Wordcount: 3,381; total 56,929

Part 13: Things to do in New Granada when you're bored

On Sunday afternoon, I was contemplating desperate measures.

I'd re-read both of Green's books twice, and braved my fear of the Internet long enough to research some of the more salient points on Google. There was no use going to the Library Magical, since it would be teeming with Alhambra bigwigs monopolizing all the good books. Genevieve e-mailed me to tell me that she was pursuing enquiries with a variety of previous employers. I replied, wishing her luck with that and ignoring the second part peppered with question marks about last night and Jibril in particular. Then I sent a missive to another address that took me twenty minutes to write, mostly because I had to remember my entire stock of Latin and Greek curses, and make sure I wasn't repeating myself while disparaging the ancestry of both the addressee and Jibril himself.

Last night's talk had gone better than I thought, but I was still wary of Kirill. I hadn't meant to tell him that much, and I still wasn't sure how he would react. Anton might not be old enough to remember the bad days before the vampires acceded to the Daylight Concordat, but Kirill was, and there were still vampire skulls in the agents' rec room in the Tribunal headquarters. Anyway, he was spending his whole time on the phone, doing his part for bringing Magdalene Publishing down with a vengeance, mostly through the PR flacks in New York.

I had to turn my own phone off, because Natalie kept calling and leaving messages about needing to talk to me. I knew that if I waited long enough, she'd give Jibril my number, and if I broke my handset, I'd have no excuse for not getting a Blackberry.

I sorted and refolded my clothes, conditioned my hair and read the newest Dontzova book in forty minutes flat, at which point I found myself with nothing to do. Which was why at the moment I was in the kitchen, rifling through the cupboards and contemplating cooking.

Anton entered the kitchen and blanched. "Step away from that stove."

"What? It's not like I'm going to make you eat my cooking." I'd been thinking of whipping up some fufu and sauce, actually. The traditional food had been one of the things I'd liked about Katanga.

"Because you're like a natural disaster in the kitchen, and Dolores isn't coming in to clean until tomorrow." He closed the cupboards in front of my face and headed for the coffee machine.

I snorted. Vampires – pedants, all of them. "I'm bored."

"Go bother Father."

"He's on the phone. Again." I perched on the countertop and hugged my knees.

Out of a corner of my eye I saw Anton giving me a worried look. I'd asked Kirill to give him a Cliff's Notes version of my story; I don't think I could have stood telling it all again.

"You want to play chaperone?" he said. "I've got a date with Michael to go over the inventory in the Belgrant Street warehouse. I think he'll feel safer with someone else there."

"Anything to help your quest for true love. On a Sunday, though? And weren't you helping Kirill with Operation: Revenge?"

"I angled for dinner, but took what I could get, especially since the inspection has to be at a time when the place is not teeming with the claw-and-tentacle set. And Karim's bank is handling the financial side. All I needed to do was find a way to account for the expenses we'll be incurring – would you believe FASB accounting standards don't have an expense category for bloody vengeance? I mean, come on. This is the country that invented railway barons and hostile takeovers."

"I don't think they had to actually invent the barons, they invented themselves," I said as I poured myself a glass of grapefruit and pineapple juice. I'd been drinking it by the gallon today; the enzymes went a long way to balancing the snake's whacked out effect on my body chemistry.

"Pshaw. You just want to spoil my theory. Come on, I'll just get my stuff and we can go."

I tagged along upstairs with him. 'Getting his stuff' turned out to involve transferring files to his palmtop and stopping every thirty seconds to look up 'this one thing he was sure he wouldn't need', so I started looking around instead of hovering over his shoulder. As a concession to Anton's independence, Kirill almost never went into his rooms, and I followed his lead in that regard, so it was rare that I got a look at where the younger Rossov spent his days.

Anton's study paralelled Kirill's on the other side of the upper floor of the house, though in this case the wall between it and the adjacent bedroom had been knocked down, creating an open living space with various areas delineated by rugs and furniture. The décor was more modern than the rest of the house, but the place that home&garden mags usually call the relaxation area was done up in Russian themes, up to and including an icon taking up pride of place on a side table. It was surrounded by several photos, and I was surprised to see that they included one we'd sent him from the Bahamas. I had my hair in about a hundred braids in that one, and while Kirill had escaped that fate, in the white tropical suit he didn't look much like himself either.

