole height of the stair. I pressed my bloodied hand to the cold glass and tried not to think about Jibril As Samad and Katanga and fire in the night. I listened to the snake scream.

Day 27: 2,885 words; 45,020 total

Part 10: Make it personal

The door of my apartment building closed behind me like a coffin snapping shut. My feet found each step down, balance on the crag in the concrete just before hitting the asphalt, like I always do, little rituals that you find yourself inventing once you've been living in one place for over half a decade. My mind was elsewhere.

It wasn't premonition, the Sight, any half-formalized prestidigitator dreck like that. Just knowledge of the way people's minds worked. Having your own brain vivisected from the lobes down, and other lovely things he'd done to me in Katanga, meant I was intimately acquainted with the thought processes of someone in love with both the guru and the cause.

Mandii didn't have the advantage I had. She was still wrapped in all the layers of humanity and dreams and nightmares, and I hadn't felt like stripping them away. Not for someone who'd lied that much, hurt people I cared about - I'm a bitch like that. So with every step I took away from the building, I was drawing in more breath, ready to hold it when-

Fire.

A breath of hot air swooping over me, the tinkle of glass, car alarms flaring in the night.

The street was wet with pre-dawn dew, and it reflected the flames in the windows of the place I'd called home. Nothing but glass on the street; they built those buildings strong, and damage would be minimal. Just whoever had opened the door.

Something soft brushed against my leg. I picked up Miss Daisy and scratched her ear.

"Nice fireworks."

Genevieve was leaning against a beat-up Chevy Corsica, one of those interchangeable nineties sedans where you have to look at the maker's sign to find out if you're dealing with domestic or import, with Dave's Pre-Owned Cars tags still glued to the gravel-matted grille. The sunglasses were pushed up, holding her hair back, and she'd traded in the Barbie Girl t-shirt for a Victorian blouse that was definitely borrowed from some vampire's closet. William Gibson does Alice in Wonderland.

Darklighter was crouched on the hood of the car and doing his best to smile.

"More answers," I told her. "Give me fifteen minutes."

"You've got it."

Mrs Cortez was not only awake, but completely unsurprised by my appearance, bloodstains and all. She even let me use the shower as she cooed over the cats and fed them prime grade ground beef. Another flash of not quite insight told me that the next time I saw Darklighter and Miss Daisy, they would be wider than they were long.

My top was a write-off, but I managed to use it to get the blood off my jacket, and surprisingly not much had soaked through to the slip I'd worn under it. Both that and the jeans were black, which showed neither stains nor moisture, after I'd washed the blood off. Mrs Cortez calmly recommended a blood-remover I should try once I got home, and I made a mental note to check if she and Kirill's housekeeper were related. Maybe it was just a Mexican matron thing.

Genevieve's car smelled of patchouli and pipe tobacco, and she turned out to be a decently competent driver. I played with the radio dial until I found a station playing older-than-oldies. Strangers in the Night, and the sun was rising over the towers of the financial district. It didn't have far to go; for reasons that have more to do with protective spells than zoning regulations, few buildings in New Granada are higher than six floors or thereabouts.

"Where to?" she asked.

"The airport." I shook my head as I saw her eyes open wide. "No flights. I just need to buy a book."

The kiosks at the airport were the only booksellers in town open at a quarter past six in the morning. I could have told her to get me to Kirill's and picked up my own copy from wherever Anton had left it, but I didn't feel like talking to either of the vampires in my life. Not yet, not when the snake was going strong and my anger let me surf the synchronicity highway, pieces falling into place as soon as I laid my eyes on them.

Time mattered.

I did call Merle while Genevieve stood in line to get a macchiato and a dried-out sandwich. She'd offered to get me something, but the tightness in my stomach told me there wouldn't be any point to it. Merle was uncharacteristically obedient, getting on the case without any questions beyond the necessary and delivering results before I had time to disconnect the call. I knew he'd be calling Kirill as soon as the line was free, but I also knew my boss, friend - I ignored the snake's hiss that might have been another word - would know when it was time to let me do my own thing.

I told Genevieve the address and she just shrugged, then hit the gas. The Starbucks-clone cardboard cup tottered in the broken cup holder that had been glued together with duct tape.

"How did you find me?" I asked as I thumbed through the book. I'd never made my way through the sequel, but I was hoping the first one would give me information enough, at least for what I was going to do.

"I've got a file on you, too." She changed the station, but since she chose bright Mexican pop, I didn't protest. "There's your home address. They noticed you were gone when Arthur wanted to ask you about the guy you've done in outside - the werewolf was saying he didn't catch anything, but you did - and I sort of volunteered to get you, as an uninvolved party. Your guy seemed relieved. You didn't break up or anything?"

"No." The last few pages of the book were left blank, and I used them to jot down notes. "Kirill Yevgenyevich knows that I can be difficult at times - I respond better to unfamiliar agents, and to females. It's just the way I am."

"What's with all the shrink talk? You're all like you were in therapy or stuff."

"You've read the file." The pieces were almost forming a whole picture now. There were advantages of having a direct line to your subconscious.

"Just wondering if it had the whole story."

"Of course it doesn't."

She just gave me a look, like she was thinking who she'd have to choke to get some answers. I wasn't particularly worried; Lucian had dealt with worse up to and including being burned at the stake, and all the other suspects were safely beyond her reach, in one way or another.

The morning traffic was picking up by the time we got back within New Granada city limits, but I wasn't worried about missing my prey. Among the things Merle had clogged my e-mail inbox with was a summary of common interview questions, and the average work day happened to be among them. By now he would be sitting at his desk, writing drivel. Or planning another kidnapping, murder, strike against the powers of New Granada Night.

For a moment, I was tempted to get a sniper rifle, find the right rooftop and solve all my problems with a single shot.

One of the reasons I gave up on the idea was because there wasn't a right rooftop in sight, not once we saw what the house looked like. Clearview Heights, much newer part of the district than Darkspring Manor, but almost as ritzy. The grounds were spacious enough that we could barely see the front door from the entrance gate at the bottom end of the drive. Enough occult symbols on the gate to give multiple orgasms to members of a dozen secret societies.

A guard waved us down in front of the gate, and for a moment I wished I'd picked a vampire companion who could just look him down. Then again, it was daytime, so we would have been s.o.l. either way.

And Genevieve turned out to be even more useful. She waved a laminated card in front of the guy. "FBI. We have questions for the master of this house."

"I have to call-" he stuttered.

"Listen, buster, we're sitting here talking and back outside, there's people killin' the troops and taking hard-earned A-MER-ican money." California accent morphed into the back end of Texas at the drop of a ten-gallon hat. "So do right by the boys in black and don't give me any shit, comprende?"

"Smooth," I remarked as the guy hurried to open the gate.

"Thanks." She threw me an inscrutable look. "You know, I'm counting on you to have a plan once we get there."

I bared my teeth in an approximation of a smile. "Just stay quiet and look cute. You're the good cop."

"Now that's one for the books." The radio turned off as she shut down the engine, but she kept whistling Me Gustas Tu all the way up the stairs to the mansion. She pulled the shades over her eyes as we went inside, and the melody changed to Black Suits Coming.

The house was mock-Tudor, plastic window frames and Soviet reproduction papyri trying to look like something they weren't. A couple of girls in skirt-suits in Chinese labor camp blue tried to head us off, but Genevieve flashed whatever it was she was using for ID, and they fell back, flailing for their cell phones.

I took out my own phone. I'd typed a message in the car, struggling with the configurations of alphanumericals, and now I hit send just before we pushed through the last set of carved doors.

He didn't look like much. Round face, cleft chin, thinning dirty blond hair whose length didn't disguise the fact that it wanted nothing to do with the domed forehead. Deep gimlet-like eyes with a good-natured stare that made him look like an elderly hamster.

Just like his back cover photo.

I didn't wait for him to invite me to sit down. "Good morning, Mr Green."

"Ms Malory. And Ms Sands, I presume." There were pop-occult books open all over the table, and he picked them up one by one, closing them after sliding in bookmarks and stacking them neatly on the sides. "How may I help you?"

I cocked my head, as if I had to think on this. I moved my jaw a little, heard it pop. To the side, Genevieve walked around the room, reading the book spines and getting fingerprints all over the artifacts.

"Making money off Daylighters has downsides," I finally said. "The system swallows you, and then you have to play by two sets of rules. If the police were to search this place, they wouldn't like finding people kept against their will."

"Ms Malory, trust me when I say your nocturnal friends are not the only ones with influence." The way he said it, more than the actual words, was what convinced the upper, hesitant and constrained part of me that my instincts had been correct.

The snake coiled around my brain happily. Up to you now, Rachel dear. You're the one with people skills.

"Mount De Vries is rock," I said. "There are no tunnels. If you play with the cops' minds, the Tribunal gets you. I think that's something you want to avoid at this stage."

"You think right." The round dark eyes narrowed into slits, and I could practically hear the cogs whirring.

I didn't hear the door open, just saw Genevieve's head whip around. Her hand went to her side, then lowered hesitantly. I knew why as soon as the newcomer walked up to the desk.

