The black-magic watches contained pieces of the iron spike of Calvary, of Golgotha. The crosses of Golgotha had been used to make the thing that hung on the wall, in a black-magic ceremony.

Now Leo wanted the spike. So did the EuroVamps, who were really the earliest vamps created by the Sons of Darkness. Sooo . . . what did the iron from the spike do to the Sons? To the Son in the dungeon?

There were a lot of negatives and dangers to being turned by a vamp. Sunlight could burn them. Lack of blood could starve them. The devoveo—the years of insanity humans went through after being turned—had to be lived through, and if they didn’t come out of the devoveo sane, then they were put down like rabid dogs. Then there was the delore—the insane grief they went through when one of their loved ones died. The lack of stability that only emotionally stable blood-servants brought to a vamp. Blood-thirst. Lots more.

Though the Mithrans hadn’t yet found a cure for the long-chained—the scions stuck in the devoveo—the Sons of Darkness had parleyed with the Anzû to keep their progeny sane from the delore, by feeding them sips of Anzû blood. It had worked. What did Gee DiMercy—the only Anzû in Leo’s territory—know about the dungeon’s only prisoner? He clearly hadn’t known about the arcenciels being around.

Not so long ago, Leo had said that the Sons of Darkness had ordered the Mithrans of the Americas to make peace with the Cursed of Artemis—the werewolves and other were-creatures. That order would have been impossible to give with a Son of Darkness chained in the basement. So where did the order to parley with the were-community come from? Leo? The other Son? The European Council like the news media said? I hated vamp politics.

Even a future parley with the witches was now suspect. Was the order to reach rapprochement with the New Orleans witch coven because Leo needed the blackened prisoner and some witch magic to accomplish . . . what? Crap. I had no idea.

Anger raced under my skin, burning, hot, like acid eating away at me. So many dead. Hurt. Damn vampire secrets. Damn Leo Pellissier. But I could kill him later. For now, I had a deadly puzzle to figure out.

In the basement, we had a kidnapped Son of Darkness. Leo was playing political games with the lives of humans and of his people. Black-magic pocket watches containing parts of a magical item that Leo was looking for were resting on the Son’s body. And a werewolf who had been touched by an angel, had bitten the thing chained to the wall, and was running through the city with a mouthful of the Son of Darkness’ blood in him. I had to wonder what the bite would mean to the werewolf.

Oh—and the Devil was dead, along with Batildis, which could only tick off Peregrinus. Though he had taken their bodies with him. Could he bring them back to life, a human with no throat and a vamp cut in two?

And the arcenciel hatchling was still in Peregrinus’ possession. Soul was going to be really ticked off with me. After Bethany had said the arcenciel would be solid, I had expected to see the baby dragon, maybe held prisoner by Peregrinus via some arcane means. Or maybe with jesses and a hood, the way people trained raptors to hunt. I wasn’t sure what I had seen in the basement, about the arcenciel. It was all confused.

I also wasn’t sure what I was going to tell Soul, and she didn’t seem the patient, understanding type, not when she was in light-dragon form.

The weirdness was in overlays and none of it was going to be good. Nothing was ever good in the land of the blood-suckers. It was always FUBAR from beginning to end.

I laid my head back and studied the painting on the ceiling of Del’s bedroom. All that was missing was satyrs and images of torture to make it perfectly weird. I let my eyes trace the feathered wings of an angel as I tried to remember what else I knew about the Sons of Darkness. Something the other priestess, Sabina, had said months ago. Sabina was way more sane than Bethany, but she had lost her humanity centuries ago too. She had told me that the eldest Son of Darkness had visited, a century ago, and had failed to rise one night. Yeah. That was it. Leo and Sabina entered his lair together, and the place had stank of violence and blood—of the Son’s holy life blood, or so she had said, and the blood of someone or something else. That blood had been splattered on the walls. Had that blood been Bethany’s? Had she brought Joses to Amaury Pellissier, the previous MOC? Or to Leo? The century timeline could work either way, but there had to be way more to the story, in order for the missing Son of Darkness to end up a prisoner in Leo’s basement.

Sabina and Leo had hidden the evidence. Reach had guessed or figured it out. Now everyone knew that Joses was here. Del was right. It would mean war with the EuroVamps, unless I could figure out a way to stop it.

Overhead, the lights flickered and the room went black. Which was the first time I noticed that I was in an internal room, one with no windows, one a vamp could stay in twenty-four/seven. And Leo and Del and been getting frisky, if my memory served. I sniffed the pillow again to be sure, but I didn’t smell Leo. They hadn’t spent frisky time here, which relieved me in ways I hadn’t expected. The lights came back on and the distant sound of generators went off. Power had been restored.

I rotated to my feet and groaned my way out of the room. I found the stairs and limped down to the locker room to clean up and change clothes, coming to a few conclusions. We needed several things: a full debrief, to find Brute, and to figure out where the arcenciel was in all the hullabaloo—still with Peregrinus, or escaped? We needed to know where Bethany had gone with the missing people. It was gonna be a long night.

I was on the stairs when I realized that Bruiser hadn’t shown up. I pulled my cell. Communications were up and I had three text messages. Eli’s said, Heading back to vamp HQ. W alive in hospital. Edmund feeding healing him. Alex’s said, Gimme call. Got info. Bruiser’s said, On the way. Be safe.

That text was more than an hour old, but so far as I knew, he hadn’t shown. I texted him back. Call me. And then texted the Kid to track his cell. Bruiser’s text was the one that mattered most.

•   •   •

I was in the shower when I felt cool air whoosh into the room. I shut off the water with one hand and simultaneously picked up the nine-mil. There was one in the chamber, ready to fire. The Judge was on the tiled ledge beside me, next to the shampoo.

“It’s me, Legs. We need to chat.” It was Derek. Who had disappeared, chasing after Peregrinus. Or helping him escape? I had to wonder whether he was in his right mind or whether he’d been rolled by a vamp who had managed to seize Grégoire, Leo, Katie, and all of vamp HQ in one night.