The photo nearest to the icon was of Anton's mother. The sepia-toned features were delicate and serious, and once more I wondered what kind of woman she'd been. Kirill mentioned her sometimes with respect, for even with his help raising a son well in nineteenth century Russia had not been a walk in the park for a wannabe revolutionary's widow, but then he also told me she had stubbornly refused emigration, even if only to remove Anton from the eye of the secret police. After the abrupt end of Anton's katorga sentence, when the prison wardens sent her news from Siberia that he had been killed in an escape attempt, she had stepped off a train platform in front of an oncoming train.

I wondered what she would have made of her son a hundred and twenty years hence.

Anton looked up from fiddling with his computer and saw me looking at the photos. "By the way, I need a decent picture of yours for the gallery there. When's the last time you had a good photo taken?"

"I hate being photographed." That much was true – a relic of close to thirty years on the run from the law, perhaps. "The photo guy always puts me in some kind of contortionist pose that comes out looking like I'm thirty pounds fatter."

"Get father to take some portrait photos," Anton suggested. "He used to be a lot into photography in the eighties, before the global side of the business really took off."

I hadn't known that, though it made sense. I'd known Kirill to draw from time to time, and he did have a lot of photography books on the shelves. I'd never seen any photo equipment, but then there were whole rooms in the house that went unused.

"I'll think about it. But you already have a few of me." I tapped the Bahamas picture. It wasn't the only one: there was also a particularly good photo of the three of us in at Arthur's formal ascension and a collage of office party pictures that prominently featured the infamous photo of Anton siccing trained magical spiders my way.

Anton shook his head. "That one's you and father. I don't only like you because you're sleeping with him, you know."

"I should hope not," I scoffed. "I seem to recall saving your ass from zombies a good two months before that happened."

"Right, because setting the bar on fire was such a brilliant idea." Anton finished with his files and skipped up to me, then pulled on my ponytail. "Come on, dear stepmother, let's get out of here before you go completely stir crazy."

I didn't even bother retaliating, since dusk was falling and I could all but see the way he speeded up as his vampire magic woke, so I just followed him downstairs. Once we were at the door, I considered going back for my handbag and a jacket, but the night was shaping up almost abnormally warm for October, I was wearing one of Kirill's sweaters again, and if I needed money I figured I could always mooch off Anton.

"We're stopping for coffee," I informed him as I slid into the passenger seat.

"You're still sleepy?" Anton threw me a concerned look as he eased the Lexus out of the garage. "I thought you slept it off last night."

"Unlike some people, I'm human," well, mostly, "and right now I've managed to get jetlagged without leaving town. Coffee, Antosha."

"Yes, your Imperial Highness," he quipped in Russian. "Any other commands?"

"Just a trouble-free night for a change."

"Jinx."

"Damn."

I belatedly remembered about the seatbelt and sat back long enough to fasten it, then slid down until my knees rested on the cover of the glove box again. I might play it lightly about risking my life, but that time Anton had crashed the car, broken ribs had been painful, nice as it had been to guilt-trip him and make him fetch me everything for a good few weeks. I'd exploited him shamelessly, up to and including taking him for shopping trips with the girls, which had the added advantage of using his good taste to choose my clothes. Kirill had gone into overprotective mode that time, too, and there had been some very nice nights in the house on Radclyffe Lane. What I remembered most was warmth, the heat of the day infusing the night as we talked or just spent time in the same room.

I wondered whether I'd have to start looking for a new line of work come Monday.

Anton's hand on my shoulder startled me. "What is it?"

"You're brooding," he told me. "You look like father does after an affair falls through, and I thought you two were supposed to be keeping each other away from that. If I'm to deal with two people who become irrational and self-pitying after every set-back, I'm going on strike."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

"I used to have a list, but ran out of hard drive space. So?"

"So maybe I am brooding." I shrugged, sliding lower in the seat. "On top of everything else, I rounded off yesterday by seeing a reminder of my sorry past, and I have an irrational fear of having to revisit it."

"Come on. If I could turn into an accountant after everything that happened, anything is possible."