He looked seventeen, tops, and probably closer to fifteen. Lean build, track and field or martial arts. Narrow face with wide, generous lips and a pair of brown eyes that looked friendlier than anything I've seen this side of the cow pastures in New Granada Zoo. His hair stuck up every which way as if he'd just got out of bed, a fact corroborated by the New Granada Crusaders pajamas and the fluffy crocodile slippers.

The snake flickered up, curious, but I pushed it down and calmly withstood the boy's scrutiny.

"I'm Sean," he offered suddenly.

"Mal." Something stopped me from offering my full name. "Morning."

"Mm." He turned to our host. "Ralph, she's making sense. We don't need them anymore."

"I think that's my decision to make." Green looked grumpy. "We do not know if she will not need them-"

I doubted he was talking about me now, and I took copious mental notes.

"I'm the tactics guy, right?" Sean wrinkled his face like a pissed-off Chihuahua puppy. "My call. Come on, Mal, I'll show you."

I took a last look at Ralph Green as we walked out of the office, following Sean's fluffy slippers. He was sitting stock-still, like a hamster that's just been told it's too old and his master is going to have him stuffed before the rest of his fur falls out.

Dungeons are supposed to be underground, but I guessed the rocky terrain limited not only Arthur's crypt options. The room Sean showed us to was ground-level, not far from the door. Handy for outsourcing torture, I thought, because I didn't see Green sullying his own hands with it.

Sean unlocked the doors and stepped aside. As I walked past him, he took a soft, hissing breath, his lips opened in a u.

Heads snapped around to face us as we walked in, those that were able to.

The werewolf girls were in the middle of the room, holding each other tight. They trembled and watched me with half-crazed eyes, like dogs that have been kicked around too long. There were silver collars around their necks, and deep angry burns where the metal touched the skin. A flaxen-haired woman - Malvina, I remembered, the kidnapped hedge witch who ran the herb shop in the lower concourse of Alhambra - was half-hidden behind them, gray with shock. Losing what looked like half the flesh of an arm tends to do that to people.

The other two missing witches were lying on the floor, too exhausted to do anything but look up at us. Justin stood over them, and I had to look twice to recognize him. He was pale and preternatural, his eyes flashing dark even now that the sunlight outside had leeched all his power. There was little trace of the boy who'd fallen in love with Eudokia and been willing to both die and live for her. He trembled with hunger, and yet there were no marks on any of the other prisoners.

I bowed to him, just as deep as I would have done to Arthur, and he bowed back. Rituals, I thought, show truth about who and what we are.

I felt a key-ring pressed into my hand, and I took it without a glance at Sean. He went to the werewolves, taking off their collars with surprising tenderness, and I crossed the room to loose Justin's shackles before turning to the women he was protecting. He put his arms around me; he smelled of hunger and blood-sweat, but he made no move to drink, again.

Then I saw the dark corner of the room, and what it held.

Someone had burned Alcibiades' resplendent beard, and it hung like seaweed off a sharp chin, but he paid no attention to the remnants of his vanity. Not with what - who - he held in his arms.

Justin let go of me and fell into step beside me, vampire instincts telling him what to do in a way that belied the fact vampire manners are so much more in-born than ingrained. I went down on one knee, reached out, faltered and then persevered.

Willem's eyes had been burned out.

When I spoke his name, his face turned slowly towards me, but he gave no sign of recognition. I swallowed down the burn of anger and looked at Justin and Alcibiades.

"Who cannot walk on their own?" My voice was calm, calmer than I thought it would be.

"Willem and Margreta," Justin told me. "We can manage-"

Then an angry snarl from Genevieve, and we turned to see Sean pick up the gray-haired form of Margreta Laisi. He looked surprised to see himself the object of so much scrutiny. "The car's in the drive, right?"

"Yes," I bit off. "Lead the way."

Others had trouble walking too, but between us we managed to get everyone into Genevieve's car. The werewolf girls had no problems with squeezing down in each other's laps, as they completely refused to let go of each other, and somehow everyone else got in, Justin holding the prone form of Margreta Laisi, who seemed even more damaged than Willem was.

I looked at Sean for a long time. "I'll be wanting answers," I told him.

"To want is to sin," he said cheerfully. "You should ask until the Lady grants you her grace."

"Is that what you do?"

He seemed surprised. "Sure. What else is there to do?"

I shook my head and got into the car. He knocked on the window and waited until I rolled it down.

"I'll be seeing you."

Day 26: 400 words; 42,127 total

Interlude: New Granada Police Department Case File I/A/20051014103

TRANSCRIPT OF ITEM 24, DIGITAL ANSWERING MACHINE WELCOME MESSAGE FOUND IN THE APARTMENT OF THE DECEASED

Voice 1: [female, identified as Amanda Carlton-Hughes, the deceased] Hi, hello and ohayo, this is Mandii's house and it's quiet as a mouse, so leave your note - fuck, messed up again-

[footsteps]

Voice 1: [from further away, possibly in the corridor] Who... Oh, you scared me. Was my door open, because I didn't hear you come in, I mean, I do this all the time, you want tea or something?

Voice 2: [female, unidentified] I don't think so.

[female scream]

Voice 2: I know, Mandii.

Voice 1: [high, hesitant] How?

Voice 2: Kevin Blakely.

[fingernails scraping over glass] [see Item 08, blood residue on the kitchen window] [see Missing Person file NG20051016082]

Voice 2: Sorry. I haven't had time to take a shower. [laughs] There's just one thing I don't get. What do they have on you? Money? Power? Pure fanatic high? You don't look the type.

Voice 1: You wouldn't understand.

[noise - hypothesis: someone being knocked into a wall]

Voice 2: Try me.

Voice 1: It's not a choice - she has to rule. [emphatic] She must rule. It's like asking a brick why it chose to fall down with the whole building.

Voice 2: I thought better of you, Mandii.

[pause]

Voice 1: Get out.

Voice 2: Since when are you the one giving the orders here, little mouse?

Voice 1: Your place-

Voice 2: I know. I smelled the gas.

Voice 1: [strained - tears?] You know, I'd just like to do the right thing once. I can't kill you, I can't save your life - it's like it doesn't matter if I'm even there or not.

Voice 2: You wanted to kill me?

Voice 1: They told me to. Ral-

Voice 2: I know that, too.

[someone touching new leather]

Voice 1: Is that Kevin's blood?

Voice 2: Yes.

Voice 1: You really should go now.

Voice 2: Mandii.

[sound of kissing]

Voice 1: Go.

Voice 2: May the night be with you on your way.

[footsteps]

[door opening, closing]

[sobs]

[footsteps and door opening, again]

[entering code on the security lock]

AT THIS MOMENT THE RECORDING ENDS DUE TO EXCEEDING THE DIGITAL STORAGE CAPACITY OF THE ANSWERING MACHINE

ADNOTATION: CASE CLOSED, 2005/11/02, OFFICER IN CHARGE: DETECTIVE CARMILLA DELACOUR, NIGHT DUTY, NEW GRANADA METRO STATION

Days 24-25: 4,701 words; 41,727 total

Part 9: Bringing down the house

Maps turn even the coziest, darkest alleys into lines and letters, clean and sharp and all too simple.

I've never trusted them.

I didn't intend to start so now, even though everyone else seemed hell-bent on running over my intended route until they could run it backwards and blindfolded themselves. I saw no point to it. I knew where I would have to go.

For a moment, I toyed with the idea of not following the route at all. There were enough empty cellars in that corner of New Granada, enough places where no-one would hear screams.

Can it, Rachel, I told myself. You know the vamps are way better at torturing people than you have any hope of being.

Arthur was in his element as he walked around the parlor and made sure everyone remembered their roles. He even had a reed to wave around. I was tempted to find a shako for him.

He saw me looking at him. "Are you sure of the power balance?" he asked. "I would prefer if you had two bodyguards and arrived there in a car."

I searched for printable ways of telling him to stop questioning me. Finally I settled for a shrug before I turned on my heel and slunk off to rejoin Kirill by the wall. Arthur commenced another re-run of the plan, stopping every once in a while to question someone about their role in it. He made sure to pick on other vampires more often than on the werewolves in the room.

"You won't tell me to rethink this?" I put my head on Kirill's shoulder. With yesterday's whirlwind pace, neither of us had felt like talking it all through the night before.

"I trust your judgment." His fingernails scraped my neck, just sharp enough to make me shiver. "I know you don't take unnecessary risks."

"I did get away from the suckers once."

"They will be alerted." He lowered his head until he could whisper directly in my ear. "Their agents in the Alhambra will have told them of your role in the investigation. They considered you a danger even before."

"And they were right." I barely bothered to vocalize, trusting his vampire ears to hear me either way. "How do you know there are spies?"

"That's what you think, isn't it?"

We shared a smile as I realized that Kirill had been the one to talk Arthur into not involving any Alhambra presence in the plan, even before I could get to them. "Stop being so damn sweet," I hissed. "You're making me blush."

"Is that possible?" He was close enough that I could see every individual eyelash as they fell down over his eyes. Suddenly he looked serious. "Don't get distracted."

