Adair let the empty bottle drop next to his chair and reached for a new one without looking at the label. Beyond glittered the Tyrrhenian Sea, blue as a jewel. A few yachts cut through the waves, blindingly white beneath the afternoon sun. It was a dream of a day, tranquil and lush, and he was doing his best to get shit-faced.

At the sound of footsteps, his hand darted for the pugio he always kept sheathed beneath his suit jacket, but even as his fingers found the hilt, they relaxed again. He turned and glared at his human assistant, a business grad with great credentials and a sad misunderstanding of what it meant to join the murky world of things that went bump in the night. "You're still here? I told all the staff to leave."

The man shrugged. "I must have more loyalty than the rest."

"I don't even know your fucking name."

"It's Trevor."

"I didn't say I cared, either." He drank from the new bottle and grimaced. It was brandy. He hated brandy. "Did that tech geek finish the map before he left?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you've been adding entries to it? Good. Show me."

Within minutes, he studied an image of Europe on a laptop. A pinprick in red—his club in Amsterdam—expanded in four stages. It looked like a red stripe slicing southeast down to Italy. The image replayed twice before he said, "What time was the last entry?"

"Two hours ago."

"He's already in Rome," muttered Adair. Then he resumed drinking.

His assistant fidgeted while waiting for him to speak again. When he didn't, the man said, "How could even a vargr kill so many witches in four days? The data has to be wrong. "

"You're the one who added it in. Did you contact the covens in these areas?"

"Well, yes."

"Reach any of them?"

"No, but—"

"Of course not, because he's on a goddamn rampage. Is this your idea of loyalty, Travis? Giving me shit over what's obvious?"

"It's Trevor, sir."

"Whatever." Adair sighed and slid further down in his chair. The grapevines twining around the columns of the deck fluttered from a gentle breeze, and singing could be heard in the distance. But he was too old and too careful to be lulled by such calm, and the alcohol was barely working. "What about our sources in the human media? Have they noticed anything?"

"Only a few reports of strange howling at night. The timing of the complaints match his path. Sir, if you're that worried, why not reach out to him and see if he's willing to make a deal? Perhaps your safety in return for passing on information, or—"

"All he wants is blood. And right now, he's getting it from witches who can't believe this is happening."

Trevor cleared his throat. "Some do. That's what I came to talk to you about. There's a meeting of six covens being held in underground Rome. The Consort of the Golden Stag is leading it to discuss what to do."

Just hearing about those bitches made his eye twitch. As he reached for a pack of cigarettes, he growled, "And they want me there."

"The Golden Stag's hag mother seemed to know you wouldn't go. She's suggesting you join via video."

"Like I can set that shit up on my own."

"I did it for you, sir." When Adair looked at him again, he added, "She was very insistent."

"So, that's why you stuck around. You're secretly in her pocket." He thought about killing the man to wipe that look off his face, and then realized the other vargr would do a far better job than he ever could. "Fine. We're all fucked, anyway."

He'd gone through half the bottle and two more cigarettes by the time his assistant had everything set up and working, but his eyesight was clear enough to recognize the carvings on the marble columns lit by candlelight, and then the witches and warlocks seated at the ancient table.

They were in Roman ruins that had been taken over like moss growing on a fallen tree, modified with velvet chairs and frescoes of wild stags. There was even a rack of antlers sprouting from one of the walls, gleaming gold and carefully situated above the central chair.

"Jesus Christ," muttered Adair, unsurprised that Edric wasn't sitting in it. He wasn't there at all.

The sound of his voice drew all attention to him. Each figure had dressed in their finest despite the dust and grime, but appeared annoyed more than anything at being there. It amazed him how they all looked the same despite being fiercely competitive with each other for land, blood, and money. The same expressions, the same hairstyles and board meeting-sterile clothes... hell, they probably even fucked the same way.

Then Ermentrude sat in the central chair, giving him her usual infuriating smile. Close to her were the two younger witches he had seen before. "Adair. Thank you for joining us. You don't look so well. Have you been drinking?"

"Like a fish. If I'm drunk enough by the time he finds me, I might not even care. Where's Edric? Still nursing his wounds?"

She ignored the question to murmur something to the warlock on her right, and Adair used the moment to glance over the line of faces again. "Looks like Matera ducked out as well."

"He decided not to come. He feels safe from having—"

"An immortality spell." Adair laughed. "I'm sure that'll work out real well for him."

None of them liked being laughed at. They all stiffened in their seats, and he heard more than one who thought he didn't know Catalan mutter about barking dogs.

Ermentrude hated it most of all. Her eyes glittered poison at him as she said, "We caught him."

"You caught him," he repeated, unsure if he heard correctly. When he saw smugness infect the expressions around the table, he grinned. "Let me guess. One of your men, dressed in the uniform of the local cops, arrested him and took him to an undisclosed location of your choice."

When their smiles faded again, he added, "Do you really think he hasn't done any of this before? Hell, I've done it. It's the easiest way to find a good source of information when the scent goes cold. And you can always sniff out a witch's servant. Did you see the arrest?"