"You had Kirill to set you right." I'd heard a few stories about Anton's wild days in a series of illegal organisations that meddled in both Daylight and Nightfolk politics, until Kirill had put his foot down as head of the family and channeled Anton's energy into the business, but that had been before my time. Both of them only ever brought it up once every few years when Anton made vague noises about moving out, though so far nothing had come of it. My personal opinion was that both of them were far too rooted in the age when the whole clan would live in the family castle to ever seriously consider it.

"Father'd never give up on you," Anton said as if it was an absolute fact. "You're his. I'm not sure he'd let you go even if you wanted to."

"And that's supposed to reassure me?" I griped. "Pull over. Starbucks."

"Damn. I thought you'd forgotten."

I raised my hands in good old-fashioned zombie style. "Coffeeeeee..."

"Beats brains." Anton ducked, anticipating my thwap before I even thought about aiming it.

I was laughing when we entered the land of overpriced coffee analogues. I usually get my fix of caffeine and sugar in an independent place off St. Germain not far from Rossov Trading, but Starbucks is like McDonalds, edible and predictable, wherever you are. I'm European enough to consider the regular kind of American coffee to be an abomination unto any god, goddess or neuter you should care to name.

Anton was surprisingly well-behaved as we waited for my blended drink. He even paid for it before I could admit to not having my wallet on me, in the kind of gentlemanly gesture I usually expected from Kirill; Anton tends to be a little more in tune with the times as far as manners are concerned.

"What's with the pre-women's-lib trend?" I asked him in Russian as we waited.

The barista gave us a strange look, but I met her head on and managed to quell whatever comment would have been forthcoming. She shrugged and went back to making my coffee-like substance, adjusting the headscarf on her green hair.

"What, I can't be considerate for once?" He grinned insouciantly. "I just thought you could do with some coddling. Since you didn't tell me to kill anyone or blow anything up yet."

"Wait your turn." It figured – he must had been livid about missing the Friday night fun. "You'll get your chance. I just hope I'll be able to get all the pieces before it's too late."

He leaned in, lowering his voice. "You mean Arthur's latest guest?"

"Among other things." I looked at my watch. "I might have answers about that bit soon, depending on when certain people answer their e-mail. I hate trying to maintain contact overseas."

"Ever tried not being so cryptic?"

"There's no way did he walk out after thirty years," I clarified. "I still know some people in the Tribunal who might be willing to let me know why this happened."

"That's why you won't let father or me kill him?"

"Yeah."

"Pity." Anton touched my arm. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"Right now, there's other people to kill."

I took my drink and headed out of the coffee shop. It might have been a residue of the snake still floating fairly close to the surface, but I was immediately aware of the barista following us out into the street.

Anton noticed it too, and without talking we stepped to the sides as soon as we were outside, trapping the girl between us. Fortunately instead of attacking with the determination of a Magdalene Publishing assassin, she looked moved and starry-eyed.

"I'm sorry, I heard you talking – you're with the vampire investigation, aren't you?"

I raised my eyebrows – the one-eyebrow trick is one I never mastered, and one more reason to envy vampires, who for some reason all have it down pat. "How do you know?"

"So you are!" She beamed, and I relaxed a little. Then again, Mandy had been just as bouncy.

"And?"

"Uh, I just wanted to ask how it's going. I mean, all those people-"

"Are back where they should be."

From the way she brightened up, I figured that Arthur had managed to keep a lid on the recent happenings, or maybe rescues don't rate the same kind of rumor mill speed as kidnappings. Her smile showed characteristic blunt and heavy teeth, and now I saw that the green hair wasn't dyed at all. Half-dryad at least, maybe even a full one raised as a human, and you're slipping, Rachel Malory, if you haven't spotted it before.

"That's good. Because there's stuff in the air..." She shuddered. "Just, you people watch out for yourselves?"

"Thank you for the warning, tree-sister." I sketched a bow casual enough not to attract the notice of passers-by. "And I would appreciate it if you passed on that the matter is under control now."

I saw Anton mouth ‘jinx' again, but I repressed the urge to roll my eyes.

"May the Lady watch over you." The little barista dryad looked moved.

"May the Night look down on you with kindness." I managed an etiquette-correct smile and let Anton guide me to the car.

