He was marshaling his forces this afternoon.

As for coordination, he was going to arrange them into squadrons. And he was going to insist the slayers start meeting with him regularly in small groups.

As for information? If they were going to take out the brotherhood, they needed to know where to find the brothers. This would be difficult, though not impossible. Those warriors were a cagey, suspicious lot who kept to themselves, but the civilian vampire population did have some contact with them. After all, the brothers had to feed, and it couldn't be off one another. They required female blood.

And females, even if most of them were sheltered like precious art, had brothers and fathers who could be persuaded to talk. With the proper incentive, the males would reveal where their womenfolk went and who they saw. And then the brotherhood would be revealed.

This was the key to his overall strategy: A coordinated program of capture and motivation, focused on civilian males and the rare female who was out and about, would eventually lead to the brothers. It had to. Either because the brothers became incensed that the civilians were being used so roughly and came out with all daggers flashing. Or because someone talked and their locations were divulged.

The best outcome would be to find out where the warriors spent their days. Taking them down while the sun was shining, when they were at their most vulnerable, was the course of action with the highest probability of success and the lowest likelihood of society fatalities.

All things considered, killing civilian vampires was only slightly more difficult than knocking out your average human. They bled if you cut them, and their hearts stopped beating if you shot them, and if you got them into the sunlight they burned up.

Killing a member of the brotherhood was a very different proposition. They were monstrously strong, highly trained, and they healed up fast, a subspecies all their own. You had one shot with a warrior. If you didn't make it mortal, you were not making it home.

Mr. X stood up from the desk, taking a moment to study his reflection in the office's window. Pale hair, pale skin, pale eyes. Before he'd joined the society he'd been a redhead. Now he couldn't remember what he'd looked like anymore.

But he was very clear about his future. And the society's.

He locked the door behind him and went down the tiled hall to the main arena, waiting by the entrance, nodding at the students as they came inside for their jujitsu lesson. This was his favorite class, a group of young men, ages eighteen to twenty-four, who showed a lot of promise. As the fleet of guys in white, belted jujitsu gis bowed their heads to him and addressed him as sensei, Mr. X measured each one, noticing the way their eyes moved, the way they carried their bodies, how their moods seemed.

With his students lined up and prepared to spar, he continued to look them over, always keeping an eye out for potential recruits to the society. He was searching for just the right combination of physical strength, mental acuity, and unchan-neled hatred.

When he'd been approached to join the Lessening Society in the 1950s, he'd been a seventeen-year-old greaser in a juvenile delinquent program. The year before he'd stabbed his father in the chest after the bastard had knocked him one too many times in the head with a beer bottle. He'd hoped to kill the man, but unfortunately his father had survived and lived long enough to go home and kill Mr. X's mother.

But at least dear old Dad had had the sense to blow his own head all over the wall with a shotgun afterward. Mr. X had found the body on a visit home, right before he'd been caught and thrown into the system.

On that day, as he'd stood over his father's corpse, Mr. X had learned that screaming at the dead wasn't even remotely satisfying. There was, after all, nothing to be taken from someone who was already gone.

Considering who'd sired him, it was no accident that violence and hatred were thick in Mr. X's blood. And killing vampires was one of the few socially acceptable outlets for a murder streak like his. The military was a bore. Too many rules, and you had to wait until an enemy was declared before you could get to work. And serial killing was too small-scale.

The society was different. He had everything he'd ever wanted. Unlimited funds. The chance to kill every time the sun went down. And, of course, there was that all-important opportunity to mold the next generation.

So he'd had to sell his soul to get in. That was not a problem. After what his father had done to him, there hadn't been much of it left anyway.

In his mind, he'd definitely come out on the money side of the trade. He was guaranteed to be young and in perfect health until the day he died. And his death would be predicated not on some biological failure, like cancer or heart disease, but on his own ability to keep himself in one piece.

Thanks to the Omega, he was physically superior to humans, his eyesight was perfect, and he got to do what he liked best. The impotence had bothered him a little at the beginning, but he'd gotten used to that. And the not eating or drinking… well, it wasn't as if he'd been a gourmand anyway.

Besides, making blood run was better than food or sex any day.

When the door to the arena opened abruptly, he shot a glare over his shoulder. It was Billy Riddle, and the guy had two black eyes and a bandaged nose.

Mr. X cocked an eyebrow. "You sitting out today, Riddle?"

"Yes, sensei." Billy bowed his head. "But I wanted to come anyway."

"Good man." Mr. X put his arm around Riddle's shoulders. "I like your commitment. Tell you what-you want to put them through their paces during the warm-up?"

Billy bowed deeply, his broad back going nearly parallel to the floor. "Sensei."

"Go to it." He clapped the guy on the shoulder. "And don't take it easy on them."

Billy looked up, his eyes flashing.

Mr. X nodded. "Glad to see you get the point, son."

When Beth walked out of her building, she frowned at the unmarked police car parked across the street. Jose got out and jogged over to her.

"I heard what happened." His eyes lingered on her mouth. "How you feelin'?"

"Better."

"Come on, I'm giving you a ride to work."

"Thanks, but I want to walk." Jose's jaw set like he wanted to argue, so she reached out and touched his forearm. "I won't let this scare me so badly that I can't live my life. I've got to walk by that alley at some point, and I'd rather do it for the first time in the morning, when there's plenty of light."

He nodded. "Fine. But you're going to call a cab at night or you're going to get one of us to pick you up."

"Jose-"

"Glad you see it our way." He walked back across the street. "Oh, and I don't suppose you've heard what Butch O'Neal did last night?"

She almost didn't want to ask. "What?"

"He paid a little visit to that punk. I understand the guy had to get his nose set again after our good detective was finished with him." Jose opened the car door and dropped down into the seat. "Now, are we gonna be seeing you today?"

"Yeah, I want to know more about that car bomb."

"Thought so. See you in a few." He waved and peeled away from the curb.

But by three in the afternoon, she still hadn't made it to the police station. Everyone in the office had wanted to hear about her ordeal, and then Tony had insisted they go out for a big lunch. After rolling herself back into her cubicle, she'd spent the afternoon chewing on Turns and dallying with her e-mail.

She knew she had work she needed to be doing, but finishing up the article she was drafting on those handguns the cops had found was just not happening. Not that she was under any kind of deadline. It wasn't as if Dick was in a big hurry to give her front-page space in the Metro section.