"Never." I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

Then I walked out. I wondered how long it would take everyone to notice the action had started.

Simon caught up with me before I'd gone past the front door, of course. It takes a lot more than a head start to shake loose a werewolf, and Simon was completely psychotic on top of that.

His empty head made a nice ringing sound as I knocked it into a wall. He must not have expected that, since he just blinked and grinned.

"Paws to yourself," I hissed.

He took it in stride and bounced up to my side again. I hoped he would be just as untiring in worrying at our enemies. Virgil swore up and down Simon was his best wolf, but I've never trusted him farther than Anton could throw him, which amounted to about forty feet the last time we carried out that particular experiment.

A click of heels announced that Genevieve was at my back as well. I threw her a pair of shades, heard the impact of plastic on leather as she caught them in a gloved hand.

"They'll have our descriptions, and they'll know we know they have them," I explained as I put my own pair on. The world took on a faint golden sheen. "Let's look like we're trying to pass under the radar."

"Hello, fieldwork pro." Genevieve's laugh was bright, infectious. "So what now, do we hold hands?"

"You two, yes." This deserved doing it properly, so I took out the knife from my forearm-sheath and sliced a shallow line across the back of my hand. "And don't look away from me, no matter what happens. Get ready to run."

Mind, sight, words. "Lady of the Labyrinths..."

The streets of Clearview were not the perfect place to get lost, but it's been a long time since I needed to be that literal, not with time and a clear mind to guide me. I imagined the labyrinth on the pavement in front of me, lines crossing and curving and disappearing into the mist that was my thoughts.

And then I stepped forward.

Foot over foot, and then both of my feet in the air at the same time before hitting pavement, cobblestones, rushes. The crackle of bones, a bird skull crumbling, and I almost fell, but the momentum held. Following my nose, my mouth open in a soft u, directing air to olfactory cells that had vanished several evolutionary steps ago.

Behind me, Genevieve's heels and Simon's Docs, and his mouth would be open the same way, I knew.

Steps, crumbling stone and then iron, and wood that threatened to give in under my feet. I felt an instinct to jump, and in the next moment it was sand, sliding and slipping down the side of a dune, and I took a deep breath and felt it.

The entertainment quarter smelled of sweat and blood and opium smoke, olfactory shorthand several centuries old. There had been a Chinese prostitution district large enough to rival San Francisco's, I remembered, and there was still one boarded-up house where disease of the brain reached through a century of death and pushed everyone away, leaving the ghosts of the whores to rest where they had fallen.

We hit the ground running, and I was pleased to see that I'd aimed it well, an empty alley three blocks to the south of Charlie's place. I let Simon and Genevieve catch their breath as I licked the blood from my hand and wiped the droplets from my face.

"What a way to fly." Genevieve looked a little rankled. "You do that often?"

"Comes in handy if you can't hail a cab." My thoughts were elsewhere. "Let's hit it."

I didn't wait for their confirmations before I set off. I caught the rhythm of the crowd quickly: Friday night on St Germain, any sin and any fun you care to name and a host you'd rather not. A punk bumped into me, I let loose a stream of Yiddish profanities that got me an applause from a working girl, a guy in a checkered shirt took offense with the punk, I ducked the melee and went straight into a break dance shout-out on the sidewalk, battle of the bands with joint damage optional. They whistled at me as I pranced through, and Gloria Estefan invited us all to do the conga. Kids.

I skipped the line at Charlie's again, blew Rocky a kiss and endured his ribbing on my tastes for undead bloodthirsty jailbait. I got offended on Anton's behalf, though not enough to make me stop.

It was pushing on the witching hour, and the club was rocking. The cages were full now, girl- and boy-flesh flexing in the strobe lights, flashing red and green and purple like a circle of hell for the discerning customer.

I felt drunk, high on noradrenaline and the white heat that came from being in action.

I was keeping my eyes out, but Leslie found me first. "Nice to see you. Does this mean it's over?" Leslie held me close enough to kiss, but I didn't protest, since that was about the only way bar shouting to be heard above the music, which was building up to a crescendo. "You here to have fun?"

"Mostly, yeah." I flashed a grin, then perched on the bar. I felt an urge to go up to the cages and ask for amateur night, but I told the snake to go stuff itself with its own tail. I pitched my voice high enough to carry over the din. "It's all over save the sweeping up. They won't know what hit them."

The music ended abruptly, and my last words rang out over the club. I took stock of the heads that turned my way rather than towards the buzz-cut man who'd pulled the plug on the DJ's equipment and was grinning like it was the funniest thing he'd ever done.

Good doggie.

"Bitch," Leslie hissed. It looked like Simon was right about being a known face in the crowd at Charlie's.

"Wolf," I corrected.

"I know what I said."

It looked like Rocky was on the job, or at least on top of Simon, trying to drag the werewolf out of the club. Simon wasn't exactly cooperating.

"Sugar, I think you're calling the wrong person 'bitch'." This was Genevieve, shimmying up to me and giving Leslie a taxing look. "How about the babe that asks someone to go to a club with her, and then breezes through security while leaving me to eat dust with the rest of the plebes?"

"Shouldn't have got left behind, then." Instead of introductions, I just waved between them, leaving them to exchange pleasantries as I flagged down a bartender and ordered drinks all around.

"Here's to cases solved." Genevieve's teeth reflected the cycling strobes. "We've earned it."

Through the bottom of my glass, amber rainbow of flickering light, I met a guy's eyes. He was trying hard not to look interested, but he should have worn shades like I did. Too much desperation there, painfully obvious now that I was riding the noradrenaline wave, relaxed and ready to strike.

And maybe bite, and that thought came at the same moment that the scuffle near the DJ's booth became a full-out brawl. I made a note to make sure anyone Simon bit or scratched got the dose of antibiotics that would mean they wouldn't have to howl at every full moon, and then I was moving. Genevieve's hand slipped from my arm. Leslie was gone, pushing through the crowd in the direction of the manager's room. Such loyalty, Charlie commands.

Which reminded me. I owed them both something nice, once this was over. Dinner? Roses?

I ducked between confused dancers, let the undercurrent carry me towards the door. Leaving the club just like anyone who doesn't want to get caught in a Friday night fight, and Mr Desperate-Eyes was right behind me. Talking on his cell phone. I wished I were closer.

Did you know you can cast spells through a phone? And people wonder why I screen my calls.

The air outside was October-chilly, but not for my skin, still warm from the club. The people dispersed into all directions; there are rules and rituals to a New Granada Friday night, and none of them includes hanging around until the police arrive. I ducked into a squalid alley - I remembered the clean orange line on Arthur's map, more fool it - and a shadow behind me turned the same corner.

Steady, I thought.

"Mal?" The voice was unfamiliar, though the name was. Then again, half of the mages I knew in NG called me that - 'Rachel' is for vampires and work, in that order - so it wasn't anything anyone couldn't have told them.

I made a puzzled 'uh' noise as I stopped and half turned, as if I weren't sure he was addressing me.

"There's some people who want to talk with you," he continued. Tall, business suit. Desperate Eyes was hovering at the corner behind him.

I let my body curl in, edges out, full fight or flight response. "I don't think so."

He went for his neck - an amulet - ready for the spell he knew I was about to cast. Casting takes words and gestures, weaving the magic, and good warding's just activation, so defense is always faster.

And then I turned and ran.

His footsteps echoed in the alley only seconds after mine, and soon they weren't the only ones. I knew they'd be near - the attacks proved they were abroad - but the speed with which my shadows multiplied astonished me. Labyrinths, I thought, serious magic really few people used, which meant I'd been damn lucky the first time they'd attacked me. That, or I hadn't rated the attention of the more powerful mage before. Just another vamp slut gets treated differently than co-head of investigations into their shady business. Who'd have guessed.

I turned another corner, and the snake cut in.

It was unconscious, automatic. Rachel runs, Rachel turns, Rachel is faced with a seven-foot black-skinned giant with Iron Hand of St Jacob written all over him. His arms swung, gorilla crouch, and just low enough.

And then a jump, up and over, and if my boot left an impression in his forehead, ask me if I cared.

I heard a roar as I ran, and I remembered the book said they'd cut their own tongues out so that they could never betray their god. Or their goddess.

A bullet whizzed past, striking wide. Lovely.

Six of them behind me now, heavy boots. I chanced a look as I turned into another alley, leading them deeper into the maze that had long changed from shows to warehouses, and I saw there was just one Iron Hand. Black coat, black skin, no bling now, no need for camouflage. But the others looked local, and that was good.

Inside me, the snake coiled, well-fed and ready to strike. I'd fed it like a good girl, though there was still the box in my purse - back at Darkspring Manor. Get thee behind me, tempter.

I was on the home stretch now, and even on a bad day I'm hard to outrun. The doors to yet another warehouse hung half open, and I burst inside.

Then I stopped in front of a blank expanse of wall. No exits. No windows large enough. Walkways over my head, but not low enough to jump. No weapons at hand, except sheets of corrugated iron here and there on the floor, and I'd have to be much taller to wield one effectively.

