The elf, whose name he'd never know, had been the one to destroy Luther. It was true he'd said that the only way in was through Tom, but Serrin somehow couldn't get an emotional fix on that. But, one way or the other, they had left a long trail of corpses behind him and he didn't think he'd ever get over the horror and impotence of those final moments.

There was something else bothering him, too. Something intangible, amorphous, half-sensed or half-glimpsed, something that he couldn't really remember but which nagged at him, leaving him restless, tossing and turning in bed at night. It was as frustrating as if he'd forgotten his

own name. He was stirring the dregs of his coffee, staring mournfully at the cold liquid, when it came back to him.

Locally, things are at a more advanced stage, of course.

It wasn't that one of those metal boxes had yet to be filled. No, the container had already been emptied. Not everything was still there for Mathanas to destroy.

What had actually happened?

He hadn't heard news of any outbreak of zombie syndrome in Germany. So what did that mean, "locally"? Was someone else still sitting on the rest of the stuff?

No, that's impossible, Serrin thought. Isn't it?

Time for another trip to the library, whose computer systems were better set up to handle multiple searches than any home rig. First, he scoured the German media of the past week, then went through everything on retroviruses. He couldn't understand much of the technical stuff, but if he could turn up even a single lead anything something he might be able to take back to Michael amp;

It was after ten that night when he paid for the printed abstracts, preferring hardcopy to a disk, and walked out into the night, lighting a cigarette as he went. Maybe I should look Julia up again, he thought. Maybe there's some other madman involved. What if Luther had already shipped some of that damned virus to another bloodsucker who also happened to be around? Hell, he didn't have the time to check on everyone, or everything, to which Luther might have had connections. I've got to talk to Julia, Serrin thought. See if we can't get through to that chummer of hers one last time; she might breathe easier about talking now that Luther is dead.

Julia wasn't home when he arrived by cab, which he kept waiting in that very event. He climbed back in and directed the cabbie to a downtown bar. The gnawing fear wouldn't stop, so he decided to try drinking it into submission.

He left the bar at two o'clock, unable to get drunk on the indifferent beer, and unwilling to pursue the comfort of something stronger. He waited in the damp street for a cab, poring over the printouts in the dull streetlight. This

time, there wasn't even a tardy warning from his spell lock as the car pulled slowly round the corner. The masking was far, far too good for that. The gun was at his back as the car drew to a halt alongside him.

"Get in," came a voice as the rear door of the car opened. Something about the voice was familiar. Knowing he had no choice, Serrin climbed in.

"I think you should take a drink of this," the elf sitting beside him said.

"This is where I came in," Serrin said wearily and swallowed the sedative cocktail.

It wasn't Magellan, of course. Luther had pretty much destroyed what was left of him. The voice had sounded familiar because of the Irish brogue, but it wasn't the mystery elf either. When Serrin was shaken into wakeful-ness, he found himself sitting on a chair in a pool of light, an elf shrouded in the darkness beyond it. Flanking him were two other elves, with an air about them more sinister than Serrin had ever seen.

The berets and shades were obligatory, of course, but it was the weaponry that looked like nothing on earth. The weirdly fluted and shaped pistols perfectly fitted the hands holding them, and rifles even more distorted and bizarre stood against the wall at their sides. In the darkness he couldn't make out any details. Magic and power screamed from the figures in opposition to him. If the standing elves were samurai, they were of a kind Serrin could never have imagined. The power they radiated as tangibly as body heat to an IR scanner wasn't that of mere physical adepts. These were beings of raw power and force. They never moved a muscle.

"I do not think we will need to dispose of you if we can get our answers," the central elf said. "We only want to know what you have been up to. First, tell me what made you spend nearly ten hours checking out retroviruses in the library? What sudden inspiration gave you that idea?"

Serrin hesitated, trying to think up a plausible lie.

"If you lie to me, I will know it," his interrogator said.

I don't think I want to test the truth of that, Serrin thought glumly. Better take it on faith.

"I remembered something. I remembered that some of the virus Luther had made wasn't there. In his laboratory. I wondered what could have happened to it. I don't know much about retroviruses. I wondered if it might still be about. Latent, maybe, I don't know."

"Yes," the elf said. "And why go to the woman? The journalist?"

"To find out if there might have been any local connections to Luther. Someone who might have the rest of it. It was only a hunch; she had a friend who knew something about him."

"Fine. However, I think it would be an extraordinarily good idea if you stopped asking any more questions about this," the elf replied. Safety catches clicked. "Can I trust you to do that?"

"But if this thing is still out there amp; "

"It isn't. We have taken care of that. Actually, you are quite correct. He had released an air dispersion just before you and your friends arrived. We countered with an anti-viral sprayed from our aircraft. A few farmers in rural Bavaria are a bit stupider than they used to be, but not so you'd notice. The virus has been totally contained. Oh, your ladyfriend was rather fortunate in getting away without being affected, but then maybe she's entitled to some good luck."

"But, medical tests… "

"If any are made, all that will turn up are antibodies to something strange, nothing more."

"But Luther said the retrovirus gets into the germ line!"

"He was wrong." The voice was final.

"But you can't know that. Spirits, he… "

"I tell you he was wrong!" The voice was angry and commanding. "Look, the reason I know is because the created genes he fused into the virus came from what we gave him. They came from the research facility in Azania. And the only reason I'm telling you is because otherwise you'd probably have Sutherland chasing down the suppliers of certain flora to that place, and we would

prefer that you simply forget that any of this ever happened from now on. Luther's scheme might have worked, just maybe, but fortunately it did not. He was wrong, but his obsession blinded him. It only worked in theory his in vitro tests were successful but he neglected the most crucial test of all. He never tested his virus on living humans."

"Then what were those zombies in Azania?"

"Look, you fool, the agent worked perfectly well for neural damage. But he didn't dissect the specimens as he should have, nor did he conduct the proper tests on germ cells. His lab findings told him the germ-line penetration would take some months, and he didn't want to wait that long. He was wrong."

"Then all this has been for nothing," Serrin said disbe-lievingly. "It was a chimera."

"Not from my point of view," the Irish elf said tartly. "I know where Niall is now. Luther's scheme flushed him out for me."

Niall. That must be the elf who'd come with the powerful spirit to destroy Luther and his monastery, though Serrin wished this wasn't how he was to learn his name.

"And now I can dispose of Niall. I also now know the attitudes of certain parties among other elven powers toward such a development. That is useful knowledge to me as well," the elf added.