"Thanks. Will you come inside?"

"Only as far as the kitchen, where the electrical box is. I want to stay near the switches, in case anyone starts prowling around."

"OK. Have you seen anyone else yet?"

"Vampires and ghosts? Not yet, but I might not see them at all. They're sneaky bastards. Besides, it's barely dark yet."

"'Sneaky. Charming description." We all turned and faced Edward.

He stood in the shadows under the covered driveway. "I hope I didn't miss much. Eavesdropping is one of my best techniques."

None of us blushed.

"Who else are we to expect?" I asked.

"Only Carlos and Cameron. With your friend here, it should prove sufficient."

"No one rallied to the flag?"

"There were volunteers, but I didn't get to be the lead dog without having some teeth. Occasionally, it's necessary to prove I still have them. It wouldn't behoove me to ask my people to do what I wouldn't. Besides which, they will be busy creating the illusion that all of us were busy elsewhere tonight."

Quinton muttered under his breath, "Teeth and balls. Nice combo—for a pit bull."

Edward turned his gaze on Quinton and skewered him with it. Quinton squirmed a bit, but didn't look down.

"And for lone wolves," Edward added. "Just be careful whose pack you run across this time."

I looked at them both. "You guys know each other?"

Edward gazed at Quinton. "By reputation."

Quinton gave a slight nod and we all chose to look toward the side door.

Edward pointed to it. "Shall we go?"

We went as stealthily as wet gravel would allow—a train of phan-tom follow-the-leader—and let ourselves in. Quinton stood aside and waited for us to pass.

"I'll stay here until I see another vampire," he whispered.

"And Cameron."

"OK. Stay quiet, all right? Neighbors like to walk their dogs around here, even in the rain."

Carlos and Cameron joined us as we started up the stairs. We all hesitated at the top, glancing about. I don't know what made the vampires scope the area like that, but in my case, it was fear. Mara looked nervous and overwound. She cast a look at me and sketched a sign in the air between us. It sparked a moment and shed warmth on me, then faded.

We went to the parlor. The door was sheathed in a blanket of ugliness that oozed and seeped around the edges, flowing onto the floor, creeping like a spreading puddle of blood. Carlos brushed past the rest of us and touched the door, whispering. The darkness squirmed aside. We followed him in. He closed the door behind us.

The room was swathed in the rolling, icy blackness that had retreated from the door. Carlos pushed it back with his hands, clearing space. We moved furniture to his direction, shuffling in aching silence. Mara and I were sweating before we were done, and I moved at an old woman's pace. I had to give the organ a wide berth. Every time I came near, it sent a tentacle of darkness toward me. Carlos pinched them off with a smell of burnt flesh.

With all the furniture pushed up to the farthest walls, we rolled up the rug. We stood back as Carlos began to chalk symbols on the floor. Mara held one of my hands and chanted something that kept the Grey back from us. The Grey web inside me buzzed with exhausting activity, crackling and arcing over my nerves and joints as the energy from the nexus hummed through me. I watched the darkness lap at the arc of chalked sigils. After a while, Carlos motioned to Edward and they began to push and pull on the organ. Judging from their grunts and stifled noises, it was terrible work.

Cameron started forward to help. Carlos waved him off.

"Better for us to do it." He gave a rictus grin. "We are old in our own evil."

Once the organ was a few feet from the wall, Edward fell back, looking as ill as I felt. His face and neck bore thin, white weals that had not been there the night before. Carlos crept around the floor, singing in a low voice, drawing a careful circle of runes and symbols that writhed and connected into an endless, glowing gyre enclosing himself and the organ.

Then Mara began a larger circle of her own, outside and around his, that encompassed most of the rest of the room. She muttered as she walked, making a trail of dim sparks along with her chalk line that pushed the darkness into a heavy, gathering storm around the organ. She left a small opening opposite the door. I went to stand by it with her, facing the door. I could feel the organ's power surging.

"The scent of blood to draw him," Carlos said and looked toward me and Mara.

She glared at him.

Carlos watched me and started to reach for my hand.

"No," Mara snapped, her words coming out of her mouth sharp gold and scintillating. "And not mine, either. You know that."

Edward raised a languid hand. "Don't be cruel, Carlos. It's poor form to repay our friends in that coin. I'd give mine, if I had any."

"Maybe your friend downstairs," Carlos suggested. "I could call him here."

I tried to glare at him. "That's not fair."

Carlos growled, "Fair…" Cameron started to say something, but Carlos shut him up with a look. "Very well, then. Cameron, open the door for our guest."

Cameron edged around the circle as Carlos, mumbling something that sounded more like curses than spells, drew a small knife from his clothing. He slashed it across his right wrist.

Nothing happened. Then Carlos closed his eyes. His lips moved but no sound came out. His chest heaved as though from heavy exertion and dark, slow drops of blood welled along the wound, then dripped to the seething floor. They splashed loud as cymbals. Carlos flung his hand in an arc, dark droplets splattering over the organs mirror and stops with the sound of shattering crystal.

Stillness and the sickening stink of corrupted blood held us. I was panting as I called out, "Sergeyev. Grigori Sergeyev. I have your vessel. Come and get it."

A wind burst up from the floor with a roar and a shape rushed through the door. It crossed the edge of the first circle, racing toward me. Mara dropped to her knees and closed her circle with a word. A wall of white light leapt upward. The Grey shape smashed against the barrier and recoiled with a howl of frustration, collapsing into the form of my spectral client, trapped between the two charmed circles.

He cursed us all in vociferous Russian. Cameron stood spellbound by the door and I cowered behind Mara, oppressed by the ghost's withering hatred and battered by my own fear, pain, and exhaustion.

"There's nothing he can do to you, so long as the circles remain intact," Mara whispered, as I held her shoulders. "The only one at risk is Carlos, and no ghost wants a taste of a necromancer's fury if he can avoid it." She looked uncertain and pale with fatigue, hands wound into her circle's spell, keeping the ghost confined between it and Carlos's circle of necromancy. Her own power strained to maintain the circle's integrity as Sergeyev stormed against it. I hoped whatever flowed, pulsing, through me was helping her, but I didn't know.

Carlos reached out and yanked one of the stops out of the organ. Sergeyev turned with a jerk and threw himself against the inner circle with a shriek. The ivory decoration on the knob crumbled to dust and sifted to the floor, frosting the blood with a thin coat of white. Carlos dropped the knob and reached for another.

"Nyet!" Sergeyev screamed, followed by a babble of Russian sounding imploring and threatening by turns.

Carlos answered him. "We come to release you, you ungrateful wretch. Seven hundred years of torment and all you can think of is revenge. Against whom?"

Sergeyev spat out a name, stalking in frustration around the perim-eter of Carlos's circle. His appearance wavered and flickered through a vertigo-inducing montage of every person he'd ever worn, stolen, or devoured. I leaned one shoulder against the wall, which flickered with strange lights.