Back at Darius's, V had searched the body. In the male's wallet there had been a slip of paper with the old language's characters on it. Name, address, age. He'd been six months out from his transition. So damn young.

An hour before dawn, they'd taken the body to the very edge of town, to a good-looking house set way back in the woods. An older civilian couple had answered the door, and their terror at finding two warriors on the other side had smelled like burning garbage to Wrath. When they'd confirmed that they had a son, Vishous had gone back to the car and picked up the remains. The father had burst from the doorway, going for his boy, taking him from Vishous's arms. Wrath had caught the mother as she'd crumpled.

The fact that the death had been avenged had calmed the father a little. But it hadn't felt like enough. Not to Wrath.

He would see all lessers dead before he could rest.

Wrath closed his eyes, listening to the beat of Jay-Z's The Black Album, trying to let go of the night before.

A rhythmic knocking broke through the music, and he willed the door open. "What's up, Fritz?"

The butler came in carrying a silver tray. "I took the liberty of preparing a repast for you, master."

Fritz put the food down on the low table in front of the couch. As he lifted the top off a covered dish, Wrath caught a whiff of herbed chicken.

Come to think of it, he was hungry.

He went over and sat down, picking up a heavy silver fork. He eyed the flatware. "Man, Darius liked expensive shit, didn't he?"

"Oh, yes, master. Only the best for my princeps."

The butler hovered as Wrath focused on getting some of the meat off the bone with the utensils. Fine motor skills were just not his bag, and he ended up picking the leg off the plate.

"Do you like the chicken, master?"

Wrath nodded as he chewed. "You're damned handy with the stove."

"I'm so glad you've decided to stay here."

"Not for long. But don't worry, you'll have someone to look after." Wrath pushed the fork into what looked like mashed potatoes. It was rice, and the stuff scattered. He cursed and tried to marshal some on the tines with his forefinger. "And she'll be a hell of a lot easier to live with than I am."

"I rather like looking after you. And master, I won't prepare the rice again. I'll also make sure your meat is cut up. I didn't think."

Wrath wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. "Fritz, don't waste your time trying to please me."

There was a soft laugh. "Darius was so very right about you, master."

"That I'm a miserable son of a bitch? Yeah, he was a perceptive one, all right." Wrath chased a piece of broccoli around with the fork. Damn it, he hated eating, especially if someone was watching him. "Never could figure out why he wanted me to come stay here so badly. No one could be that starved for company."

"It was for you."

Wrath narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. "Really."

"He worried that you were so alone. Living by yourself. No real shellan, no doggen. He used to say that your isolation was a self-imposed punishment."

"Well, it's not." Wrath's voice sliced through the butler's gentle tone. "And if you want to stay here, you'll keep the psych theories to yourself, got it?"

Fritz jerked as if he'd been hit. He bent at the waist and started backing out of the room. "My apologies, master. It was grossly inappropriate of me to address you as I did."

The door closed quietly.

Wrath leaned back against the sofa, Darius's fork gripped in his hand.

Ah, Christ. That damn doggen was enough to drive a saint crazy.

And he was not lonely. Never had been.

Vengeance was one hell of a roommate.

Mr. X eyed the two students sparring with each other. They were well matched in size, both eighteen years old and built strong, but he knew which one was going to win.

Sure enough, a side kick came out fast and hard, putting the receiver on his back.

Mr. X called an end to the match and said nothing more as the victor reached out and helped the loser struggle to his feet. The show of courtesy was irritating, and he felt like punishing them both.

The first code of the society was clear: That which you put on the ground, you kicked until it ceased to move. It was just that simple.

Still, this was class, not the real world. And the parents who were letting their sons dabble in violence would have had something to say if their precious children came home fit to be buried.

As the two students bowed to him, the loser's face was brilliant red, and not just from exertion. Mr. X let the class stare, knowing that shame and embarrassment were important parts of the corrective process.

He nodded at the victor.

"Fine job. Next time you bring him down faster though.

right? He turned to the loser. He passed his eyes from the guy's head to his feet, noting the heaving breaths, the tremble in the legs. "You know where to go."

The loser blinked rapidly as he walked over to the glass wall that looked out to the lobby. As required, he stood facing the clear panels, head up high so everyone who entered the building could see his face. If he brushed the tears off his cheeks, he would have to repeat the discipline during the next session.

Mr. X separated the class and began to put them through their exercises. He watched them, correcting stances and arm positions, but his mind was on other things.

Last night had been less than perfect. Far less.

Back home, his police scanner had informed him when the prostitute's body had been found sometime after three A.M. There had been no mention of the vampire. Perhaps the lessers had taken the civilian away to toy with him.

It was a shame things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped, and he wanted to get back out into the field. Using a newly slain human female as bait was going to work fine. But the tranquilizer darts needed to be calibrated better. He'd started with a relatively low dose, concerned about killing the civilian before he could work him over. Clearly the strength of the drug needed to be increased.

Tonight was a bust, though.

Mr. X eyed the loser.

This evening was all about recruiting. The ranks needed to be filled out a little following the disintegration of that new recruit two nights ago.

Back centuries ago, when there were many more vampires, the society had had hundreds of members, spread far and wide over the European continent as well as in the fledgling settlements in North America. Now that the vampire population had dwindled, however, so had the ranks of the society. It was a matter of practicality. A bored, inactive lesser was a bad thing. Chosen specifically for their capacity for violence, their murderous impulses couldn't be put on ice just because there weren't enough targets to go around. Quite a number of them had had to be put down for killing other lessers in competition for superiority in the ranks, an aggres-sive response more likely to occur if there was too little work. Or just as bad, they'd started taking out humans for sport.

The former was a disgrace and an inconvenience. The latter was unacceptable. It wasn't that the Omega was concerned with human fatalities. Quite the contrary. But using discretion, moving in the shadows, killing swiftly and returning to the darkness, these were the tenets of slayers. Human attention was bad news, and nothing got the Homo sapiens stirred up more than a bunch of dead people.

Which was another reason why new recruits were tricky. They tended to have more hatred than focus. Seasoning was critical so that the secret nature of the aeons-old war between vampires and the society could be preserved.

Still, their ranks needed to be filled.