I busied myself with tuning the radio while we drove on in the rising traffic of a New Granada Sunday evening. I wasn't in the mood for Sinatra's crooning for one, and I switched from station to station, jabbing the search button like it was Ralph Green's eyeball, until I finally gave up in the middle of a static band that filled the car with a low buzz. I felt myself drifting in a state of detachment, at a moment when everyone from the coffee dryad to the Prince of the city needed me in the same mode that had buoyed me through Friday night and Saturday morning, though now with vengeance instead of protection, striking fast and hard against all that threatened us. But that was the snake's role, its anger and hate, its inability to realize it might not be at the center of things for once, and if I let out the snake now of all times, I wasn't sure I could reel it back in before it did things I would regret.

Looking at Anton's face, his lips twisting in an irritated smile as he navigated the traffic, I wondered what the snake made of him in the end. It did not like vampires any more than it liked werewolves, a primitive instinct that said danger and death and kill, but then sex is one of the states – like sleep and fury and the verge of death – when we are united, and it seemed to like Kirill fine. I nudged the snake out of its slumber and let it float to the surface momentarily, the precarious construction that was Rachel Malory slipping under the surface for a blink of an eye in a metapsychological see-saw of consciousness.

A feeling of contentment was all I got from the snake before it slipped down to sleep once more, and when I focussed on my sight again, Anton was looking at me quizzically.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked, still in Russian instead of the English we tended to speak outside the house.

"Not much, Antosha. Just looking at you."

"You had a strange smile," he said. "For a moment – like Mother used to smile. Warm."

I closed my eyes and decided to have a long chat with the snake, providing I found a way to feed Pentothal to my own subconscious. "I must have slipped. I'm not a warm kind of person."

"Right." He reached out and tweaked my hair. "Tell that to someone who hasn't seen you fuss over everyone at work if they have so much as a sniffle. Or Father when he got burned in that fire."

"That was just taking care of my continued employment, not to mention the benefits," I scoffed.

"Watching over Justin's Change then. Or this morning – I heard all those phonecalls, you know, and the help you offered to all the kidnapped people, even the wolves."

"They're just little girls. And I should have found them earlier." I felt my scowl deepening. "It's the Jewish mother genes."

"Sure." Anton turned the wheel sharply and pasted the car into a gap between two SUVs in the left lane, to the tune of a dozen car horns. "Rachel..."

I sighed. "Yeah?"

"Just – I yank your tail about this a lot, but don't do anything stupid?" He looked actually worried, and I had to suppress an impulse to pat his head as I would a puppy's. The damn snake was getting skinned next chance I got. "Father wouldn't forgive me if I made you leave."

I decided to latch on the safer part of that. "Kirill always forgives you."

"Not this. And I don't think I'd forgive myself."

The traffic stopped completely as the light went red, and Anton took advantage of that to let go of the wheel and lean over to kiss my cheek. I patted his shoulder as he held my arm, vampire-strong but as gentle as if I was a china figurine. It didn't feel awkward at all.

Wordcount: 685; total 53,400

Interlude 4: Video

[Surveillance Recording 0000000341; Video Surveillance Trial Run Stage 4; Execution of sentence: As Sadat, Jibril]
[Private Archive File]

The picture is surprisingly clear for CCTV in 1972, the date and hour emblazoned in one corner, seconds scrolling smoothly at the end. The camera is placed on a gallery overlooking a stone courtyard lit by moonlight. There are two people on the gallery, in shadow. The woman is looking down; the man is looking at the woman.

The coffin is in the middle of the courtyard, in a circle enscribed with silver on the flagstones. The distance makes it look milky; in fact it is constructed with thousands of shards of rock crystal, natural quartz in trigonal lattices, each of which enhances a warding spell three-fold. The men and women standing around it wear gray robes with voluminous hoods pushed back, revealing their faces. Each of them is holding a silver wand.

The guards leading the condemned man are dressed in black. In contrast, Jibril As Sadat is in white, barefoot and bareheaded. A month's growth of beard covers his chin, and his face is gaunt. He alternates between looking at the stones at his feet and the guards on his side.

Jibril As Sadat is led until his feet touch the coffin. One guard stands behind him, while the other walks around the circle of gray robes to face the condemned man.

"Jibril As Sadat, born in Baghdad of the Many Towers, child of Rashid and Fatima," the guard says. His voice in the recording is faint, but clear. "You are guilty of murder, treason, abduction, torture and breaking the Daylight Concordat. The Tribunal has spoken."

