And when the man was again denied, what then would he do to Serge’s family?

BEN STRUGGLED to control his anger. The insolent man dared to bring up his daughter.

Did he think to pit Ben’s family against his own? The man could not conceive the move Ben could make against his family. They would be obliterated before Serge could remember the name of Ben’s daughter.

The Ukrainian peasant denied Ben something he mustbe able to control. The man communed with the dead regarding the future. Why not help his daughter? Had he no compassion?

“I need that skull,” Ben muttered. “But where is it?”

Could he ask Serge to send out spiritual feelers for the skull?

No, he didn’t want the man to have any more advantage when the playing field was so unbalanced right now.

11

There were better things to tend to than necromancing for Benjamin Ravenscroft. Like researching Annja Creed. With her bone sample at home, Serge could easily track her footsteps over the past weeks. It was as simple as attaching a bloodhound spirit to her aura.

But he had to focus. Ben squeezed the Karpenko family’s lives in his greedy corporate hands. And since Serge had bound himself to the man, he could do no harm against him. Powerless, he could only look to freedom.

Soon enough.

Bent over the crushed bone, sweet smoke curled into Serge’s nostrils. He drew in the odor, surrendering to its intoxication.

Almost.

The Creed woman prodded his thoughts. She hadn’t been the least unsettled to find him waiting in her home. A home he’d trashed. The skull had not been there.

Why hadn’t he run across the battle sword while creating that havoc?

When she’d brought it out, it had given him momentary surprise. He feared very little. No skinny woman with a big sword was going to intimidate him. He may not have martial arts in his arsenal—such a rudimentary grasp at self-defense—yet he could easily exercise enough brute strength to overwhelm and attack.

Since he’d begun necromancing as a young boy Serge had always felt protective forces about him. He thought of them as a sort of force field against evil and negativity. Yet even that force field could not stop Serge from agreeing to help when a man asked kindly and promised to secure his family’s future.

There were times Serge had ignored his intuition. It was foolish of him. For if he’d listened to his heart a year ago, he’d still be living on the small farm north of Odessa with his family. He’d be struggling to survive, but happier with those he loved in no danger.

He owed a call to his father and would stop by a phone booth on the way home. Serge no longer used the fancy cell phone Ben had gifted him. After a few strange clicks and tones during his first calls to his family, he became suspicious Ben was listening in or tracking his contacts.

Serge knew little about technology, but he was getting over that deficit quickly. Every Saturday he spent five hours at the New Amsterdam branch library. The class on Surfing the Internet for Fun and Profit had taught him about search engines, and how to go deeper for information worth having. It was how he found information on the woman he’d pulled from the Gowanus Canal.

Who would have thought the one television show playing in the café two blocks west of the canal, where he’d stopped for eggs and toast after that encounter with the woman, would be showing Chasing History’s Monsters.It was dumb luck.

Or rather, Serge’s intuition had been working strongly after it had failed him at the canal. It had led him the direction he needed.

He thought he should have processed her bone right away. Began to summon with it. See what the Greater All had to give him about her. He’d do so later, when he returned home.

Of course, he could wait. In the morning she’d bring the skull to him. If she wished to live. And who would not?

Annja Creed had impressed him with her defensive skills, and hadn’t backed down from him no matter the fight he’d given her. Serge knew he was imposing. He stuck out like a bull in a daisy patch when walking the streets of Brooklyn.

He was very patient. But his patience was growing thin with Benjamin’s unrelenting demands. The man kept insisting Serge could conjure a spirit to save the girl. He could not. A necromancer had no power over life and death. Such was ineffable.

He could but contact spirits and use them to manipulate the will of mortals, such as convincing them to turn right into traffic instead of left across a safe intersection. He could use spirits to cause illusions, either visible to all or but a figment in a man’s mind. If he wished, he could drive a man to insanity—but he had no such malicious desires.

He most frequently contacted spirits. The spirits, unattached to this mortal realm or its constraints of time, provided him knowledge both from past and future.

Such knowledge was what Benjamin paid for. How certain stocks would perform, and those patents he bought and sold as if candy. Serge did not understand the man’s business, but he did not have to. The spirit he contacted understood completely, and took greedy delight in providing details. It was demonic, the vibe Serge felt when he conjured.

Rarely did he summon demons, though they had their uses.

Remembering what he was doing, Serge gave his head a shake. He’d fallen out of trance. He’d never get this right if he couldn’t concentrate.

He was so close to holding the skull. It would give him good things.

He felt it in his bones.

SHE’D BE AT TITO’S in less than ten minutes. Annja couldn’t walk fast enough. She shoved a hand in her coat pocket to retrieve her jingling cell phone.

Professor Danzinger started in without introduction. She had to chuckle at his enthusiasm.

“It’s quite incredible, Annja. I know I was initially reluctant about looking over another skull, but those carvings…Well, I don’t believe they are actual carvings.”

She paused on the street corner, waiting for a green light. The thief’s backpack, with tools intact, was slung over her shoulder. “What could they be, if not carved?”

“I don’t know! It’s as if—well, you’ll think me crazy.”

“That’s a word I’ve never heard associated with the rock-and-roll Danzinger.”

“You tease, Annja. But the markings inside the skull? It’s as if it was bornthat way. As if the brain’s many convolutions had somehow made the impressions on the skull’s interior. They are not carved, it is a reverse imprint.”

The light turned green. She was bustled across at the head of a crowd of pedestrians. “Born that way? Professor, what have you been smoking?”

“Nothing! Yet. Heh.”

Again she chuckled and skipped across the street to the restaurant.

“I’m mapping out the interior with the snake camera, but it’s a slow go. I stayed most of the night. It’s so incredible, I didn’t want to leave it alone.”

“Huh. Then maybe we really have something there. Do the markings give any indication to provenance? Year? Nationality?”

“Who can know? And I’m no anthropologist, so I haven’t a clue to begin assigning nationality or even sex from bone structure. It’s difficult enough with an infant’s skull. I haven’t had the opportunity to research online for anything like this. I never do trust the Internet. Not sure I’ll find time to run over to the library, either. There won’t be many researchers around because of the holiday break.”

“Right, I forgot, it’s Thanksgiving weekend.”