Before we left, I had a quick look around the place. Yes, if you're asking, I did raid the cash register and took what money I found in a safe in the backroom. Some compulsions I refused to temper.

I also had a short look around the maintenance room, and, to my delight, I found a 4-pound sledge with a 16-inch handle. It was perfect, like I'd found Excalibur, and I took it as a good omen.

My new driver, a 20-something Russian chap named Sasha, and I were in the car and driving five minutes later. He could not have been more talkative. The place we were headed was a safehouse not too far from Yankee Stadium. It was there that he said we would be most likely to find my new enemies.

In the name of candor, I have to admit I'd handled this whole thing terribly. The moment that I realized another blood drinker was involved, I should have backed away and come up with some sort of plan. But by that time, I was already waist deep. Once I'd crossed that bridge, I should have been more congenial and talked my way into a hasty retreat.

But backing away just isn't in me. It is one of the hardest things to do for someone like me. I'm generally not a territorial person, at least not overly so, but I got it into my mind that this bratva group was looking to expand into the vacuum I had created in my neighborhood. It was a reasonable conclusion; it's what I would have done.

Finding out that blood drinkers were behind the whole thing only made things worse, the necessity more dire. And it was a problem that I needed to resolve swiftly, as swiftly as I humanly could. My sweetheart would be home in less than a week, and I wouldn't let her return to a war zone. Hell, at that moment, it wouldn't even be safe for me to go home, lest I inadvertently lead my new enemies there.

No. No. No.

My compulsion had led me into another conflict, but I would be damned straight to hell if I would endure another 30-year war with another blood drinker. This was ending, and it was ending tonight, if I had to bash in the head of every blood drinker in the city.

"How many of them are there," I asked my driver.

"I ... I ... of ...?"

"How many people like me are there?" I corrected.

"You mean ... the verdilak?"

"Yes, the vourdalak, how many?" It was adorable that he used such an old-fashioned word. The term vampire had become so widespread that virtually everyone in the world knew of it and used it.

"Uh ... there are two, I think. No. Two, I know. And maybe two others."

"The one at the club, what was his name."

"I don't know. We just call him Colombiski."

"The Colombian? So, not Russian?"

"No, only Andre is Russian, I think."

"Andre?"

The man cleared his throat. "He's the boss."

"And he's a vourdalak?"

"I don't know. I think so."

I asked the lad some more questions, hoping to flesh out who was who. There was no suggestion that he was trying to hold back information, and it didn't seem that he knew too much. That wasn't uncommon. Foot soldiers in organizations often just knew who not to piss off and who to obey. Renfields frequently operated on the same principal.

But I knew that I was dealing with at least two and as many as four blood drinkers. Not great odds. Perhaps there might be some talking after all. I could be sweet and charming, and nothing had happened so far that couldn't be set right. At the very least, I needed to get a look at this crowd, to size them up and to see how I would deal with them.

When we approached our destination, I had Sasha stop the car a block short of the place. I then spent extra minutes quizzing him on the building where the safehouse was located. It used to be some sort of factory or warehouse and now was used to manage logistics for the organization.

When it was obvious that I'd collected all of the low-lying fruit from the man, I pondered whether I should kill him. He was low-ranking and seemed more a goon than a true blood drinker's groupie, suggesting he wouldn't pose too much danger in the future. That cut in his favor. Just in case, I took his phone and car keys and left him just enough money to catch a cab ride home.

Before you imagine that I'd gone soft, or that I was on some sort of childish redemption arc—my editor taught me that phrase—I'll remind you that I didn't need another body that could be traced to me. I already had made too many that night, and it was likely I would make even more. That was the primary reason Sasha got to live another day.

I approached the safehouse with great care, and 30 minutes later I was walking across the roof of the place, checking to see if there were any reasonable points of ingress from the top. Unexpected visitors should be just that. And I was taking no chances.

After a short time, I found a roof door that didn't seem too sturdy, and there was no trace of an alarm or camera system. I popped the door from its hinges and, after stashing the small pack of cash I'd looted from the nightclub out of sight, I tenderly made my way down the darkened stairs to what awaited me below.

If there were others of my kind present, I would know soon enough, as they would sense my presence. It wasn't anything supernatural. A blood drinker could be snuck up on just like anyone. But if my hosts were paying attention, they would hear or smell me minutes before I reached them. If they were paying attention.

I descended a single floor before detecting the sound of voices. They were mere whispers at first, but soon those were raised in anger. Either my Russian was shit, or the people I heard, a man and a woman, were speaking in a language I didn't know. As I grew closer, it sounded vaguely of German, so I presumed it to be Swedish or Norwegian, languages of which I knew only a smattering.

