“What do you want to know?”

  “Namely, who they were and how they worshipped him.” Which would tell me a lot about who Hermes was. “I’ve jotted down the names of museums that should have that info, if not in the main collections, then in their archives.”

  “There are no museums open this late,” she said.

  I checked my watch and added seven hours. Indeed, it was after midnight here.

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be an official visit,” I said. “My time is sort of tight.”

  A thoughtful line formed between her thick eyebrows. “If you want this information, I have a better source for you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where?”

  “Who. She is a contact of mine. She knows everything there is to know about Athens. She can tell you about your thieves guild and Hermes.”

  “That’s excellent.” I pushed my clasped hands toward her. “Thank you.”

  “Yes, I will take you to her, but I was leaving for a job when you… arrived.” She looked around her kitchen. As though in penitence for attacking her earlier, Bree-yark had begun straightening up the mess.

  “Is there any way you could take us to her on the way?” I ventured.

  “My time is tight too, so we will help each other,” she declared.

  “What kind of a job are we talking about?”

  “Vampire job.”

  Wonderful. “And how long will that take?”

  “Until they are all dead.”

  I turned to Claudius. “What do you think?”

  “Hmm, it’s been a long while since I’ve had to deal with vampires.”

  Before we could discuss it further, Bree-yark hustled over and elbowed me in the side. “Ha! What’d I tell you? Always an adventure.” He looked up at her, his eyes blazing yellow. “Count us in!”

  For the first time, the corners of Loukia’s mouth turned up. “Very good.”

  24

  An hour later, we were careening through a warren of narrow streets in a battered Peugeot minivan. The driver, a large man who had to stoop to see through the windshield, carried out a rapid exchange with Loukia. Because the van’s rear was piled with junk, Claudius, Bree-yark, and I got to sit three across on the middle bench seat, shoulders jammed together. The faulty seat rocked back as the van climbed.

  I nudged Bree-yark and nodded out my window.

  “Holy thunder!” he exclaimed, leaning to peer past me. Above the red-tiled rooftops, the Acropolis had thrust into view, a full moon glowing over the stately Parthenon building. “I’ve seen pictures of the thing, but… holy thunder,” he repeated, lost for words.

  “According to the myths, Athena and Poseidon competed for patronage of the city on that very hill,” I said. “Poseidon struck the Acropolis with his trident, creating an upwell of seawater. That was his offering, a crappy one if you ask me. Athena planted a seed, which sprang into a bountiful olive tree. Not surprisingly, the king declared her the winner and named his city after her. The original Parthenon was a temple built in her honor.”

  As he stared at it, I could see his engineering cogs turning. “Marble, right? Boy, that’s nice.”

  If there had been time, I would have loved to wander its ruins. I thought about bringing Alec here someday before catching myself.

  “Hey, you all right?” Bree-yark asked.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Just thinking about how much Alec would have enjoyed this. He loves the Greek myths.”

  “Listen to me, Everson,” he said sternly. “That kid’s gonna be alright, and you wanna know why? ‘Cause he’s got a village looking out for him. There’s you and me, Ricki and Mae, Claudius—heck, most the bigshots in your Order from the sounds of it.” He craned his neck around. “Ain’t that right, Claudius?”

  But Claudius had fallen asleep, his chin bobbing against his chest.

  “The point is,” Bree-yark continued, “we’re not gonna let anything happen to him.”

  I smiled warmly, appreciatively, but even if we somehow managed to extricate Alec from Hermes’s grip, I would be condemning him to the shadow realm. A place I couldn’t even think about without becoming immediately depressed. I peered out at where the Acropolis was disappearing from view.

  “I just want a good life for him,” I said.

  “Course you do. You’re his pops!” He slapped my knee. “And I see a lot of you in him, too. Means well, good head on his shoulders, resourceful. The way he faked like he was your student?” He barked a laugh. “Boy, that was gold. One way or another, he’s gonna find his way. I mean, look how it all turned out for you.”

