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One of Tykho’s bodyguards grabs me, and I split open his face with the black blade. It starts healing immediately, but the pain leaves him rolling around on the floor for the duration. Vincent has crashed his way through the velvet rope and is practically climbing across the table to Tykho. They’re still screaming at each other in German. Candy and I are dancing around with a dozen of the club’s bouncers. Candy has already gone Jade. Her eyes, red pinpoints in black ice. Her hands are claws. She rips into the guards with her needle-­sharp shark teeth. Hoping to settle things down, I manifest my Gladius, a flaming angelic sword, and hold it up high, where no one can miss it. Most of the bloodsuckers back off, but one of them grabs a fire axe and rushes me with it. Since it would be rude to kill him in his own club, I just cut off his arm. It goes spinning off across the room. The partiers all think it’s part of the act, and toss the arm around the room like a beach ball at a concert.

I turn just in time to see Vincent grab Tykho’s head so that they’re eye to eye. Tykho begins to scream. She screams for a long time. Long enough that the crowd finally understands this isn’t show biz. It’s a panic attack. The lights still crawl the walls and strobe wildly, but the music stops.

“Everybody out!” Tykho screams. “Now!”

Security, even the one missing an arm, swoop into the crowd, shoving the bloodsucking jet-­setters and immortal hipsters out onto the street, just like any bunch of punks and drunks getting the bum’s rush. When the goons come for us, Tykho waves them off.

“Leave them. Wait here. I’ll be in my office.”

She holds up a finger for silence. I put out the Gladius.

“Not a word here,” says Tykho. “Come with me.”

She looks at Vincent, grabs my arm.

“And keep that creature away from me.”

“Whatever you say, Sigrun. It’s your house.”

She walks away and we follow.

IF IT’S POSSIBLE for someone as pale as Tykho to turn white, that’s just how she looks when we reach her office.

The door is plush leather on the inside, but made of heavy-­gauge steel and secured with a keypad.

The room is Art Deco, polished wood in contrasting shades on the floor and walls forming elaborate patterns. The red leather chairs around the desk have rounded backs and arms, not quite shaped for human bodies. The wooden desk looks like something a Caesar would have, but constructed with graceful lines.

Tykho takes her seat behind the desk and the rest of us drop down into chairs around the room. Candy has her phone out, probably recording the conversation.

I say, “Tell us a story, Tykho.”

She pours and downs a glass of thick vampire booze, blood with red wine and sometimes a little coca

ine. She ignores us, running a thumb around her lips and sucking the last of the wine off.

When she’s done she says, “First off, stop calling me ‘Teye-­ko’ all the time. My name is French. It’s pronounced ‘Tee-­ko.’ Fucking Americans.”

“But your last name, Mond, is German,” says Vincent.

“Yes. My mother was French, my father German. Not that it matters.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you cheated me. You cheated Heaven and Hell. You aren’t supposed to be in this world. Not for more than ninety years.”

She smiles.

“And here you are, Todesengel, powerless to do anything about it. I think that means I won.”

“I am not powerless. I’m not much of an angel these days, but I have an angel on my side.”

He holds out a hand indicating me.

“He, I believe, can finish what I couldn’t.”

She flashes me a look.

“You wouldn’t dare. Not on my own territory. You’d start a war.”

I take out a Malediction, light it. Take a long drag and tap ash onto her million-­dollar floor.