The warehouse was mid-sized. The rays of street-glow falling through scattered skylights were cathedral columns, or maybe some night-forest, just the setting for a hunt and a kill.

I felt their approach more than I heard it. Rubber soles, I thought, the curse of the vigilant. I turned, hiding in shadows, slipping between the trees of light.

They were walking now. They had to know the district, know I had no place left to run.

Iron Hand came first, and I saw that what I'd taken for a black coat was a monk's robe, coarse and light-swallowing. Business Suit was right behind him, and I wondered if he'd still do the talking. Just a stooge, or something more? Then a pair that was regular white trash wannabes, Eminem hair and lost looks. Clones, I thought, born and bred to grab at a cause and stick to it until something ran them over. An older guy in a checkered shirt and a rodeo belt buckle, Lumberjack Cowboy to the T, was the last one before Desperate Eyes edged over the threshold. A nod from Business Suit, and they spread out clumsily. Flashlights flickered on, pinning me in place.

Quill Killers. Quill Clowns sounded more like it.

For a moment, all was still. I knew they wouldn't try to kill me outright: there were answers they needed to get, and if they had wanted to interrogate me back on Sunday night, now it was that much more urgent.

And another set of footsteps in the dark.

Five flashlights swiveled around automatically, though Iron Hand kept his trained on me. Simon stood in the warehouse doors, smiling sweetly.

"Sorry, sweetheart." It came out as 'showwy', the elongated jaws giving him an accent that could have dubbed over Sean Connery with no-one being the wiser. "Traffic was a killer."

One of the beams of light illuminating him wavered in figure-eights. Desperate Eyes, and I could bet he'd never seen a werewolf halfway to beast form before. So much for werewolves being involved in the conspiracy, just in case anyone ever went for that crackpot theory. As if they ever did anything more complicated than a night raid without someone doing the planning for them.

I took a step forward. My foot hit a sheet of iron, and the sound echoed from wall to wall. The lights swiveled again, four on me and two on Simon now.

"There's some people who want to talk with you." I gave them my sweetest smile. "So if you do, you'll just save yourself a whole lot of trouble."

"Fuck you, bitch," one of the Eminem Clones offered.

I ran the fingers of my left hand through my hair, pushing it up, turning my head into my own caress like a sleepy cat. My nails reflected in the flashlights, and the glitter of cheap nail polish looked like fairy dust. I tugged my hand down again, wrapping greedily around the sunglasses, tugging them down with exquisite slowness. Finally I looked up at the clowns again.

I had their undivided attention.

"Silly rabbits," I said softly.

Eminem Number One was the first to go down when a werewolf landed on his head. I winced - the walkways were at least twenty feet over the floor, and if I were closer, I'd hear the bones breaking. Never mind. We had five more to get our answers from.

Iron Hands moved towards me like a freight train, roaring in that tongueless voice, and I got out of the way, fast. Someone caught me in the darkness, with vampire-cool hands, and I let myself be dragged further back. Leather and nylon, rings on the fingers that held my arms, cologne rather than hash, so had to be one of Eudokia's-

A shot rang out.

I was moving before I registered it as a Gatling gun. Lumberjack framed in a column of light, his lips pulled back in a grimace, the gun falling into the pool of his entrails. A young vampire in front of him, wide-eyed, surprised at the devastation caused by one strike of his hand. Silver claw-rings, silly goth frippery, slick with blood.

The vampire's other arm ended in shards of meat and bone, gone with the pull of the trigger, and I knew I'd never hold the kill against him.

Someone finally had the idea to turn on the lights, and the overhead halogens snapped on with loud thuds, timed to the strikes of Iron Hand's fists as he scattered the werewolves that were attacking him. Eminem Clone Number Two was backed into a corner, switchblade against werewolf claws, and that was a bloodbath in the making, because only one side could fight on with an arm cut off or a heart chamber pierced. Business Suit had tried to run, but the vamps were on him - I recognized Shadow kneeling on the guy's back, and hoped his notions of dark revenge would make allowances for finding out the brains behind all this.

I hoped there would be someone left to question. This was not going according to my plan.

Then I saw Desperate Eyes disappearing through the warehouse doors, Simon giving chase. I rushed after them, weaving through the fight, letting the snake carry me forward. Pain in my side, and I'd be paying for it later, but not now, not on the wings of the fight and the cordite and the blood.

I didn't have far to run. Simon had Desperate Eyes pinned to a wall just outside the warehouse, claws out, making sure the guy didn't so much as blink. He pushed him at me as soon as I stopped, and I got up in the guy's face with a snarl, then punched him in the gut. I knew I'd do much more damage than the thugs who'd tried to work me over; it's not about strength as much as knowing where to hit. Simon grabbed the guy from behind, slobbering on a t-shirt already wet with nervous sweat. Get close, get personal, let them get that the rules don't apply to you: we both knew the rules.

I caught Desperate Eyes' chin in my hand. "You should have talked," I hissed. "The end's the same. Who's giving you orders?"

"A-abomination!"

His voice was scratchy and barely audible, but at least it was an improvement on 'fuck off, bitch'.

I grinned. "Got it in one. Now, what's so important to you? What is it they have on you to have you slumming like this?"

That got his attention, and his eyes all but lit up. There was a street lamp over our heads, and in its dim light I saw his face change. Gone was the bundle of nerves, a little office monkey dropped in water far too deep. Instead I was facing someone full of conviction. Faith. He looked like a fresh priest celebrating his first mass.

There was even a damn gregorian lilt in his voice. "We're preparing the way..."

"The way for what?" I grabbed the front of his shirt, pushed him back into Simon. Anything to break this trance, take these newfound foundations away from him. I needed him nervous and scared, damn it.

He just looked at me like I was vermin. Somewhere, I heard gunshots again.

"Answer!" Simon grabbed him from behind, pressed a clawed hand against his throat. Any move, and these claws would carve four extra smiles, sharp as scalpels and much less merciful.

"Who?" I hissed. "WHO?"

His lips opened, and it was a relief, he was going to talk, tell me who I had to kill and maim and get this over with. And then I looked back into his eyes, and it was all terribly wrong.

He jerked then, before we could react, and his blood was hot on my face, hot like a Katanga night. The arterial spray drenched me. It painted a lace fan of rivulets on the wall.

"No," I whispered. "No."

Simon's hands opened of their own volition. I followed the man - the body - to the floor, and saw the lips one last time.

Magda, he mouthed, and then was still.

So was the air, I realized - the sounds of the fight were over now. I wondered if it meant I had to go back inside. Instead, I leaned against the wall and watched the blood drip off my fingers. Simon knelt by my side and stared at the body, like a child who has accidentally broken a doll and is wondering how to put it together again. He was turning back to human form, hair by hair, and instead of wet fur he now smelled of human sweat and blood.

Something poked my shoulder, and I looked up to see Arthur standing over us. I batted at the reed he'd used to prod me, and he put it under my chin, making me meet his eyes.

"How?" His voice was calm and soft, like we were having tea instead of standing in carnage.

"Suicide by werewolf claws." I reached out and let him pull me up. "Does it matter?"

"Only because that fact leaves the score at three for three." He looked tired, almost as tired as I felt, and I realized mission planning might be the harder part of the job. "I suppose it is fortunate, in that there is no point in Virgil and I blaming each other for the outcome."

Oh, hell. All the little Indians were dead, then. I didn't bother hiding my dark look. "I wanted information."

"I know." He offered me his hand again and solicitously helped me over the puddle of blood as he steered me back into the warehouse, never mind that I was already covered with it. "We will have to ascertain another means of obtaining it. In the meantime, we have diminished the enemy's manpower, which proved the advantages of the active approach you recommended."

"Thank you." I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Kirill intercepted us as soon as we came inside. He took one look at my blood-stained state and deftly separated me from Arthur's tender care. The prince gave us a vaguely amused look and swept off to verbally eviscerate his blundering storm troopers.

The state of my clothes blended in with the new warehouse décor, that was for sure. Blood and entrails everywhere. I couldn't see Iron Hand's body, so that was probably where the torn fragments of bone and flesh had come from.

"What happened?" I muttered into Kirill's shoulder. I batted annoyedly at his inspecting hands. "I'm fine, no-one touched me."

"A combination of stupidity on our part and determination on theirs." He seemed convinced, or at least not prepared to contest the point, because his hands settled at my shoulders. "The first one died because that wolf just didn't aim - sheer bad luck. The second, we weren't prepared for that level of brutality-"

"I'd've thought they'd bring out the Gatling on me, if they had one," I interrupted him. "I don't think that's anyone's fault."

"Yes. That was when I turned the lights on, which improved our chances. The blond one went down fighting - the wolves may have been more careful, but if it's fifteen against two, control comes hard."

"Blood-lust." I heard the tremble of a choked-down giggle in my voice.

Kirill briefly nuzzled my cheek, which brought my attention to the fact that bloodied as I was, I was probably smelling damn tasty to him, and everyone else in the warehouse. Maybe the night wouldn't be such a waste after all.

"Shadow took down the one in the suit, but not for long," he continued. "They pushed him around, and someone slipped. He got away and reached the Gatling. There isn't much left of his head."