  He was right. Other than some early training from Lazlo, I’d negotiated those early years of wizarding on my own. Was that what it was going to take? Learning to let go of him? But I was getting ahead of myself. First, I needed the scoop on Hermes, patron of a thieves guild, which meant helping Loukia with her vampire job.

  “Thanks, Bree-yark,” I said. “I mean it.”

  Minutes later, the van heaved to a stop. I didn’t know Athens well, but we were clearly in one of its night districts. The city streets had gone from empty, save for the occasional stray animal, to crowded with young men and women in slinky, club-hopping attire. The sudden transformation was jarring.

  “I will let you out here,” the driver said, switching from Greek to broken English for our sakes. “I will park behind building.”

  “Don’t get lost this time,” Loukia snapped.

  From what I’d picked up of their conversation on the ride, I guessed the driver worked for her (poorly, judging from her list of criticisms), so it surprised me when she leaned over and kissed him on the lips.

  “Be careful,” the driver told her in Greek. “These are Contili.”

  “They do not scare me,” she shot back, then to us: “Let’s go.”

  Bree-yark had to elbow Claudius, who was still sleeping. “Hey, time to roll out.”

  “Mmphm?” Claudius snorted, then blinked around. “Oh, are we here already?” He slid out after us, then sidled up to me on the sidewalk and whispered, “Remind me again what we’re doing?”

  “That favor for Loukia?” Seeing he needed more, I added, “In Athens, Greece?”

  “Oh, right, right,” he muttered, still not sounding absolutely sure of himself, but he became distracted by a passing group of women in tight sequined pants.

  As the van pulled away, Loukia faced us. She’d changed into a black shirt and a pair of nylon leggings. A ribbed duster concealed the two enchanted blades she carried in her belt. For a magic-user, she looked pretty badass.

  “Our targets are inside.” She cocked her head toward the club at her back. “I can handle them. One of you will watch my back. The other two will keep the crowd out of harm’s way.”

  “Your friend mentioned these were Contili,” I said. “What does that mean?”

  “It is the clan from which they became vampires. The most powerful clan in all of Greece.”

  “And you’re not worried about retribution?”

  “Grigoris is the head of the Contili clan. He is the one who hired me.”

  “Hold on a second,” I said, making a back-it-up motion. “You’re contracting out to a vampire clan?”

  “What does it matter why I kill them,” she snapped, “as long as they are killed. This is not New York. Yes, I know all about the great work you do in your city, how you work with the mayor to clean out the vampires and other monsters.” She said it as though I were the goody two-shoes in the family.

  “You know about that?” I asked in confusion. I’d never heard a peep about her.

  “But my city is different,” she continued, “and I must deal with it as it is, not how I wish it to be. And, yes, the Order knows what I do. Grigoris’s time will come, but for now I must chip away at the edges. The vampires inside are a group that is becoming too bold for his liking. Too independent.”

  I turned to Claudius who shrugged as if to say, Her turf.

  “All right,” I allowed. “How powerful a group are we talking?”

  “Powerful enough,” she said. “But their power has made them weak. You will see what I mean.”

  With that, she led the way toward the club’s entrance. A bouncer with arms as big as my thighs manned a velvet rope that blocked a line extending down the block. When I spotted his detection wand, I was nervous about Loukia’s concealed blades, not to mention our own weapons, but she produced a card from a coat pocket and handed it to him. The bouncer took his time studying it before he spoke into a headset. A moment later, he nodded and opened a side rope, allowing us to enter.

  “What was that?” I asked her.

  “An official pass from Grigoris. He owns all the clubs on this strip.”

  That explained why this particular street was so active—Grigoris could afford his clientele special protections that no mortal establishment could match, and he no doubt profited handsomely as a result. But it raised another question.

  “Why can’t he take care of these guys himself?”

  “He does not like to get his teeth bloody on his own kind,” she said.

  There was so much I wanted to unpack, colleague to colleague. What kinds of threats she faced in Athens, her methods of detection and elimination, who her allies were, but this wasn’t the time nor place.