Jibril As Sadat's face turns towards the camera. He smiles. The woman on the gallery straightens and her fingers close around the balustrade.

"May God have mercy on your soul as we have on your body," the guard says. "Step forward."

Jibril As Sadat hesitates, then steps into the open coffin. He lays down and turns his head towards the camera again. He crosses his arms on his chest.

The gray figures put their hoods up and point their wands at the coffin. A sound grows louder and louder: chanting. The mechanical camera does not register magic, so it is hard to register the exact moment when the coffin is no longer open, except for a brief sharp sound that is Jibril As Sadat screaming with his last breath of open air. The milky crystal is darker where it covers the body. The dark stain twists frantically before falling still.

The gray figures step away, filing out the door and disappearing from view. The black-clad guards raise their arms now. The flagstones part, and before the coffin sinks down a ray of light catches upon racks of crystal shapes, filling the courtyard with white illumination.

The flagstones fall into place once more. The guards bow to the gallery and leave.

The woman slowly takes her hands off the balustrade.

"Did it help?" the man says.

"I feel safer now," she says. "I thought I would hate him more."

"Your mind is adjusting to the changes." The man walks around her, emerging into the light. He is of medium height, unremarkable in appearance. His receding dark hair is clipped short. "I remain concerned about the way you separate and repress your basic emotions and instincts. I think agent training would help you with that."

The woman follows into the light, turning away from the camera. Scars criss-cross her shaved head.

"I don't hate the snake," she says. "It's a part of me. I just don't let it have control."

She steps closer to the man and leans against him, bringing their faces into close proximity. The movement looks unconscious and not sexual in nature, more akin to cats brushing past each other.

"You think I'd be any good at the job?"

"Practice makes perfect," he says. "And time heals all wounds."

"Is that the wisdom of two thousand years?"

"Eighteen hundred," he says, and she laughs.

"I've chosen a name," she says. "Malory, one L."

[tape ends]

Day 30: 3,245 words; 52,999 total

Part 12: Je ne regrette rien

Someone was taking the pins out of my hair.

I opened my eyes and focused on the pale blur that resolved into Anton's face. It felt wrong to me, and it took me a moment to realize that what was missing was his habitual gently mocking smile. He looked - sad?

I reached up to help him with my hair, but he caught my hand.

"Leave this to me. It'll help your headache."

I nodded numbly and let him undo all the twists and locks. The night outside made the window into a passable mirror, so I could see my hair settling into the usual lanky disarray.

"Can I bandage this?"

He meant my hand, which was still oozing blood. There were smears of it on the glass, darkening as I looked at them. I nodded, and Anton reached for a first-aid kit that stood at his feet. He cleaned my hand carefully, taking care not to aggravate the wound, and the fact he made no attempt to touch the blood was - endearing, I thought.

I wondered how long I'd been sitting on the stairs. The blood on the window was still almost fresh, and so were the drops pooling under it. Not more than ten, fifteen minutes then.

"Father couldn't get away - not with everyone else there," Anton said.

I licked my lips, tried swallowing. It seemed to work. "I know. Appearances."

"Yeah." He put his arms around me, and I wondered whether I was so cold that he felt warm, or whether Arthur's hospitality had stretched to a discreet supply of blood for those who fancied it. "I have a feeling the rest of the meeting will be short."

"I threw... a cog in Arthur's plans." I knew that with something like this, he needed all the blood clan leaders there to show their support. Anton was probably only able to slip out because he represented the entirety of the Butor clan.

"It livened up the party." Anton snorted. "Ewig totally refused to comment, and both father and Arthur looked ready to kill people, with Eudokia leading the cheer. They really like you, you know."

"Great." My laughter sounded sharp, rough, unfamiliar. "Marcian's blood, if they want me to explain..."

"They'll have to go through me first."

I smiled. It was like being guarded by a puppy. A puppy who could break a werewolf's neck with his bare hands and thought nothing of waltzing into an arena full of Kalashnikov-wielding mobsters with nothing but a pocket knife, but still.

I must have fallen asleep then, dreamless and dark, because the next thing I was aware of was Kirill carrying me to the car. They let me have the whole back seat to myself, and I dozed off with my head against a speaker that was softly playing a Vladimir Vysotskij song. The one about the palace and the seagulls, or were those pigeons?