"Suicide, instead of killing?" The blood was starting to dry on my face, making my nose itch. "They're not anti-vamp or anti-werewolf fanatics, then."

"No." He sighed. "The black one was my blunder. He went through five werewolves like so many jackals. I used a spell to stun him and then tried to put him under." He meant the vampire daze, a hypnotic trance that dampens your will and outdoes the best chemical high. "For a second, I had him hooked, and then - he exploded."

"Magical conditioning?"

"Probably. The one outside?"

"Suicide via werewolf claws. I'd never have guessed he had it in him - he looked like a clerk who'd wandered into the wrong story." I looked at the milling people. Arthur seemed to have them doing the forensic thing now, picking up all clues possible in a situation where the causes of death were the ones doing the checking. "Fucking failure."

Kirill didn't say anything to that, but his hands on my shoulders helped a bit. I leaned into his touch for a moment, then walked over to where Shadow and one of Kirill's own vampires were going through Business Suit's pockets. With the fresh out of the office look, he was the one most likely to have something interesting on his person.

Shadow looked appropriately chastened by his failure to keep his hands on the guy, and handed over the wallet without protest. I leafed through the plastic cards, thinking about when I'd manage to get home and whether Kirill would be up for a bit more physical comfort. Sharing a shower, maybe, or separate showers, but a bath later, warm and bubbly and with a lot of room.

Visa, Diner's, library, Sam's Club member card, stamps from Subway, AAA-

I turned over another magnetic-stripe piece of plastic, and everything fell into place.

The quill logo was a dark blot under my finger.

"Magda," I whispered.

Magdalene Publishing.

Days 21-23: 3,690 words; 37,026 total

Part 8: Animal Sacrifice

Thursday afternoon, I was close to poking my eye out.

Alhambra's not as dressy as formal occasions at Darkspring Manor, but it still warranted a bit more attention to my looks than a day at the office. This year, the modern mage fashions ran to modified Golden Age Hollywood chic, and while at least I didn't have to look up the way it had to look, since it had been in vogue right when I'd first arrived in America, the makeup was way more than I usually wore. This was my third attempt at getting the sharp double eyeliner on the eyes right.

I heard a snicker, and threw the eyeliner in that direction without looking.

Anton caught it in mid-air. "Is this a cry for help?"

"If you can do it while keeping my eyeballs intact, that's more than I can do." I eyed his full business drag. "Aren't you supposed to be heading to work soon? Or was the office gossip about the early date with Michael Ianovich not on the mark?"

"The date's on Sunday, tonight it's just boring accounts work." He came up and held my chin as he put the eyeliner way too close to my corneas. I closed my eyes and tried not to twitch. "I'd rather get there after sunset, just in case he does dig up something that shouldn't be dug up and I need to put the voodoo on him to make him forget."

"I thought there wasn't anything for him to dig up?" Kirill was now standing in the door to the bathroom as well, which made the place rather crowded. "Or what am I paying you for?"

"Standing around looking good," Anton shot back. "Besides, you were the one who wanted me to dump the assassin gig."

I glared at them both with my freshly made-up eyes. "Guys..."

Kirill caved in first. He came over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. "Are you sure you should go alone?"

"It's just coffee in Alhambra. If that place isn't safe, I don't know what is." I put my hand over his. "Relax. You'll drive me there, Skyler'll pick me up, and all I'm doing is meeting Natalie for coffee."

"Who's Natalie anyway?" Anton had been ensconced with Holcombe and his crew all night, and he'd missed the round of introductions.

"A student from Finisterra. She's writing a thesis on Nightfolk commerce, with New Granada as her study ground," Kirill explained.

"Innocent as a lamb, blonde like a wheat field, and if she's writing a thesis, I'm the Empress of China." I caught Kirill's eyes in the mirror as I put the finishing touches to my hair – for once behaving, due to prolonged torture with tongs – and I winked at him. "On second thought, Kirill Yevgenyevich, I think you should drag her into bed. She needs someone to open her eyes, before something takes them out."

"On second thought," he told me with utter seriousness, "I have decided she's too flighty for me. I prefer people you can hold a conversation with."

"Or at least a screaming row?" I handed him a silver seal-of-Hermes pendant and lifted my hair so that he could fasten it around my neck. "She'd be likely to faint within the first five minutes."

"Or at the sight of blood?" Anton looked amused. "If I were you, father, I'd stick to people who can keep up with you."

"Look who's talking, Junior." I'd had about enough of his smugness. "First librarians, now a Daylighter accountant – you're not exactly going for challenging prey here."

"Not all things are hereditary." Anton licked his lips. "And helpless prey has its advantages."

"You're hopeless at times," Kirill told him matter-of-factly. "And you don't want to know what your latest dalliance is costing me as a forfeit."

Anton fled the room with a disgusted hiss about people betting on his sex life, so I decided not to tell him about the office pool.

Once Kirill and I did get to Alhambra, I could pass easily – I'd nailed the style of the average modern hermetic groupie – but he drew stares. Alhambra's a mostly traditional crowd, since you're much more likely to run into the cutting-edge people in places like Charlie around St Germain, and vampires didn't show their faces here much.

He eyed the mages in the entrance hall with a small smile that stopped just this side of showing fangs. I could hear the ripples going through the crowd.

"So much for keeping a low profile," I muttered.

"Will it be a problem?" He sounded distracted, probably by glaring at a gaggle of grumpy shamans that were muttering about abominations and enemies of mankind.

I shrugged. "It's not like it's news. Have fun at work."

"Take care of yourself." He brushed his lips across mine.

On impulse, I put my hands around his neck and gave him a proper kiss that he returned without hesitation. If the magical fossils considered me a vamp slut either way, might as well show them what I was getting out of it.

Kirill let go of me, threw a last smug look at the gaping faces in the crowd, and turned on his heel. If he'd been wearing a cape, I'm sure he wouldn't have resisted the temptation to snap it as he walked out the door.

I threw the crowd a challenging look myself, and it was a pleasure to see them giving me a wide berth as I walked into Alhambra proper. I wondered if they were afraid I had vamp cooties.

Someone whistled behind me. "Hey, Malory, wait up!"

I turned and saw Everett, a seedy character dabbling mostly in the witchy side of things. A rat, but several classes higher than the late unlamented Olson, mostly due to the fact he knew how to make contacts and find favors to do for people. Funny, too, at times, and I let him catch up to me before I started up the stairs to the refreshment chambers. Ahead of us, the walls of inner Alhambra glittered in perfect recreation of the original gardens, every enchantment placed in the exact same place by refugees who remembered the Caliph's courts themselves.

"What was that about?" Everett wheezed. He needed to lay off the cigarettes, or pay a better alchemist to fix him up. "I thought you were working for the bloodsuckers, not fucking them." He hadn't seen me with Kirill before – not exactly the same social circles.

"No reason not to do both." I looked around – I was a little early, so I wasn't surprised there was no sign of Natalie. "You mind?"

"Hey, you know me, moving on with the times. Live and let live and all that shit. Just gives a new perspective to all that talk about the Quill Killer."

"Quill Killer?" We were in one of the higher courtyards, and I zeroed in on a fountain-side bench just as a pair of grey-bearded Kabbalarians rose from it. "What do you mean?"

"That's what they call those things, all those people disappearing." Everett lit up, ignoring my scowl. Working with vampires has done wonders for my sense of smell. "'Cause it's like a conspiracy story from one of those books, with that big quill on the cover?"

I stared at him in incomprehension for a few moments before I made the connection. Both of Ralph Green's books featured quills prominently on the cover – The Buonarotti Cipher, anachronistically signing the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo's name, The Marlowe Tract, dripping blood over a manuscript of Faustus. There was also a quill in the Magdalene Publishing logo. "Okay, but Killer? It's just been kidnappings."

Everett's flighty eyes stilled for a moment. "Wake up and smell the blood, Malory. Can't you feel it? Everyone knows. They just do."

I shook my head. "Everett, I haven't been in touch for a while. Everyone knows what?"

"That there's something big. And someone's going after the people who might stop it. Doesn't make sense to leave them alive." He lowered his voice. "Mal, is it true they've got a Tribunal agent on it?"

"No, Ev." I looked down at my fingers, snake-still. "But yeah, the Tribunal's aware of things. There's nothing concrete to call in an agent about."

The strap of my handbag rubbing against my shoulder, that thing still inside it, Rachel Malory either telling stone truth or lying through her fangs depending on the way you looked at it.

"The vamps got you to dig into this, didn't they?" For some reason, Everett brightened up. "Because you do that both-worlds thing. That's good."

"How come?" I smiled, felt the warm Alhambra air again. The fountain was perfumed with rosewater.

"You get stuff done." He gestured with his cigarette. "And there's not much left once you're through, right? That's what the place needs."

I laughed. "Did anyone ever tell you that you suck eggs at kissing ass?"

"Just the ladies I got to know better." He leered at me; the expression was patently ridiculous on his rodent-like face.

I made the sign against the evil eye. "Enough. I'm doing my best either way. Now, scram, because my date's here."