  The club’s strobe-lit floor throbbed with techno music and bouncing bodies. We edged single file between the dance floor and a bar that ran the club’s length, every lacquered stool occupied and the gaps stacked three patrons deep.

  I could think of few worse places for a vampire fight.

  I opened my wizard’s senses, but the energy of Athens was still foreign to me. Amid the vibrant layers, I picked up several icy threads that suggested an undead presence. Nothing I could follow, though. I peered back to ensure Claudius hadn’t wandered off, relieved to find Bree-yark prodding him from behind.

  Loukia stopped and nodded. “There they are.”

  I raised my eyes to an elevated VIP section that overlooked the dance floor. Three young men lounged across a red leather banquette, the table in front of them littered with shot glasses and half-empty bottles of liquor. They wore black suits, shirts open to reveal toned torsos and strings of gold jewelry. They laughed loudly as they spoke, but when they swept or shook back their manes of dark hair to survey the floor, which was often, there was no humor in their obsidian eyes. Only predation.

  I peered around the crowded venue again. “We can’t do this outside?”

  “They are more vulnerable in here,” she replied without elaborating. “Who is coming with me?”

  I raised my hand and nodded at Bree-yark and Claudius to hang back. She climbed the steps, leading me past other small groups in their own roped-off sections, until she’d arrived beside the vampires.

  The nearest one’s nostrils flared slightly.

  “Is that Loukia I smell?” he asked in Greek, not looking over. “Climb in and join us, my pet. I can promise you that after three drinks, you won’t ever want to leave again.” He grinned lasciviously, and the others snickered. He was referring to her blood. The three drinks in question would be for the three vampires.

  “I don’t share drinks with Eurotrash,” she replied.

  “And we normally don’t care for Roma dogs,” he said, “but we’ll make an exception for the right bitch.”

  Bristling with protective anger, I stepped up beside her.

  “Oh, look,” he said, his black eyes sliding over. “Loukia’s brought a little friend.”

  Though the vampires appeared to be the same age, he was clearly the senior. His two juniors leaned over to size me up.

  “Do you play with magic, too, little friend?” the middle one asked with a leering smirk.

  I smiled tightly, my grandfather’s ring, the one holding the power of the Brasov Pact, throbbing around my finger. If the vampires detected its power, they exhibited zero concern. That must have been what Loukia meant about their strength making them weak. They’d gone unchallenged for too long. Even as the vampires taunted us, their eyes roved the club hungrily. Probably why this Grigoris wanted them gone. Disappearances leading back to the club would be bad for business.

  “I’ve come to deliver a message,” Loukia said.

  The senior vampire threw back a shot and thumbed the moisture from his lips. “Unless it involves a strip tease, we’re not interested.”

  “Even then, we’re not interested,” the farthest vampire put in. “Do you see all that taut flesh down there. Next to them, you’re an old whore.” Once more, I bristled at their laughter, but Loukia stared at them, unperturbed.

  “It is from Grigoris,” she said.

  Their eyes snapped toward her in sync. That had gotten their attention. But while the junior vampires appeared bothered, their leader grinned viciously.

  “You’re wasting your tongue on words, Loukia. We already know Grigoris doesn’t want us here anymore.” A blade of anger flashed in his eyes. “But maybe we have a message for him, too.”

  He lunged with terrifying speed. Too slowly, I drew my fist from my pocket, but the vampire hadn’t gone for Loukia. Instead, he seized the wrist of a passing waitress. She screamed as she left her feet and drinks splashed and crashed from her tray. In the next instant, she was splayed across his lap.

  “Tell Grigoris we don’t care,” the vampire finished.

  His fangs dove toward the waitress’s throat.

  25

  With the vampire’s teeth sinking into the waitress’s pale skin, I aimed my ring, but Loukia beat me to the punch.

  “Attivare!” she shouted.