After a very short time, those voices were joined by one speaking English. This third voice was very much like that of the fellow I'd met at the club, the man Sasha called the Colombian. The words he spoke were clear, but I hadn't yet figured out the context, so nothing seemed to make sense.

I crept up closer, expecting at any minute a voice would call out from in front of me, announcing that they heard me approaching. But, as the minutes passed, no such announcement came. When at last I reached the correct floor, a short hallway amplified the voices further. The three people now were arguing in a mishmash of languages that was different than any I had heard before. Most of the swearing and insults were in English, and the party used those words and phrases fluently and in great abundance.

I at last came to an open door through which I could see a large room, one that once may have been a warehouse or large workroom. It had been transitioned into some sort of office, with a desk off to the left and a set of couches and chairs on the wall farthest from me. Near that furniture, three people stood arguing. They were all blood drinkers.

I made not a peep as I entered the room. Instead, I leaned against the doorframe, watched, and listened. It was just beginning to become clear what they were arguing about. Most of it appeared to be about money, and a portion of it was about me—or I presumed it to be me. The word "bitch" or its equivalent was cast around freely. Even in my mask and hood, there was no hiding my gender from another of my kind. The smell was too obvious.

This went on for more than five minutes, by the end of which I caught the eye of the female among them, Elise, Sasha had named her. She did a short doubletake when she saw me, and it took her a few seconds to get the attention of the others. In the end, the one I presumed to be Andre was arguing alone and only stopped talking when he saw that his two colleagues were looking at something behind him.

"Don't quit on my account," I said when the last of them turned to look at me. I was braced for an attack, my right hand on the handle of my hammer where it was tucked in my belt behind me, but no attack came.

"This place doesn't belong to you," said the Colombian, a confidence that bordered on cockiness now in his voice.

It occurred to me that all three of these blood drinkers were youngsters, none of them more than a few decades into their second lives, perhaps even younger. Such creatures, as a group, could be incredibly annoying. They also could be dangerous. If there was a fourth one in the area, that would be even worse.

I pulled myself away from the doorway and began to saunter over toward the desk, outwardly paying the Colombian's words scant attention but inwardly prepared for whatever might come.

"We've been working this city for two years," said Andre in near perfect English. "If you wanted to stake a claim, you should have done it before. Now politely fuck off."

As if staking claims meant anything at all. The three idiots still thought like humans. It wasn't about claiming or calling dibs. Blood drinkers generally got along with one another, but only out of necessity. When one blood drinker had something another blood drinker wanted, they simply took it. Homo homini lupus.

As I continued to saunter, the three of them separated, as if seeking to come at me from different directions. There were no sudden moves. If they had been wise, they would have rushed me at once.

Was this one really the leader? The one I presumed to be Andre, the boss, didn't seem to be any older than the others—at least he didn't carry himself that way. It was rare that a group of youngsters came together of their own accord. There almost always was an older blood drinker who formed the core of such relationships, one who dominated the others. I say "almost" merely because I'd never seen it otherwise.

There had to be a leader here. The one I thought to be Andre was taller and thicker than the other two, taller even than the Colombian, who had a few inches on me. But that didn't always mean anything. Look at skinny old me, one of the strongest blood drinkers you're likely to meet.

I purposefully had refrained from saying anything else, wanting to get a sense of who these people were and whether there was a pecking order among them. I sensed very little. Every blood drinker in their heart thinks of themselves as the boss, and they posture accordingly. They only stopped posturing when the real boss was around. I saw none of that here.

When I reached the desk, a large oaken thing, I took a seat on the corner.

"Are you a fucking lawyer?" I asked the tall one. "This city belongs to me. I don't give a shit if you've been here two years or two hundred. If you want to stay here, you live by my rules."

"And if we don't abide?" asked the Colombian. He by then had moved to my right. There was a menace in his voice.

"You can leave," I said, "or I can snatch the fucking life out of you." I gave them a look in turn. From where I sat on the desk, none was closer than 20 feet, but they were arrayed in a half circle around me. Unless they were better organized than I imagined, I would hobble the big one first and then deal with the last two one at a time. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Being a blood drinker didn't automatically fill someone with courage and confidence. The aggression and lust for blood came automatically, but, for most, the confidence was something that came with time. I was a little different, not remembering a time in my second life when fear afflicted me.

These three clearly were unnerved by the fact that I demonstrated not the least worry. There was a good reason I didn't. Perhaps I was being overly cocky, but I liked my odds at that moment more than I liked theirs.

A door banged in the distance.

"Andre's here," said Elise.