Greta Jurgens came to work early, shuffling across the deserted white stone courtyards just off the Plaza de Armas before the sun got high enough to make them blaze. Still, she wore heavy-framed sunglasses against the light, and her pace was sluggish enough for summer heat or a woman twice her age. She wasn’t small-boned, or even especially pale given her Germanic ancestry, but the tanned, muscle-freighted bulk of the two Samoan bodyguards detailed to escort her from the limousine each day made her seem delicate and ill by comparison. And as she reached the cloistered edge of the courtyard where her office was, stepped under the cloister’s stone roof and up to the office door, she shivered, harder than most humans would. October was a knowledge, a cold creeping tide in her blood. Darker, colder days, coming in.

Back in Europe, the seasonal cycle her metabolism had originally been calibrated for was already well into autumn and winding slowly down to winter. And you never could quite get it together to get recalibrated, could you, Greta. Too little faith in the local service providers—it was a complicated procedure, went very deep—and too little disposable income or time to go back and pay someone she’d trust. Yeah, and if you’re honest, just never the right time, either: too fucking busy, then too fucking depressed, then just too fucking asleep. It was a pretty standard hib complaint—along with the more obvious physiological factors, the hibernoid hormonal suite lent itself to mental fluctuations that were almost bipolar in their intensity. All through the waking segment of the cycle, she whirred like an overloaded magdrive dynamo, working, dealing, brokering, living but always too busy, too busy, too busy to rest or relax or sleep or worry about minor considerations like changing her life for the better. Then, as the hormonal tide began to ebb and such considerations finally managed to creep to the front of her conscious concerns, they came in freighted with such a surging sense of weariness in the face of insurmountable odds that it was all she could do not to weep at the pointlessness of trying to do anything about a thing like that now. Better just to sleep on it, better just let it go this time around, pick up again in spring and…

And around she went again.

An unfortunate psychological side effect, went the arid, tut-tutting text of the Jacobsen Protocol, and somewhat debilitating for those implicated, but not a failing this committee need concern itself with unduly, nor a social threat as such.

Somewhat debilitating. Right. Her fingers mashed at the door code panel, slow and clumsy, as if they weren’t really hers. The Samoans stood by. Isaac and Salesi, both of them familia enforcers since their youth, long schooled in a sort of hard-faced butler’s diplomacy where escort duties were concerned—they knew better than to offer her help. She’d been in a foul mood for days now, snappish and strung out at the wrong end of her waking tether. Judgment fraying, social skills barely operational. Under normal circumstances, she’d already have handed over operations here to one of Manco’s brighter minions, given in to the inevitable changes in her blood chemistry, and let the cold tide turn opiate-warm along her veins. She’d already be housebound, down at the Colca retreat, pottering about, prepping for the long sleep ahead. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have to—

He came out of nowhere.

She still had her sunglasses on, blurry early-morning vision, and not much peripheral sense at all this late in the cycle—no surprise she didn’t see it happen. Her first warning was the sound of a solid, untidy impact behind her. The door, coded open, was already swinging inward off the latch. She felt the huge hand of one of the bodyguards hit her in the small of her back, shoving her bodily inside. She stumbled, caught the corner of a desk in the cramped office space, struggled foggily to comprehend.

We’re being hit.

Impossible. Her mind rejected it out of hand, objections in a blurry rush. Manco had put his stamp on the Arequipa gangs a decade ago, made his allegiances, wiped out the rest. No one—no one—was stupid enough to buck the trend. And the courtyard, the white stone courtyard, was pristine when they crossed, empty this early.

The sound behind her played back in her head. Shock jumped in her blood as she put it together.

Someone had come off the paved walkway above the cloister, jumped better than five meters directly down and onto one of her escorts. Was outside now, finishing the job…

Isaac cannoned into the doorjamb and sagged there, clinging. Blood matted his hair and poured down his face between the eyes. He made a convulsive effort to gain his feet again, failed, went down in a heap.

Behind him in the doorway, a black figure silhouetted against the gathering glare of the early-morning sun. Something flopped in her sluggish blood, deep jolt of instinctive fear just ahead of recognition.

“Morning, Greta. Surprised to see me?”

“Marsalis.” She spat it out, temper snapping across. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He stepped carefully into the office, skirting Isaac’s toppled bulk with cat-like care and a wary sideways glance. Behind him, through the open door, she saw Salesi stretched out unmoving on the chessboard white-and-gray pavement of the courtyard like a beached whale. Marsalis didn’t have a mark on him; didn’t even appear to be breathing heavily. He stood just inside reaching distance and looked impassively at her.

“I haven’t had much sleep, Greta. I’d bear that in mind if I were you.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

He saw it was true. Smiled a little. “I guess not. Welcome to the twist brotherhood, right? All just monsters together.”

“I repeat.” She stepped away from the desk corner, straightened up to him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I might ask Manco the same question. See, I’ve been pretty polite so far. Couple of quick conversations and I’m out of your hair for good. No damage, no disruption, everybody’s happy. That’s the way I wanted it, anyw—”

“We don’t always get what we want, Marsalis. Didn’t your mummy ever tell you that?”

“Yeah. She also told me it was rude to interrupt.” He reached in, whiplash-swift, and her sunglasses were gone, plucked into his hand. Her vision watered and swam. “Like I said, Greta, I could have been out of everyone’s hair in nothing flat. Instead, last night, while I was on my way here to talk to you, someone paid a bucketful of your illustrious local military to have me disappeared.”

She blinked hard to clear her vision. Silent curse at the tears it squeezed visibly out at the corners of her eyes.

“What a shame they didn’t manage it.”

“Yeah, well, you just can’t get the help these days. Point is, Greta, who do you think I should blame?”

She tipped her head to look past him at the crumpled form by the door. “Looks to me like you’ve already decided that one.”

“You’re confusing purpose with necessity. I don’t think your islander friends would have been overkeen on us all having a sitdown chat.”

She met his gaze. “I don’t seem to be sitting down.”