“And that thing’s going to be prowling around down there?” Michael asked.

“No, it won’t,” Marsden answered. “It’s still a vampire and it still sleeps during daylight. Alice will make sure of that, since she can’t exert control while she sleeps. She’s probably got that Simeon laying sleeping spells on it every morning. And that’s another reason to go after your brother in the late afternoon, before the vampires wake—during the changing of the guard, so to speak—when everyone’s a bit sleepy and off their stride. The kreanou won’t be up and about until Alice is, and Simeon will be tired; the summer daylight lasts longer than his sleep spells can, so he’ll have been up at least once while everyone else was kippin’. But the timing’s tricky, since we’ll be coming at the catacombs from the sewers where we can’t see the sun.”

“Marsden. ” I asked, “how do you kill it? I thought I knew how to kill a vampire, but. Alice is up and walking. ”

“The kreanou’s easy so long as you keep away from him—he’ll do himself in once he’s had the prey he’s after. Let him get at Alice or Simeon and he’ll burn out on his own—he’s tied to their power. If we can break their control, he’ll take out the nearest one and we take the other. The sorcerer’s powerful, but he’s still just a man at heart and she’s not as tough as you think. Stakes just hold ’em down. Decapitation works wonders. As does fire.”

“But she survived both of those before.”

“In special circumstances. The Pharaohn chopped her up while she was immersed in blood. Then he put her into jars full of blood—and probably just the right kind. Everything lived, though plainly she’s madder than a March hare. But if she’d not had the blood or if he’d just cut her head off and left it, she’d have died for good. Once they bleed out, that’s the end of ’em. Or burn ’em up till there’s nowt but ash, or leave ’em for the sun to finish off if you’ve a vicious streak to ya. That’ll turn the trick, though you’ll have the devil’s time getting it done. Panic makes ’em stronger and they’re fly ones to begin with. But you chop her up until the blood’s all gone and she won’t be getting back up. You get her head off and put it where she can’t stop the bleeding. That’ll do the trick.”

“How am I supposed to take her head off? It’s not like a pumpkin on a stick—”

“She’s still healin’. Wounds are weak spots. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy—it’s not—but that’s your only chance.”

Did I say it wasn’t a great plan? It was a desperate plan, but it was what we had right now and we didn’t have time to wait and hope for better opportunities. I sighed. “We’re going to need supplies,” I said. “Some kind of. protective clothes against the water—”

“A boat would be better,” Marsden said.

“How?” I asked. “It’s also a lot bigger.”

“You’ll be glad of it once we’re down there. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s started to rain. And it’s been raining in the north for a few days. All that water’ll be running downhill toward the Thames fast as a flood. We could try with waders and Wellies, but I doubt we’d make it far before we was bowled over like a leaf in the gutter. What we need’s one o’ them little boats like a coracle or them Eskimo things.”

“A kayak?”

“Yeah. ”

“And the bikes—”

Marsden interrupted me. He looked nervous, though I wouldn’t have thought it possible. “You sure about them things?”

“Yes,” I snapped back. “The traffic’s too thick to make it in a car and we’re too slow on foot. It’ll have to be the motorcycles. The Red Brothers have transportation, but a bike’s small and nimble and we should be able to get a lead. We don’t want to lose them; we just want to stay ahead of them.”

“You really know how to ride one o’ them things?”

“For the gods’ sakes! Yes!” Not in quite a while, but I wasn’t going to tell doubting Marsden that. “Michael, can you get two of the motorcycles to the meeting point in time?” I asked. “It’ll be somewhere near Farringdon Tube, probably on the west side of the road.”

“Yeah. I’ll have to shuttle them, but it’s not too bad a trip. They’ll be there. We’ll need some kind of safety straps, in case. ” He swallowed hard, worried. “In case Will can’t hold on.”

I nodded.

We made a list of the things we’d need and where Michael and Marsden thought we could find them. Clothing was on the top.

I’d left the hotel in my business suit two days earlier and had only the contents of my purse, some paperwork, a passport, and TPM’s credit card with me. Since then I’d escaped from the Red Guard, scrambled through abandoned Underground stations, hidden out on a boat, been captured and led toward certain death, evaded vampires by scuttling through temporaclines, and fought a vicious ghost in the ruins of an old prison. I looked a bit rough to go out on business. And I imagined Will would look even worse when we got to him. It’s much easier to evade pursuit if you don’t look like you’re running away. Even once we were clear of the immediate threat in Clerkenwell, we’d have to get Will on a plane for home or into a doctor’s, depending on his condition when we found him. We could fake a lot, but four-day-old clothes that had been worn hard would stand out.

There was also the matter of Edward’s stolen property. I might not be able to reclaim his control in London, but I could salvage as much as possible and give Edward options to fight back against Wygan once Alice was out of the picture. Right now, Edward was in a corner—wherever he actually was.

Wygan would pull the plug on Alice as soon as he knew she’d lost me. I had no doubt the nasty piece of work I’d met in that Clerkenwell club would lose no time telling him, but I didn’t intend to let Alice survive long enough to be a problem for Wygan or his white-skinned kin. And I thought I knew right where to lure her to make sure she didn’t come back from this death.

“I shall meet you tomorrow noon at Angel,” Marsden reminded me as we finished our plans. “Be sharpish.”

He had no idea how “sharpish” I felt already.

CHAPTER 44

After we’d agreed on our plan and used up all the water in the Morning Glory’s tanks trying to wash away the sense offilth that clung to us after our brush with Norrin, Michael and I slept on it and started out in the morning to see if Edward’s credit was any good outside of Clerkenwell. Marsden had taken off to tend to his own mysterious needs as we went shopping.

Michael had directed me on and off buses and now we were strolling along a section of Oxford Street I hadn’t seen on my last trip to the area, looking for a building called the Pantheon. Traffic was a little lighter due to the intermittent rain, but we still had to dodge a few unneeded umbrellas, and the pedestrians were grumpier to make up for their sparseness.

“Are you sure shopping with this guy’s credit card is safe?” Michael asked. “I mean. y’know. these guys are dangerous company.”

“Agreed, but it’s a simple test without much risk,” I replied. “They either accept the card or they don’t. And if the use gets reported, I don’t think we’re going to be mobbed by vampires in Marks and Spencer. If they don’t take the card, then I’ll know I was set up right from the start.”

Michael had been the one to suggest “Marks and Sparks” on the grounds that it had nearly everything we needed, but it wasn’t anything special—just a chain store, really, no matter how nice. Opulent Harrods, on the other hand, seemed far too likely to be observed by exactly the people we didn’t want to tangle with.

“Oh. You know, you—you don’t have to. do this. I could go to the cops.”

I didn’t stop walking down the sidewalk, which was gently speckled with rain and lined with tall, broad buildings—some older than my home state—but I did slow down a bit to match Michael’s suddenly dawdling stride. I glanced at him but didn’t stare; I could see he was wrestling with his thoughts.