When the car turned into Radclyffe Lane, I was feeling human enough to sit up and comb my hair with my hands. I even got out of the back seat before Kirill could hold the door open for me, and I kept upright without swaying as he undid the reinforced wards on the house and let us in.

I vaguely registered some kind of comment about food or drink or something like that, but I didn't pay it much attention as I went upstairs. I stood under the shower for a long time, letting the water beat into my trembling shoulders.

I remembered bathing in the river in Katanga, watching out for the snakes, gun in my hand in case guerillas caught me unaware. I stretched both arms towards the shower head, luxuriating. Vampires had it right. Decadence beat ascetism hands down.

I walked out naked into the bedroom. Someone had turned on the night light, and there was a nightdress and a dressing gown set out on the bed. I smelled Kirill's cologne in the room, as if he'd left just as I'd shut down the water.

The clothes were not the flashy stuff he sometimes got me, but the black silk embroidered set, an almost demure slip and the gown cut generously enough to swirl around my legs like a cape. I fastened the three tiny buttons at the front and watched myself in the mirror. A gothic maiden in the dim light, my hair still curling from Eudokia's styling, almost beautiful.

I needed that. I needed to be as far away from fatigues and dirt and pain as I could.

My handbag was sitting on the bedside table, and I took the box out of it, more for comfort than anything else. I heard the television downstairs, Anton watching a "Lost" re-run. There was a light in the room at the end of the upstairs corridor, Kirill's study, and I walked there on soundless feet. The snake, with me still, calming as I had done.

The electric lights were off, but the candles were lit, each with a set of mirrors behind it, enhancing its light, and the box I was holding made a soft thunk as I laid it on the desk. Kirill was sitting in one of the armchairs, book in hand. He didn't look up as I sat down in the chair closest to his. I put my feet on the seat, curling up on myself. I remembered all the nights I'd watched him here, plotting with Arthur and Eudokia, and how when they left, he'd turn to me and ask for my thoughts on what they'd talked about. Fun times.

"Were any conclusions reached?" I asked.

He put the book down. Marinina, I noticed, and he had to be more stressed than he showed. Crime novels were his comfort reading material.

"Not really. Everyone had their own ideas, but there's no reason they can't pursue them all at once. We're going to go after their business interests, since they were unwise enough to get financing from a bank that has ties with one of Karim's hedge funds. Julian apparently has contacts on the publishing circuit, and he volunteered to use that tack to bring down Green's status."

I felt my eyebrows rise. If Julian was abandoning his moping after the deposed Princess of the city, I should be on the look-out for flying pigs. Or maybe his sense of self-preservation had cut in, finally.

"Virgil and Ophelia both opted for a frontal assault, but Arthur talked them down to just keeping the place under surveillance," Kirill continued. "Alhambra will pitch in, as well as track down their sources of artifacts. While we wait for the next move, there's the matter of finding out their exact plans - Arthur was hoping he could count on your intuition in that regard."

"Sure." I watched the way the candlelight reflected on his hair, adding a golden sheen to the deep black.

I thought I was sitting out of his reach, but he managed to put his hand on the armrest of my chair as he leant forward. "Rachel-?"

I brushed my fingers against his knuckles, false reassurance I didn't feel. "I'll be fine. Just female irrationality."

He called on a few choice demons, switching languages at random. "Tell me one thing. Should I kill him for you?"

"You don't even know who he is." I had to smile. My vampire in shining armor.

"Then tell me?"

Busted. "How much do you know about what happened in Katanga?"

"Only what you've told me, and a few rumors." He didn't look surprised. The knots in my mind usually all came down to one thing, after all. "In the fifties and sixties, you were working for someone who was conducting magical experiments that involved a large number of deaths, and that wasn't the most unpleasant thing about it. You ended up shutting him down. You don't like the fact that it took you that long. Ewig was that man, wasn't he?"

I looked at the flickering candle flames. I'd always liked fire. Latent pyromania, perhaps.

"He was Jibril as Sadat then," I began. "I should have guessed from the name that he was bad news. Immortal, omnipotent - he liked playing God as much as calling himself one, and he was rubbish at both. But he got me hooked too deep to see that.

