Well, that sure did narrow it down.

“You may marshal the others,” the Omega said. “But he must be taken alive. If anyone kills him, you shall be accountable unto me.”

The Omega leaned to the side and put his palm to the wallpaper next to the black bomb burst. The image of the civilian imprinted on the stretch of faded yellow flowers, burned there.

The Omega tilted his head and gazed at the image. Then, with a gentle, elegant hand, he caressed the face. “He is special, this one. Find him. Bring him back here. Do this with haste.”

The or else didn’t have to be said.

As the evil disappeared, Mr. D bent down and picked up his cowboy hat. Fortunately, it hadn’t been crushed or stained.

Rubbing his eyes, he counted the ways he was in it up to his buckle. A vampire male somewhere in Caldwell. It was gonna be like looking for a blade of grass in an acre of meadow.

Picking up a paring knife from the counter, he used the thing to cut around the image on the wallpaper. Peeling the sheet off carefully, he studied the face.

Vampires were secretive for two reasons: They didn’t want humans interfering none with their race, and they knew that the lessers were after them. They did go out in public, though, especially the newly transitioned males. Aggressive and reckless, the young ones hit the seedier parts of Caldwell’s downtown because there were humans to have sex with and fights to get into and all kinds of fun things to snort and drink and smoke.

Downtown. He’d get a squad together and head to the bars downtown. Even if they didn’t find the male right away, the vampire community was a small one. Other civilians were bound to know their target, and information gathering was one of Mr. D’s strengths.

To heck and gone with truth serum. Give him a claw hammer and a length of chain, and he was a machine with getting a pair of lips to babble.

Mr. D dragged his sorry, too-used body upstairs and took a careful shower in the dead people’s shitty bathroom. When he was done, he changed into a pair of overalls and a button-down, which were naturally too big for him. After he rolled up the shirt cuffs and cut three inches off the legs of the pants, he combed his white hair flat to his skull. Before he left the room, he put on some Old Spice from the guy’s bureau. The stuff was mostly alcohol, like the bottle had been sitting there for a while, but Mr. D liked to be classy.

Back downstairs, he swung through the kitchen and picked up the strip of wallpaper with the male’s face on it. Eating up the features with his eyes, he found himself getting bluetick hound dog excited even though he was still aching all over.

The hunt was on and he knew who else to use. There was a crew of five lessers who he’d worked with on and off during the past couple years. They were good guys. Well, good was probably the wrong word. But he could deal with them, and now that he was Fore-lesser he could give them orders.

On his way out the front door, he tugged his hat into place and tipped the brim to the dead people. “See y’all later.”

Qhuinn walked into his father’s study in a bad mood, and he sure as hell didn’t expect to leave feeling all glowy and shit.

And there you go. The second he entered the room, his father let one side of the Wall Street Journal flop loose so he could press his knuckles to his mouth, then touch each side of his throat. A quick phrase in the Old Language came out in a mutter, then the paper was back up in place.

“Do you need me for the gala,” Qhuinn said.

“Didn’t one of the doggen tell you?”

“No.”

“I told them to tell you.”

“So that would be a no, then.” Like asking the question in the first place, he pressed for the answer just to be a pain in the ass.

“I don’t understand why they didn’t tell you.” His father uncrossed then recrossed his legs, the crease in his slacks as sharp as the lip on his glass of sherry. “I really only want to have to communicate things once. I don’t believe that is too much-”

“You’re not going to say it to me, are you?”

“-to ask. I mean, honestly, the job of a servant is self-evident. Their purpose is to serve, and I really don’t like repeating myself.”

His father’s free foot tapped at the air. His tasseled loafers were, as always, by Cole Haan: pricey, but no more showy than an aristocratic whisper.

Qhuinn looked down at his New Rocks. The treaded soles were two inches thick at the ball of his foot and three inches at his heel. The black leather went up to the base of his calves and was crisscrossed by laces and three boss chrome buckles.

Back when he’d been getting an allowance,before his change hadn’t cured his defect, he’d saved up for months to get these mean-ass motherfucking shitkickers, and he’d bought them as soon as he could after his change. They were his prezzie to himself for living through his transition, because he knew better than to expect anything from the parents.

His father’s eyes had nearly popped out of his establishment skull when Qhuinn had worn them to First Meal.

“Was there something else,” his father said from behind the WSJ.

“Nah. I’ll get good and ghost. Don’t you worry.”

God knew he’d done it before at official functions, although really, who were they kidding? The glymera was fully aware of him and his little “problem,” and those cobassed snobs were like elephants. They never forgot.

“By the way, your cousin Lash has a new job,” his father murmured. “At Havers’s clinic. Lash fancies becoming a doctor and is interning after his classes.” The newspaper flipped around and his father’s face briefly appeared… which was a curious killer, because Qhuinn caught the wistful cast to his old man’s eyes. “Lash is such a source of pride for his father. A worthy successor to the family mantle.”

Qhuinn glanced at his father’s left hand. On the forefinger, taking up all the space beneath the big knuckle, was a solid gold ring bearing the family’s crest.

All the young males from the aristocracy got one after they went through their transitions, and Qhuinn’s best friends both had theirs. Blay wore his all the time except when fighting or out downtown, and John Matthew had been given one, although he didn’t put it on. They weren’t the only ones with the flashy paperweights, either. In their training class at the Brotherhood’s compound, one by one the trainees were going through the change and showing up with a signet ring on their finger.

Family crest pressed into ten ounces of gold: five thousand dollars.

Getting it from your father when you became a true male: priceless.

Qhuinn’s transition had occurred about five months ago. He’d stopped waiting for his ring four months, three weeks, six days, and two hours ago.

Roughly.

Man, in spite of the friction between him and his dad, he’d never thought he wouldn’t get one. But surprise! New way to feel out of the fold.

There was another rustle of the paper and this one was impatient, as if his father were shooing a fly away from his hamburger. Although, of course, he didn’t eat hamburgers, because they were too common.

“I’m going to have to talk to that doggen,” his father said.

Qhuinn shut the door on his way out, and when he turned to go down the hall, he nearly bumped into a doggen who was coming from the library next door. The uniformed maid leaped back, kissed her knuckles, and tapped the veins running up her throat.

As she scampered off, muttering the same phrase his father had, Qhuinn stepped up to an antique mirror that hung on the silk-covered wall. Even with the ripples in the leaded glass and the blackened flecks where the reflective part had flaked off, his problem was obvious.

His mother had gray eyes. His father had gray eyes. His brother and sister had gray eyes.