Natalie was indeed making her way hesitantly towards us through the crowd. Everett looked as if he wanted to hang around and get introduced, but a glare sent him running without even a comment on my sexual habits. This meant that he was rattled.

I wondered what were the implications of that. Everett might be a rat, low-level and only staying afloat through his wits, but wits he had, and rats do know about storms.

"Hello." Natalie was wearing a white dress with blue trim, her hair plaited around her head in a crown. I wondered if the Ukrainian allusion was unconscious, or if she'd read up on my origins. "I'm sorry I'm late."

"No way, I was early." I rose from the bench and led the way to a coffee house, one that had not heard of frappucinos and tended to treat request for venti beverages with the kind of curses that made your nose fall off. "Gave me a chance to catch up on the local gossip."

"This place is lovely." She did not sound overawed, though that was to be expected – the ever-revolving citadel of Academia Finisterra, with its thousand chambers of wonders, tends to leave the graduates a little jaded. "It looks like every mage in New Granada is here."

"Hardly," I told her. "We're not especially social at the best of times, and this side of the pond, add the individualistic American Dream to the usual ivory tower. It might seem a lot, but most people stay at home or mingle with the Daylighters instead."

"It hardly seems possible. There are shops, restaurants, living quarters - you could spend your whole life here."

"Some people do." I ordered coffee for both of us by pointing at the menu. My spoken Arabic has never been anything to brag about.

Natalie found us a table. "I'm very grateful you agreed to meet me."

"Nothing to it." I kept my curiosity about the motives behind her invitation to myself.

"I'm really grateful for our talk yesterday." She looked at me with those innocent blue eyes that were starting to grate on me. "There's so much about New Granada that I need to learn – America seems to be very different from Europe. I wonder if it's the presence of the Tribunal that does that."

"They're just as prone to coming down like a hell-fire storm on Concordat infringers here, no matter where they're based," I pointed out. "Trust me, people are still afraid of them. If I were to choose a region without much respect for the Tribunal, I'd go for Asia, especially Russia. Between the schism, the reds and the vamp presence, mages have other things on their minds there."

"Do you think that's wise? I mean, the Tribunal not interfering there?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, I've never had a Russian passport. I'm Lvov-born, but I left it as a kid, and it was Polish then. I've been there a few times recently, but I just tagged along with Kirill and took care of the wards. Most sightseeing I got was when we went horse-riding at Rossov Hall."

"I was just wondering. Whether they're going to come here about the killings." Her fingers played with the tassels of the tablecloth, knotting the individual strands into a neurotic macramé.

"You've heard about these? Right now it's all Nightfolk business. I guess it might be a matter of scale." I nodded at the waiter as he placed our coffees on the table. I picked up the petite cup, letting the hot china warm my fingers. "I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Why not?"

Sharp, too sharp, and those innocent eyes were shining a bit too bright. I pushed the snake back and unclenched my fingers from around the cup. There was a hairline crack in the enamel on the china.

"Because they leave a mess for others to clean up." A blink, and my hand was wrapped around her wrist. Gently, thus far. "If we're playing Truth or Dare, how about letting me have my turn once in a while?"

She kept stock-still. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"What have you been hearing from people?"

"That there are many mages missing, and three werewolves, but just one vampire, one that was only Changed a month ago."

"Let me guess." I knew that tune. "The vampires are behind it. It's all a sleazy bloodsucker plot to take over New Granada. And turn everyone into blood cattle, dazed and doing their cruel masters' bidding."

By the way she blushed, I could tell I'd nailed it.

"I guess the fact they tried to kill me, too, hasn't made the gossip circuit yet." Natalie's mouth opened in a perfect O. I felt the pulse in her wrist galloping under my fingers. "You should take acting lessons. You show too much, little one."

That got her out of her shock. "I'm not little," she objected.

"Figuratively speaking." I let my eyes slide down to where her dress hugged her not-too-insignificant breasts. "I'm sure you're perfectly mature in other ways."

"Rachel!" She blushed. "I mean, Miss Mallory."

"Rachel," I told her firmly. "Get used to that, if you're going among vampires."

"I already noticed that yesterday." If anything, her blush intensified. "I mean, I'm not used to people commenting on my looks so much."

"It's usually meant kindly. Trust me, if a vampire doesn't like the way you look, he'll tell you – or just correct it himself, so get used to being touched, too. Looks are a big thing, part of the whole style."

"I've read about that. Nothing's as important as maintaining style, right?"

"It's a balance – a game, and learnable." I let go of her hand and ran my fingers through my hair in a studied, slow-motion gesture I'd learned from Arthur, arching my wrist to reveal the ear and finishing by trailing the tips over my neck. "Something like this can give you power in a social situation – people look at your hands, are distracted, give you time to think and plan. On top of it, this one draws attention to the neck and the fact you're comfortable with revealing it in this company, so you don't consider other vampires present a threat, either because you trust them or because you trust yourself to kick their asses if needed be. The end effect is about the same as the growling and wrestling that werewolves do, but a lot more fun. And possible for a human to learn in ways that don't involve loss of limbs."

"The way you tell it, it doesn't sound that different from hermetic hierarchy rituals. Who you talk to, the jewelry you wear, things like this."

"Compared to vampires, Finisterra's full of kindergarteners playing house. The Tribunal, they're closer to having a grasp on things."

"How come you know?" She couldn't resist the bait I'd dangled in front of her. It was like a kitten chasing yarn.

"Wouldn't you like to know." I cuffed her gently on the shoulder. "Drink your coffee, it's getting cold."

It wasn't anywhere near cold, not in the enchanted cups, and I was treated to a spectacle of coughing as Natalie managed to burn her tongue and throat at once. I never claimed not to be a bit of a vengeful bitch, after all.

I took pity on the girl and fetched a glass of cold water with a few drops of a healing draught. She took it from me gratefully.

"Was that an object lesson in keeping on my guard?"

"Mostly. And my weird sense of humor." I hoped no permanent damage had been done. "Want to walk it off?"

Natalie looked like a kitten who had just fallen into a full bathtub. "That might be a good idea."

I might think that Alhambra's the abode of enough stuffy academics to keep the world's taxidermy industry busy for a decade, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate its architecture. You could spend hours just looking at the lattices and columns in one courtyard out of a hundred or more. And in the less-frequented passages, the sound of water could lull you to sleep before you had the time to think about coffee.

We didn't get that chance. We barely got three chambers out of the commercial section when a flutter of wings announced the arrival of a search-bird, an artificial construction resembling an underfed blackbird and with much lower intelligence. I grabbed it by the neck as it tried to sit on my shoulder.

"What now?" I barked.

"Lady. Malory. Is. Requested. In. The. Aula. Magisteriae." The bird's staccato grated on my ears. "Lady. Malory. Is..."

I snapped the bird's neck and turned to Natalie. "If you'll pardon me? Some people haven't learned about e-mail yet."

"Sure." She smoothed out her skirt. "See you some other time? His lordship – I mean, Prince Arthur, invited me to spend the weekend at Darkspring Manor, so it won't be out of your way."

"It'll be my pleasure." I sketched a casual bow and skipped off with the limp form of the artificial bird in my hand.

The Aula Magisteriae is another example of design by committee – in this case a bunch of hermetic mages taking offense at the overwhelming Moor and alchemical character of the Alhambra. In an attempt to soothe their offended prides and get them to get rid of the demons lurking behind every column, three rather charming courtyards on the outer rim, fortunately not part of the meticulous recreation, had been demolished in order to make way for a grand hall full of the draperies, bones and tortured metal that hermetic mages like best. It looked as if a freak djinn had picked up a storage room at Academia Finisterra and dumped it in the middle of the Aladdin section of a Disney theme park.

It's usually the abode of whatever high-ranking hermetic manages to dump the competition into pentagrams this month, and since the last time I'd checked that status had been proudly held by Alcibiades, a perennial contestant in that particular game, I was surprised not to see him among the small group waiting for me. There were six people sitting in the high chairs at the throne end of the room. I recognized two of them as Muriel Phearieal and Laocoon, a pair of ambitious hermetics that had both had their turns in the high chair, but the four others did not pay homage to Hermes Trismegistos at all. They were the ones who had been there at Arthur's council.

Jake opened the proceedings without preamble. "Magister Alcibiades is missing, and his laboratory has been searched. We thought Prince Arthur should know about this."

I reacted instinctively, drawing up all the formality at my disposal as a response to the out-of-order situation. "I shall convey this message to the investigator the joint council has chosen."

"The investigator the Prince of vampires has appointed." Muriel's voice made it clear she subscribed to the vampire conspiracy theory.

"The time has come for more decisive action than visiting crime scenes," one of the women – Esther Holz, Willem's niece, I remembered – put in. "Every day makes it more likely that it's murder, not kidnapping."

"The two are not mutually exclusive. I am sure that Genevieve – Lady Sands – is near to tracking down whoever is behind this."

Everyone spoke at once.