"As to why - it really starts earlier. When my father sent me to America, to his friends in New York who later arranged my studies at Finisterra, I thought that was only because I never got along with my stepmother. I was half goy, and a living reminder of my father's youthful indiscretions. Synagogue on the Shabbat, and then Church on Sunday with my aunts, so I didn't really fit. But I think my father knew something about what was coming. It could have been just reading the papers, or one of his tzaddik visions - did I tell you he was a tzaddik?"

Kirill shook his head. "You never talk about your childhood."

"Well, there's not much to talk about. It was normal, as normal as it got for a half goy in Lvov. Then I went to America, and the war began. Father died in the first month, some kind of stupid mess with Soviets shooting blind in the night. By the time it got really bad, when the Germans came, I was at Finisterra, and everyone told me to forget the world, focus on what lay beyond the veil.

"News got out slowly even there. The deaths disturbed hermetic workings for years, so finally they had no choice but to gather students and tell them. That was 1944. I called up a demon that night, Ronove, and almost had my head clawed off, but I got him to give me the truth, more out of surprise than by any trade I made. All my family were dead, up to the third generation."

Kirill made an abortive motion with his hand, as if he'd wanted to ask me a question, but didn't want to interrupt. I could guess which question that would be.

"I was powerful, then. Hybrid strength, I guess - my mother was a hedge witch, and a terror in her own right, from what I heard. Gifted fast-track, seminars with the post-grads, the whole hog. Calling up Ronove barely gave me a headache. After that, I trudged on for a year and more, determined to finish my studies and make a difference, I guess. I had some vague ideas about working for the Tribunal - you remember that debate, on whether Shoah was terrible enough for it to intervene in Daylight matters?"

"I took part in that," he said wistfully. "Not that it made much difference - my standing was precarious, since I'd taken part in engineering the alliance between the Whites and Reds, throwing all the weight behind Stalin. There was talk of Tribunal trials for all Russian vampire leaders at one point."

I hadn't known that, though I was aware of the truce that ended a twenty-year civil war that had threatened to shatter the Concordat on more than one occasion. I'm not the only one who rarely talks about the past.

"That was resolved in early 1946." The fact that all the killers had been left to Daylight justice still left a bitter taste in my mouth. "I was twenty-two, with all the pride and foolishness that went with it. I decided that if the mages hadn't done anything for justice, it was time to take matters in my own hands. I left Finisterra before I got my degree - it just didn't seem worth it anymore.

"Though I did stop to tar and feather my mentor as my first act of rebellion against society." I smiled at the memory. "I've been told Theramenes hasn't grabbed a student's tits since then.

"The less said about the next six years, the better. I don't know why the Tribunal didn't catch up with me - pure dumb luck, I guess. I killed some people, nearly got killed myself a few times, got my driver's license and marksman certification. By 1952 the ground was starting to get hot under my feet, and too many Kabbalists were moving to Israel to make even Tel Aviv a safe haven. I was working with some Daylighters who agreed with my principles and didn't ask how I got to places no-one else could. In exchange for their help, I took care of some business for them. One day, I was supposed to put the fear of God into some Palestinians in a refugee camp in the West Bank. By the time I realized I'd tripped a ward where no ward should have been, it was too late.

"Jibril's companions - counterparts of my group, save for the anti-Nazi sideline - wanted to kill me outright, but he was interested in what a hermetic mage was doing there. I nearly took his arm off once he untied me. It didn't phase him in the least."

There was a drop of wax sliding down the length of the closest candle, twisting and turning as it ran down the uneven surface.

"He kept me tied up, in that bunker, and talked at me for three weeks. Justice, civilization, a new world order with magic making sure it went right this time. By the time he let me out, I was sold, hook, line and sinker.

"A year later I was in Katanga. I used the things I'd learned as a terrorist to pull together site security, barter with the tribes, hunt when I had the time. We rode out regime changes and a civil war. I don't know what I was thinking, then. That I was his muse, his inspiration as he cut people up and poisoned them only to watch them go insane?" I shook my head. "I was such a kid. He didn't even want me in his bed, not more often than once a month or so."

I fell silent for a moment, then almost jumped as Kirill put his hand on my shoulder. I hadn't noticed when he got up. He stepped away immediately with an apologetic look on his face.

