The gorleth’steeth sank easily into his flesh. He could see the creature’s gullet moving. It was suckling, pulling blood out of the wound with terrible force, swallowing it. A buzzing noise filled Travis’s ears. The world began to go white, and he no longer felt pain.

He watched through a veil as Vani and Beltan shoved on the doors, closing them, catching the creature’s neck as in a vise. It opened its maw to let out a hiss, releasing Travis’s arm. Travis stumbled back, and Beltan’s sword flashed. The gorleth’shead rolled to the floor, and the doors clamped shut. Outside the windows of the train the creature’s decapitated body slumped backward onto the tiles.

Vani took Nim from Deirdre. The girl was not crying. Her face was ashen and her eyes were circles of fear as she stared at Travis.

“Anders,” Deirdre said, grabbing her partner’s arm, “get this train running again.”

“You got it, mate.” Anders raised the walkie-talkie and pressed a button. “Eustace, take us out of the station. Now.”

The train lurched into motion, pulling away from the platform. Travis caught one last glimpse of the remaining gorlethson the edge of the platform, swarming around the headless body of their kin. Then the train passed into the darkness of a tunnel, and he felt strong hands lowering him into a seat.

“Travis, are you all right?” It was Beltan, his green eyes worried.

“He has lost much blood,” Vani said.

Before Anders could react, she tore one of the sleeves from his suit coat and bound it around Travis’s arm.

“Hey, now!” Anders said, annoyance on his pitted face. “You don’t just go making bandages out of Armani.”

Travis shook his head. The fog was beginning to lift. “I’m fine, really. I just got dizzy for a moment.”

But was it the loss of blood that had made him dizzy, or the smell of it? It filled his nostrils now: the rich, coppery scent. Were the morndaristill sated? Could he not call them to him with blood such as his?

“Travis?” Beltan touched his cheek.

He focused on the blond man’s face, letting the desire to work blood sorcery fade away. Only it didn’t, not completely.

Deirdre slumped back against one of the seats. “How did you find us?” she said to Anders. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

“I got your message, mate,” Anders said, gripping a pole as the train rattled around a corner. “I must have just missed you, only when I called back you didn’t answer. It sounded like you’d gotten yourself into a bit of a scrape, so I decided to investigate. I went to the Bond Street station to hop on the Tube to Travis and Beltan’s neighborhood, and I knew something was definitely wrong when I ran into this chap.”

The Seeker picked up something resting on one of the seats: a gold mask. There was a small hole between the mask’s eyes.

“Needless to say, I was a bit surprised,” Anders continued, clearly enjoying telling the story. “This fellow here wiggled his fingers at me, and I suppose my heart should have exploded. Only I think something made his magic go all wonky. He got flustered, and I took the chance to get a shot off. Turns out their masks don’t stop bullets so well. Eustace showed up then. You remember him, Deirdre—the new apprentice you met the other day, scrappy lad. He had caught some chatter on the police radio scanners, something about a commotion at the Green Park station, and right away we had a pretty good notion what was up. So Eustace headed to the front of the train. There was no sign of the driver, but he got the train running, and here we are.”

Deirdre stood and gave Anders a fierce hug.

Surprise registered in his vivid blue eyes and—for a moment, Travis thought—a note of wistfulness. “Now there, mate, that’s enough of that. You would have done the same for me. Besides, I don’t think partners are supposed to fraternize quite like this.” He gently pushed her away.

“Are we heading to the Charterhouse?” she asked.

“On the double. I’d say it’s the only safe place in the city for these folks right now.”

“I do not understand this,” Vani said, sitting next to Travis. Nim was curled up on her lap. The girl’s eyes were closed now, but Travis was certain she was listening to every word. “There is no way the Scirathi could know I brought Nim to Earth,” Vani went on, her face hard with anger. She looked at Travis. “How could they have followed me across the Void, let alone to your home?”

Anders cleared his throat. “Actually, miss, I don’t think they did. I found something on the body of that sorcerer fellow— something that tells me it wasn’t your daughter they were after.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sheet of stiff paper. It was a photograph of a man.

“By the Blade of Vathris,” Beltan growled. “I swear I’ll kill them all!”

Another wave of dizziness swept over Travis, and not just from loss of blood. The man in the photo was him.

14.

It was far after midnight by the time they gathered in a mahogany-paneled parlor in the Seekers’ London Charterhouse.

Deirdre sank down into one of the parlor’s comfortably shabby chairs. For the first time since they heard the sound of glass breaking in Travis’s and Beltan’s flat her heart rate slowed to a normal cadence, and a feeling of safety encapsulated her, as familiar and reassuring as the embrace of the wing-backed chair.

It had taken over two hours to get through all of the Charterhouse’s security checkpoints. While it hadn’t been difficult to gain entry for Travis and Beltan—their files were on record with the Seekers—new dossiers had to be created for Vani and Nim. Fingers were printed, retinas scanned, and Deirdre’s authorization codes processed. She had thought the security guards would call Director Nakamura for confirmation, but to her surprise they hadn’t. It seemed Echelon 7 clearance was good for more than just access to Seeker databases.

“How long can we stay in this place?” Vani said, prowling around a Chippendale sofa where Nim lay curled up. The T’gollimped slightly, favoring her injured leg. The nurse—there was always one on duty at the Charterhouse—had cleaned and bandaged the wound.

“You can stay as long as you need to,” Deirdre said.

Vani gripped the laminated ID badge that hung from a lanyard around her neck. “And we can leave at any time?”

“Of course you can leave,” Anders said, hanging his torn suit coat on the back of a chair. “Not that I’d recommend it. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not exactly safe out there.”

Vani spun around, advancing on him. “You Seekers are arrogant fools. I have watched you. You believe you know everything, yet there is so much you cannot understand. Is it truly so safe here?”

“Not if you keep talking like that, it isn’t,” Anders growled, cracking his knuckles.

Vani treated the Seeker to a scornful look. “If you think simply because you have large muscles that you have any chance against me, then you deceive yourself.”

“It sounds to me like you’re the cocky one,” Anders said. “Just because you’re some superspooky assassin type doesn’t mean you know every trick in the book. I worked security long before I became a Seeker, and I don’t need muscles to take out the likes of you. Go on, Deirdre. Tell her how I aced all those logic tests the Seekers gave me.”

Beltan interposed himself between the Seeker and the T’gol. He faced Anders. “I doubt I’d do very good on those tests, but my logic tells me you’d better back off if you want to keep your brain inside your skull.” He glared at Vani. “You, too. Do you think this is a good example for Nim?”

Vani’s scowl became a worried expression. “She is asleep.”

“Not anymore,” Travis said.

Nim was sitting up on the sofa, her gray eyes wide. “Are you going to hurt the bad man, Mother?”