Ermentrude's voice turned glacial. "The man has a bodycam."

"Is it still active?"

"We're working on it. There was a connection failure. We've sent a second man out to investigate. He'll patch through to the conference when he arrives."

"Sure." Adair lit a fresh cigarette and then rubbed at his eyes. He hadn't slept since finding the girl's remains. As they waited, he studied Ermentrude's appearance. "You look different. Your hair is a different color."

"Yes. Hers was admittedly beautiful, and I didn't see any reason to waste it. If you hadn't been in such hysterics the last time we spoke, you would have noticed it then."

"You took her fucking hair." He finished what was left in the bottle. "He's going to spend centuries killing us."

"I've told you, we've—" The rest of her words were interrupted by a new connection.

Adair watched a new window flicker onto his screen. From the shakiness of the footage, he guessed it was the live bodycam of the second man. His accent was thick, a dialect he wasn't used to, but words weren't necessary. The visuals, jittery as they were, revealed everything.

Shattered windshield glass glittered on the pavement. A torn-off car door grew visible within a few steps. The man's breath quickened at the first pool of blood. At the sight of teeth scattered like pebbles, the camera twisted violently, and vomiting could be heard. The camera shook and shuddered, barely catching a severed arm, and then the car left in a ditch.

In the silence that followed, Adair raised his eyebrows. "You tell me. Think your man kept his mouth shut about your whereabouts?"

The expressions around the table had radically changed. The other witches and warlocks began turning toward Ermentrude, voices rising as they demanded an explanation. The younger witches from her coven looked openly shocked.

Adair glanced at his assistant, who had also paled. "You know the funny thing about using underground ruins as a hiding place? It doesn't work if the fucker hunting you down remembers walking through it as a thriving city. They're in what used to be an enormous garden. The owner was a rich, influential man who liked to keep parrots in parts of it. I hated the little bastards. He'd laugh whenever one tried biting your nose off."

"Sir, I don't really know what you're talking about. Maybe you need some water."

"What I'm saying is, if I were doing all this, I'd drop a match from the nearest sewer above and be done with it. They could be fireballed to death in a second."

"Fireballed?" repeated his assistant, watching the figures rise from their seats in growing agitation, now arguing with each other. Ermentrude seemed unruffled but rose with the rest, her voice smothered beneath theirs.

Adair was nearly enjoying himself now. "Lost ruins are forgotten but not untouched. Plenty of things leak down from modern cities. Electrical wiring, chemicals, and gas from corroded pipes. All you need to know is where they are."

"Shouldn't we warn them?"

"Why? Anyway, that's not what he's going to do. Not right away." Then he looked at his assistant, not missing how the man's collar had gone damp with nervous sweat. "I like you, Tyler, but you're as stupid as these witches if you thought everything was going to be all right."

Before his assistant could respond, Ermentrude suddenly hunched over, her face contorting into a mask of agony. Behind her, the younger witch with the blonde hair screamed and clapped hands over her eyes. Blood trailed between her fingers, dark and thick.

"What the fuck?" muttered Adair, leaning closer to the screen.

Ermentrude's hair fell out in large hunks, slithering down her shoulders and crumbling into ash as she tried to clutch at it. All the others watched in horror, arguments forgotten.

"Is it him?" said Trevor, somehow even paler. The blonde witch pulled her hands away from her face while she choked and gagged. Her fingers were now smeared in cinders, but her sockets remained empty, rotting. The third girl was already throwing up black bile.

"No. He doesn't use magic. And if they'd lost all the spells keeping them young, they'd look like withered husks. This is... their bodies are losing what they took from the girl. Could I be that fucking lucky?" Then he rose from his chair and leaned over the balcony edge to catch sight of the rising moon. It looked heavy, white, and perfectly full.

Bottles rolled in all directions as he lunged for the stairs winding up to the helipad on the roof, leaving his assistant looking after him in confusion. "Sir? What are you...?"

"I need the helicopter."

"The pilot left with everyone else."

The words already sounded faint. "I can fly the fucking thing myself."

At the sound of screams coming from the laptop's speakers, Trevor turned back to the screen. Then he jerked back instinctively. Blood blotted out half of the conference window. The chairs were upturned, and two crumpled bodies bled on the floor. The rest of the witches and warlocks were nowhere to be seen.

Only the hag mother of the Golden Stag remained, struggling against a bloodsoaked man. Her head was caught between his hands, and he didn't flinch when she scratched at his grip.

"Oh, shit," murmured Trevor, realizing the figure must have been the vargr.

Then the vargr pushed his thumbs into her eyes, gouging them out. The witch's scream was cut off when he threw her back onto the golden rack of antlers, impaling her through.

"Oh, shit." Then he heard the helicopter roar to life and ran for the stairs. "Mr. Richardson, don't leave yet! Wait for me."

But the helicopter was already slicing through the sky, rising at a sharp angle before straightening out and cutting northwest. By the time Trevor fled the house, the screen only showed the ruins going up in flames.