"What was the point of the experiments?" he asked softly.

"Breaking down to the subconscious, the reptilian brain under all the human conditioning. Unleashing the innate magic powers it controls. Healing, premonition, intuition. And telekinesis."

"Creating a Tribunal special agent."

I nodded, clenched my fingers tighter. "He started on Daylighters without an ounce of magical talent, then moved on to stronger and stronger mages. Sensory deprivation came first, alternated with sensory overload. Indoctrination. Pain. Indulging instincts - sex, aggression, self-preservation - and punishing all signs of higher emotions. Some of it was psychosomatic, Jung-based, a lot was through different kinds of poisons. Alchemy, to change the body chemistry and enhance abilities. He's very good on alchemy."

The medical jargon helped, a little. "Once the subconscious was in control, the ego coexisting with it or pushed back, it, it had to be taught to use its powers. Falling off a cliff, having to fight overwhelming odds, solving labyrinths to get to the antidote of a poison. In the final test," mud and darkness and ice in my veins, "he put the subject into a pit full of river jacks. Rhinoceros vipers. They're the deadliest in the world, neuro and hemo, and you can't survive a bite, can't survive without-"

A sob caught in my throat, and I had to breathe carefully for a few minutes before I was able to speak again. Kirill kept his silence, standing somewhere behind me and to the left.

"Using the subconscious magic burns out magical talent, or more precisely re-routes it," I started again. "As the balance shifts, so does control. And then it starts burning out the life, until the subject dies, or goes crazy and commits suicide."

"How did he control it?" Kirill's voice was calm.

"An intravenous combination of drugs and alchemy - a trigger for the full shift and mitigation of the burnout. He didn't have the patience to use meditation, or maybe he didn't want the subject shifting modes at will."

"Did it work?"

"There is a box on the desk," I said. I heard him walking towards it. "Open it."

I heard the catch and the screech of unoiled hinges. I knew what he would see: rows of ampoules filled with a golden liquid, and a syringe that had been outdated twenty years ago, subtle shifts in medicine changing the style until it was instantly recognizable as an antique.

Kirill was silent. I rose to my knees in the armchair, turned to look at him. He met my eyes; all that showed in his face was wonder and understanding, as if a piece of a puzzle had slid into place.

I smiled as I stood up and smoothed the skirts of my dress and robe. I stretched my hand out. The snake came to my call, and so did the power.

A gust of wind, and all the candles in the room went out, bar one.

I stared at that single light. "I watched as they put Jibril away in a crystal coffin. I watched him scream as the ice took him. And it felt like they were freezing me in."

"How do you feel about him now?" Kirill's voice was still so damn calm.

"Contempt. Disgust. Hate, not as strong as it was. Curiosity about how the hell he got out so fast." I shrugged. "I try not to think about Katanga, so it hit me hard."

"You threw blood on him." The greatest vampire insult. "He did not wipe it off."

"I'll believe he has a conscience when pigs start to fly." I turned and looked at Kirill. In the light, his eyes shone like black diamonds. "I can leave as soon as-"

"No." He still made no move. "I promised to take you dancing. I'm not in the habit of breaking my word."

I hesitated, torn between laughing and slapping him and just falling into his arms. Then my body made the choice for me, as thirty-five hours without sleep and riding the snake caught up with me. My knees trembled, but before they gave out, Kirill caught me.

"I didn't hate him for changing me," I whispered into Kirill's chest. "I hated him for controlling me."

This close, I felt how he held his breath for one fleeting moment. "Do you want-"

I wondered - him to let go of me, to leave, to take me to the guest bedroom I'd never slept in, not once?

"Just to sleep." I tangled my hands in his shirt, and it might have been the snake, because from the word go the snake has liked Kirill Yevgenyevich far too much. "Stay with me?"

He must have sensed I didn't feel like being carried around, because he helped me walk back into the bedroom and let me sit down on the bed myself. I slipped under the covers and watched him take off the formal clothes he wore.

He paused as he unfastened his cufflinks. "By the way, Rachela? Do you prefer that name?"

"No." I stretched out, felt the silk of the nightdress sliding over my skin. Sleep hovered at the edges of my eyelids, and what did it hurt to tell him, when he already knew so much? "Leave Rachela Tepper to her grave. It's Rachel Malory now."

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.