"Your assurance-"

"Vampire-"

"Lives mean nothing-"

I gave up on untangling the shouts and thought about Genevieve, coked-up and human with the barest touch of magic, with her twisted mind that might not be twisted enough. I thought about Rachel Malory, frozen in indecisiveness as she gave up control, a china figurine on a vampire's mantelpiece, going through motions and explaining the facts of life to bumbling spies when she could- she could-

"The matter will be resolved." I pitched my voice to carry, and it echoed in the Aula Magisteriae, rattling the demon skeletons and the rune stones on the shelves. "I will see to it. Personally."

There must have been something in my voice, or maybe in the way the search-bird's neck crumbled under my hand, because none of them spoke a word.

I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room. My mind was whirring, flashing up images and ideas and plans, and I didn't realize that I'd taken out my phone and dialed Skyler's number.

"I need transport. Alhambra, south entrance. Now."

"Sure, boss." The cell phone made his voice flat, tin-like. "Twenty minutes, tops. Listen, I'm at your place right now, feeding the cats. Your neighbor's asking about you, that blondie with all the pink? What should I say?"

My tongue flicked out to lick off a drop of blood where I'd bitten my lip. "That I'll be home tomorrow night."

It would be over by then, if I had anything to do with it.

Day 18-20: 3,607 words; 33,336 total

Part 7: Are you now or have you ever been

I wanted to find something I could scream at, but the security at Rossov Trading could not be tighter. Skyler and Chuck were overseeing things with faces grim as death, and the place was teeming with just about all the employees. I knew that the logistics center would be just as crowded. Kirill was pulling his people in, drawing the peasants inside the castle walls just as he would have done in the Rossov fortress if enemies had besieged him with cannon and knights. All around the city, other heads of blood clans would be doing the same.

They made the vampires fear, I thought. I wondered if they knew that when it came to fight-or-flight in a vampire, fight always came out on top.

I didn't need Skyler's directions to know I was expected to make my way to Kirill's office, and I rushed up the stairs as Anton turned into another corridor to head off the IRS crowd at the pass. That was another problem we did not need right now, I thought.

When I came in, Kirill was standing in front of the window, looking down on St. Germain Avenue. I leaned against the door.

"Hey," I said.

I could feel his whole stance change as the tension disappeared. "No problems?"

"Nah." I took off my jacket and threw it on a chair. "Anton kept an eye out."

"Good. Genevieve Sands is at Shadow's agency right now. She will be coming here to brief you."

"Cool." I came up to him and pressed my nose to the glass. I threw him a sly look. "I've thought up a forfeit for you, for the bet. Take me dancing."

He raised an eyebrow. "To a club with that disco noise playing? Have mercy."

I made a face. "Tango dancing. A real milonga, they gotta have them here. With a live band and a dark dance floor and you dancing only with me."

"That sounds tempting." His lips curled in a smile. "But isn't dancing with strangers supposed to be the charm of a milonga?"

"I trust your creativity." I did love the way his eyes darkened sometimes.

"Then there is only the fact that it may take longer than three hours to wear you out." He took my hand and traced my life-line with one sharp fingernail. "Shall I take out the difference in trade?"

I whispered his name, then caught my breath as he whirled me around and pressed my body against himself. I was trapped between him and the window, and in the reflection in the glass, his eyes were black as night.

"I think I'll enjoy that," he muttered with a dark amusement, then bent to kiss my neck.

Luckily, he didn't see how wide I was smiling when his teeth pricked my skin, drawing a single drop of blood, because my grin completely did not go with the mood.

The door creaked and Kirill lifted his head, biting off a Russian blasphemy. To his credit, Holcombe looked appropriately chastened, or maybe it was sheer embarrassment at having intruded on an intimate moment once again.

"Uh, Mr Rossov, you said you'd have time to answer questions about the business?" he stammered out.

I hid my smile. The way this audit was going, the IRS was going to hire Rossov Trading as a penal colony for unruly agents.

"I should be glad to. I would prefer Anton and Alyssa Damienovna to be present at the interview, though." Kirill switched to full business mogul mode, though shades of annoyed vampire were still showing around the edges.

"Yes, they are waiting for us in my office." Holcombe looked ready for either battle or execution. "And, Ms Malory-"

I snorted.

"I mean, Rachel Efraimovna," he corrected himself. "If I could talk to you, say, tomorrow? There are some security-related expenses that I would appreciate your aid in understanding."

"Sure." I picked up my jacket and stole a Hershey's Kiss from the chocolate bowl on Kirill's deck - he swears he doesn't touch it, but I know his secretary refills it every second day just like all the others. "Three hours, Kiriusha," I said in Russian as I headed for the door.

"I'll be looking forward to it," he answered in the same language, and damn if a shiver didn't run down my back.

I opened the door and almost collided with Maria Pavlovna, Kirill's secretary.

"There's a lady who wants to see Mr Rossov," she whispered. "She mentioned Prince Arthur, so I thought it wouldn't be wise to call about it with the layman in the room-"

"Thanks, I think I can manage to show myself in!" Damn. I knew that cheerful voice.

Natalie rounded the corner at full speed. I'd unwisely taken a step from the still-open door to Kirill's office in order to let Maria Pavlovna talk without fear of being overheard, and now Natalie's path was unobstructed.

I saw the way Kirill flinched when she appeared in the doorway, and I wondered how strong his resolution not to pursue her was.

"Good evening, Miss Morritz," he said coolly. "I do not believe we had an appointment for an exact date. I'm afraid the circumstances preclude one at this time, for which I apologize."

"Oh." She faltered in mid-step. "I'm sorry - I thought that with the prince-"

I put my head on her shoulder and she jumped, clearly not having seen me before.

"How about I show you around?" I winked at Holcombe. "Grad students, Michael Ianovich. A worse pest than the IRS, if that's possible."

"That - that'll be fine." Natalie turned up the smile a few more notches. "Are the wards your work? Around the gargoyles at the entrance, they're-"

I stifled a groan and tugged her away before she could spill any more magical secrets.

"Are you deaf?" I turned on her as soon as the door of my office closed behind us. "No talking of magic with laymen around. Don't tell me they stopped whipping the students at Finisterra if they fail the three a.m. quiz on the Daylight Concordat."

She blanched. "I'm sorry! How was I supposed to know?"

"Hello, IRS." I gestured her to the penitent's chair to the side of my desk. I'd made a point of having one uncomfortable chair when I'd furnished the office. "While they do have some magic-aware people, the default assumption with any Daylight agency is laymen."

"Uh..." She looked at me sheepishly. "What's IRS?"

All the air went out of me. "Internal Revenue Service, the T part of death and taxes this side of the pond. Aren't you supposed to be writing a thesis on commerce?"

"That's why I'm doing research." Natalie's eyes were not especially large, but they were that peculiar early-morning shade of blue, I noticed as she opened them wide. "They asked me to do that subject because it's my weak point - I mean, I'll provide a fresh view on things! I've read a lot, but I know I have a long way to go still."

I hid my face in my hands. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Twenty-one," she declared with a strange pride.

"Right." I did not need this. "The other two agents-" I checked the log book of security cards issued "-are called Grincher and Lachapelle. They've got Nightfolk in their families, so you should be safe with passing mentions of magic. But Holcombe, to our eternal irritation, is as Daylight as you get. Obfuscation on full, unless you want the Concordat broken and all Daylighters gunning for us."

"You really think-"

She didn't have to finish that. I'd been young and invincible, too, though it hadn't lasted long. "Smart bombs and genetic testing, Miss Morritz. And don't tell me they wouldn't stoop down to it." I hated pulling out this card, but she needed the shock. "I'm Jewish, from Lvov and born in 1924. Let's say I don't have to worry about relatives showing up unexpectedly."

"Oh." She swallowed convulsively. "I- call me Natalie, please. I mean, you're so much older, and I've heard - I mean, you're still remembered in Finisterra."

"Am I now. Tell me, does Theramenes still grope the students during the meditation exam?"

She colored, then grinned mischievously. "Not since someone shaved his head, dipped him in tar and feathers and hung him by the leg from the bell tower. Or so I heard."

"They should give me a damn medal." I reached over the desk. "And it's Rachel."

She had a good handshake, firm and dry. We shared a tentative smile.

"Okay, chewing-out session closed," I declared as I pushed my bowl of candy in her direction. "So, you're investigating the seedy business side of New Granada? What made you start here?"

"Out of the people Prince Arthur introduced me to, Mr Rossov seemed the one most likely to have the information at the ready - it's a brokerage and a logistics service, right? I figured it was much simpler than nightclubs or recording agencies and so on." She blushed a little again.

"And it didn't exactly hurt that Kirill Yevgenyevich is gallant and easy on the eyes?" I winked knowingly and laughed as she went crimson. "Trust me, you're not alone in that opinion."

"I wouldn't!" she protested. "He's a vampire."

"That's a plus." Unconsciously, I touched the spot on my neck where Kirill's fang had pierced my skin not long before.

Natalie's eyes widened. "Are you and him-?"

I nodded, deciding not to go into the intricacies of it. "Yeah, I'm sleeping with him, and I've been known to stay the night. Does it bother you?"

She cocked her head like a curious kitten. "Not really. I've been meaning to ask you about things anyway, since you're probably the only human working here..."

