My heels rang a hollow clacking on the white marble stairs. The soles of my shoes slid on the cool stone. The foot of the stairs opened into a small marble foyer. It was like a very expensive crypt. A glossy pair of black-enameled doors faced me. I tapped on one of them.

The door swung back, silent as a 1910 movie. A dark man in an equally dark suit looked me over and beckoned me in. As the door closed behind me, he glanced at a list.

I was quivering as the surface of reality rolled beneath my feet. I kept my voice low. "Harper Blaine."

He nodded and held out a hand to take my jacket. He raised an eyebrow when I refused.

"I don't want to catch cold."

One corner of his mouth turned up, but you couldn't call it a smile. He led me through another set of doors, into the club proper, and pointed to a table.

"Your patron awaits." His voice was crushed glass. His mouth made another jump; then he turned and left me standing on a curve of red carpet. Glances tore me. Quick movement pulled my attention around to Alice, sidling to intercept me. I stepped into the room before she got close. Her glower cut a swath of cold down my back.

I presented an outward cool as I crossed the room, but a sick sense of impending doom writhed in the pit of my stomach. Every figure wore an outline of glowing threads, and shadows crept or stretched everywhere. Pushing back against the tidal swell of Grey was hard. I picked out faces I recognized in the crowd, illuminated by their strange lights. I didn't spot Wygan among them, but I almost stopped and stared when I saw Gwen cringing against a small table in a wash of faded green. She looked more miserable than I felt. I shook myself and completed the long walk to Carlos.

I slid into the seat that faced the door and breathed a moment's relief. Carlos and I sat almost side by side, and I could feel the weight of his darkness press over me.

"Is he here yet?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"Point him out to me when he makes his grand entrance."

"You'll know."

I tried to compose my thoughts, but they were fluttering moths in the lamplight. "What do you think of our chances?" I asked.

"Edward's no fool when it comes to his demesne."

I started to speak again and Carlos flicked his fingers in a warning signal that stroked a cold fire across my cheek.

"Himself," he muttered.

I looked from the corner of my eye toward the door.

He wasn't big like Carlos; he was slight, but his slenderness lent an illusion of height, and the fiery threads around him leapt upward, flaming in every color, tangling like sensual snakes in every other thread they touched. Sarah's James Bond description was apt: thick, dark hair over pale skin and sharp eyes, and a visible cruel streak wide as a door. Most every head in the room turned his way, even if only for a moment, acknowledging the presence of the lord of the city. I didn't allow my own head to turn, nor did Carlos.

Edward moved out of the doorway, breaking the tableau. He cir-cled the room at a stroll, clockwise. Carlos gave a low, cynical chuckle as he watched.

"Doesn't much like this situation, does he?" I observed.

"You never know what Edward thinks until the knife is in," he warned, rising to his feet.

Edward made his way to us at last, pausing within a spreading pool of cold. Carlos glowered at him. Edward flicked a glance over the big-ger vampire as if brushing away a fly.

Carlos stepped aside. "Edward."

The other grudged a tiny nod. "Carlos. Still with us."

"Eternally."

Edward gave a small sound of amused disgust. "Always angry. Such a waste, always living in the past."

"The past and the future are all now, to me."

"As ever."

Carlos spread ripples of fury. His lip curled, showing a glittering, sharp fang.

Edward locked his gaze with Carlos's. A withering, icy electricity raised the hair on my arms. "There will be another time."

Carlos stepped back, then turned on his heel and walked away without looking back. I hoped he would stay close.

Edward slipped into the vacated chair. He looked me over with a glance much warmer than the one he had turned on Carlos. It was as if he had thrown a switch. The combination of eroticism and revulsion I felt was unsettling.

"Ah, the detective. A friend of my unfortunate mistake."

"An employee of Cameron's," I corrected him. "I came to see if I can help you with a problem and repair Cameron's situation at the same time."

An anonymous server presented us with drinks. I had no idea what the little glasses held which gleamed like oil in my sight, and I had no intention of finding out. I let mine sit on the table while Edward picked his up and sipped.

"Help me? I should have wiped the little insect off the face of the earth."

"You missed your chance to kill Cameron and face no consequences quite a while ago. There are more immediate problems now, but I know how you can solve them and the issue of Cameron all at once."

One of his eyebrows rose, and he glanced at me over the rim of the glass. I smiled away the sudden thrill of sick sweat and went on.

"Quite a few of your people seem to have axes to grind with you. One tried to persuade me to take you out, but I'm not suicidal or stupid. Your community wouldn't benefit and neither would my client. There is an outside threat to all of you, not just you, me, or Cameron. If you dispose of the threat, you save the community, resolidify your leadership position, and undermine your detractors. You also have the opportunity to force your enemies either to support you or so openly defy you that you can dispose of them without fear of reprisal."

He sat back, giving me a piercing look. "You hint at something, but you say nothing. You want me to be majestic, and yet it is you who've stirred up the muck for flinging. I gave you Cameron, but you continued to sniff and dig into my affairs. You expect me to be grateful? I could rip you open and have done with it all, right now."

Ice gripped my insides, but I pushed it back. "You could. But would it be wise in front of this audience, just to quell your own discomfort? Would it be wise to kill a creature as weak as me, who comes to you under the protection of someone they all respect and fear even more than you?" I flicked a finger at the roomful of vampires. "How could they trust you then? I've been told you're no fool, but it would be foolish to kill me under those circumstances. And when I have the solutions to your problems, as well."

"You speak of a crisis upon me, but I see none beyond your annoying pricking."

"Carlos is the only one of your people who could recognize the problem, and I imagine he stopped looking out for your interests after Seville."

He raised a cool eyebrow, though I saw the momentary flicker of his corona.

I smiled a little.

He laid the weight of his gaze on mine and tried to push me. The ache in my chest distracted me enough to wrench my line of sight aside just as he spoke. "Tell me what you know and how you came to know it."

I slipped into a shooter's concentration no wider than a bullet hole at twenty yards. I could not afford to miss this mark, nor slide under his control. "I'll tell you and give you the solution, but only for a price."

Edward ground his teeth. "You defy me? You bargain with me?" Surprise and outrage broke his pressure against me.

I centered my stare back on his and kept my voice low. "I came to help you, so you would help me. This room is filled with your enemies. If you harm me—a defenseless daylighter under Carlos's protection— they will have a cause against you to rally around, a match to the powder of their hatred and fear. They will attack you on every side. If you survive, your cat's-paws and your assistants and supporters at TPM will vanish. You'll lose your ability to control your empire in the daylight world and in the nightside as well. That's the real key to your power. That's why they came here tonight. That's why they helped me and then kept the mud stirred up. They want your head. I can't stop Alice and her cronies, but if you listen to my proposition and let me leave alive and unharmed, anyone who hasn't already made up their mind will have no reason to join her against you, and the rest will back you for their own good. Carlos cannot fight you, but he won't help Alice if you give him no cause. So, are you angry enough to cut your own throat while you cut mine, or do you want to listen a moment longer?"