  In bursts of searing light, the liquor bottles shattered, sending fire spilling across the table. The lead vampire shrieked and reared his head back, releasing the woman’s neck. His two juniors broke into spastic fits.

  What in the hell?

  When they began slapping their torsos, sending smoke billowing from their shirts, I understood. Loukia had seen to it that the vampires’ alcohol was spiked with latent liquid sunlight. Very crafty.

  A blade flashed from under Loukia’s coat, its length crackling with fiery magic. But though the senior vampire was thrashing, out of his head with pain, the waitress remained across his body and in Loukia’s way. She seized the waitress by the back of her cocktail dress and yanked her from the banquette.

  “Take her,” Loukia said without looking.

  I stepped in as the woman fell backward, catching her like a length of timber and standing her upright. Clear now, Loukia hammer-stroked her knife toward the vampire’s chest, but one of his juniors lunged in. A battle of blade thrusts and spastic parries ensued.

  “Are you all right?” I asked the waitress in Greek.

  Punctures showed where the vampire had bitten down, but he hadn’t breached a major vessel. The young woman nodded slightly, her eyes large with shock. I turned her toward the club, where our battle royale was just beginning to make waves. Several club goers were already pushing toward the exits.

  “Go,” I said to her.

  She stumbled down the steps on wobbly fawn legs, where Bree-yark received her.

  I turned back to the fight just as Loukia thrust her blade up and under the junior vampire’s sternum. A loud crunch sounded as she twisted and jerked the blade free, depositing the vampire on the flaming table. He arched onto his head and the backs of his heels in a C shape, contortive snaps sounding throughout his stiffening body. His flesh shriveled to the bone, then grayed to powder.

  Loukia wheeled toward the senior vampire, intent on finishing him. But the other junior, who had fallen from the far side of the banquette, pounced toward her back.

  “Balaur!” I shouted, redirecting my ring.

  The power of the Brasov Pact gathered in the silver ingot and released with a club-shaking whoomp, sending the vampire in a new trajectory. Flames burst as he met the rear wall and plummeted. Already weakened from the liquid sunlight, he succumbed to the fire in a fading death cry.

  But the edge of my blast had caught Loukia, sending her stumbling into a neighboring section.

  The senior vampire used the opportunity to scramble up a set of stage drapes and perch among the steel girders where lights were mounted. As he watched us with hunted eyes, he ripped away his jacket and shirt, revealing a muscled torso covered in smoldering sores. He appeared more animal than aristocratic playboy now. But even from my distance I could see that the sores were healing.

  “Balaur!” I shouted again.

  This time, the summoned power of the Brasov Pact took longer to gather and its discharge wasn’t as forceful. The vampire bounded across the girders, staying ahead of my attack and out of harm’s way.

  “Everson!” Bree-yark shouted.

  I looked over to find the goblin and Claudius planted in the middle of the emptying club. The lights had come on, the music had cut out, and the crowd was surging for the exits like a receding surf. But several people were fighting the tide, shoving patrons aside in improbable feats of strength. Blood slaves, I realized, coming to defend their master. That was what Bree-yark was alerting me to.

  “Take them down, but don’t kill them!” I shouted.

  The slaves had been human once, a status that could be restored upon their master’s demise. Bree-yark nodded and hefted a metal barstool while Claudius brought his fingers into a conjuring posture.

  “You have nowhere to run,” Loukia shouted at the senior vampire.

  She’d invoked shields over all the windows he could conceivably escape through. Now she thrust her blade. A fiery bolt shot out with an air-frying sizzle and bent toward him. Though he leapt away in time, the impact sent out a flash of light that had him screaming and clawing his eyes.

  “You Roma piece of shit!” he shrieked. “I’m going to rip out your bowels and feed them to the swine!”

  I readied my wands to defend Loukia, but despite the vampire’s tough talk, he was hurt and on the run. The challenge was going to be finishing him. I turned to Claudius as he opened a portal ahead of a charging blood slave. The slave disappeared inside a grasping tangle of weeds, and Claudius signed it closed again.