"What gave you that idea? There's tons. I should know, I have two dozen on security detail alone. Sure, the frontline of the auction side is mostly vamp, but that's because they're the ones with both people skills and intimidation factor. It might be Rossov Trading, but it's sure as hell not Rossov Blood Clan Incorporated."

"That's something I didn't expect." She looked down on her nails, which were short and lined, as if she'd damaged them fairly recently. "The way everyone's working together. I always thought, well, vampires eat humans, and werewolves are hunters in general, and vampires and werewolves don't get along. What happened to all that?"

"Civilization happened," I explained. "Vampires - they live longer than mages, in general, maybe because the hunger that drives them precludes suicide, and they don't have to make or pay for tincture." I didn't have to mention that self-destruction and a terminal lack of funds were the leading causes of death in mages over a hundred and fifty or so. "That means that they're the ones with the money, because they had the time to invest it and see things through. Their society is formal and stable; though the names may change, the titles stay the same. It was just a question of time before they worked things out with the mages. Good business sense."

"And fear, right? Of binding rituals?"

"Nah. There's a lot less of them than us, but I wouldn't take bets either way in a local conflict, as long as the Tribunal did not get involved. Their accession to the Daylight Concordat might mean limits on the creation of new vampires, but they choose them carefully - and mages willing to undergo the Change get priority." I thought it not prudent to mention the fact that a lot of what the vampires did went well under the radar of the Concordat authorities, though maybe not the Tribunal. "Think of what three or five hundred years of experience mean to a mage. And that's just what they can do even when the sun is out. When night falls, you're facing an incredibly fast, very strong man who can look at you and impose his will on you, if you don't pay attention. And unless you stake him, tear him to shreds or burn him, he's going to keep coming back."

Natalie nodded, her lips drawn tight. Her innocence of Daylight matters in all probability meant a sheltered upbringing and magical-only descent, and in such circles the old prejudices were still going strong. Especially regarding things that go bump in the night.

"Not that they're all bad - there's a reason the commerce institutions are theirs, the city-rulers settle contract disputes, the patents are registered in their banks. Vampires are pedantic, and that's double good for business. Now for werewolves." I spread my hands. "That's just a non-aggression treaty. They don't really have anything against humans, especially now that penicillin's better for preventing were-infection than alchemy ever was. And they're simple - they want booze, sex and an opportunity to roughhouse without people putting them in chains. What's between them and vamps is their own. Mostly politics, or just plain violent fun."

"Violent fun?" It must have sounded like an oxymoron to her.

"Don't knock it until you've tried it." I bared my teeth. "Some of my best security people are werewolves. Anyway, why do I have to tell you all this? If you're up to the point of writing your thesis-"

"It's just research so far. There was the opportunity to catch a ride here, and I took it. I still have a few years to go."

There had to be more to it - the good magisters at Finisterra do not let go of their students that easily - but I decided not to push it. "Sure. If you have any more questions, hit me. Have you seen the gargoyles yet?"

Natalie blinked. "Yes, there was one above the entrance. It felt magical, but I couldn't identify the spell."

"I'm not surprised. Original patent, we're still working out the details of commercializing the production."

I walked over to the window and whistled for one of my babies. A creaking noise announced the arrival of the one stationed on the northern corner of the second floor, and a taloned granite hand opened the window fully. I heard Natalie's gasp.

The gargoyle was five feet tall, wiry like an elf, with a mouth that was all fangs and horns and a lovingly sculpted mane of hair that slid and clanged as it moved. There was a werewolf sculptor up on Kerrick Street that jumped on with glee at any new sketches I brought him and turned out gothic masterpieces. The wings were batlike and taloned, with hypnotic swirls engraved into the membranes. Just for show, so far, though I'd been working on putting in enough air runes to actually make them fly.

"Come on, you can touch it," I said.

Natalie was hesitant at first, but then tangled her fingers in the soft-rough mane. A pointy gargoyle ear twitched, and then the stone figure curled up on the window sill like a pet raven who wanted his feathers cleaned.

"Is it a lower demon?" There was disbelief in her voice.

"Nah. And it's not plain enchanted stone either - the Notre Dame crowd's like salamanders to a chimpanzee to this one." I pointed at the bright onyx eyes, which blinked slowly. "All synthetic - the basic movement structure is Kabbalarian, but the intelligence is hermetic, runes and wards and you don't want to know how many layers of enchantment. Weaving it all together was a bitch, but they're just about eternal, can take much more damage than your run-of-the-mill gargoyle, and best of all they're smart enough for autonomic operation. Fireproof, curse-proof and persuasion-proof - just the thing for a discerning vampire enterprise. Or any other enterprise, come to think of it."

"That's the sales talk, isn't it?"

I grinned. "Busted. Arthur's going across the pond in early December for a big social occasion, so we figured that was as good a moment as any to pitch the beasties to people in power."

She looked doubtful. "You said Kabbalarian - does it mean it's really a golem?"

"The same underlying structure, but nothing like the rigidity of instruction or the accompanying danger. The intelligence level is somewhere between a smart dog and a slow-thinking monkey. The way they're wired, they're happiest when their building is calm and whole. They see trouble, they evaluate it, they contain it." I reached under the gargoyle's chin and pulled out a sapphire on a short chain. "Any time they go into action, this alerts the command units - right now I have the main one and Kirill Yevgenyevich has one of the others, as well as Anton Kirillovich and a few other directors. I've read my Asimov, so these things won't kill under any circumstances. And they're aware enough to know they'll be rebuilt as long as there's even a scrap of rock left, so the self-preservation instinct won't meddle with that."

"I can see why they still talk of you at Finisterra." Natalie got up her courage and scratched the gargoyle's nose, smiling as its eyes crossed in an attempt to focus on her finger.

"It didn't take that much power." I saw the way the gargoyle shot brief looks at its abandoned guard post, and shooed it back to work. "Just a lot of digging around in the books, and enough spell casting experiments to give me a migraine for a week. Willem had the hard part, making sure that the Kabbalarian mechanics obey the sprite I'd come up with. Once we hit on the right combination, making new ones has been a snap."

"Nice." Natalie leaned out of the window to watch the gargoyle return to its perch on the corner of the building, then closed it and re-wove the opening in the wards with a skill that did credit to her alma mater. "What else does Rossov Trading do?"

"Why don't I show you around?" I offered.

It took me all of fifteen minutes to pawn her off on a human guy in Legal under the pretext of setting the security clearance for her thesis, and not a moment too soon. When I got back to the office, blonde and compact trouble was sitting on my desk and eating my candy. In the dark.

"Don't you have a figure to watch?" I showed off a little by spelling the lamp on with a gesture. "Thanks for the files, by the way. Very professional. You're Bureau, Agency or something more exotic?"

"Agency. Ex. Fuckers can go hang as far as I'm concerned. By the way, who was the cutie with the blond streaks who picks up your mail?"

"Anton Kirillovich, Butor clan, and paws to yourself unless you promise not to scratch too much." My maternal instincts get the best of me at times.

"Butor? They were the crazy ones, yeah? Cool." She took out another manila folder that looked almost as thick as the council transcripts. "The E.T. phone home act got a few answers, and I've just been to that goth setup Shadow has. Do you know he has a whole block of nothing but recording studios? No wonder it took them an hour to find the girl, even with the amount of blood she leaked."

"Vamps that can't smell blood?" I leafed through the folder, noting Tribunal file signatures that spoke of medium-high clearances at the very least. "Then again, it's Shadow. Coked up to the gills, I gather?"

"And then some." Her eyes were all-pupil as she grinned at me. "Good shit. Sorry, forgot to pack souvenirs."

I rolled my eyes. "Not my style. As far as vices go, I stick to being drained by vampires."

"Definition of a downer if I ever heard one. You ever have any fun?"

"Sure. Let's try for intellectual fun now - any hypotheses on who's behind it and what his game is?"

Talking things through took us most of the rest of the working night, especially since we had flirt-breaks every ten minutes or so. We did come to some useful conclusions: whoever it was, magic was the most likely reason for the kidnappings, because no demands had been made and interrogation victims had been simply left for dead with no attempt to hide them. One werewolf from each major pack was a dead giveaway: packs, like blood clans, are bound and connected, so theoretically if you got one, you could find a way to control the whole gang. Research tendencies like that went on our list of clues, as did power fantasies and delusions of grandeur.

Kirill came up to collect me some time past two a.m. Just for kicks, I upped the flirting a good few notches as soon as he entered the room, and got a lapful of bottle-blonde ex-CIA agent for my troubles. Genevieve kissed as if she were eating ice-cream, all short licks and hunger, before she bounced up, called Kirill a dirty pervert for watching us, and ran out laughing just as loud as we were.

It turned out that Kirill had ordered take-out from the best Hungarian place in town, so between that and the added spice of watching me kiss another woman, the rest of the night ended up being hot in all senses of the word. Though I did take the time to fix the soundproofing wards around the bedroom, for which I'm sure Anton was grateful.

Just before falling asleep, my thoughts skirted past orchestras on sinking ships and being in life in the midst of death. I could feel the snake telling me to stop complaining and enjoy what I had.

The snake always made things feel so simple.