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“European origins probably,” I muttered as I tapped away on my keyboard. “Let’s start with 1-1000 AD.”

The advanced search fields worked, narrowing the list of possibilities from thousands to hundreds.

Each vampire elder’s entry had a picture—an actual photograph for the more modern vampires or sketches or paintings for older, more rarely seen elders—as well as the elder’s current state. (For example, a sleeping state was fairly common for the older elders.)

All the elders I was looking at were older and with the exception of Vígí Dreki, all of them had paintings for their profile pictures.

The entry also had the elder’s name (first and last, though the last name was typically invented/chosen by the elder since many of them pre-dated the practice of last names), a list of their confirmed powers, as well as a list of the vampires they associated with, and—if we had it—a list of the vampires who belonged to their Family. (That list was less accurate due to the vampires’ long lived and secretive natures. It was easy to miss the lower leveled members of a Family.)

The entry was finished with advised actions when encountering the vampire, taking note if they were safe to speak with, if they needed to be attacked on sight, etc.

I frowned as I scrolled through the profiles.

“They aren’t powerful enough,” I muttered. “He really must have been turned in BC years.”

I reset my search terms, selected BC, then paused when I got to the spot where I was supposed to select the year range in which the vampire had been turned. I tapped the spacebar on my keyboard for a moment, then scrolled past the years section, opening it up to all BC years, and hit enter.

The search reset with the new terms bringing up less than a hundred profiles.

I studied them, carefully reading the names: Irshusin Ayyalu: sleeping; Ambrose Dracos: dead; Hrothgar Krieger: dead; Neven Hok: sleeping.

I frowned, then focused on the current state data field. “Dead, sleeping, sleeping, dead—alive?” I glanced at the entry and recognized the vampire as the USA Ancient.

The Ancient definitely wasn’t Ruin, so I scrolled on. “Dead, dead, dead, sleeping, sleeping, dead, sleeping…” I whispered, my words eaten by the padding my hanging clothes created in my closet. “Sleeping, sleeping, dead…unknown?”

I clicked on the entry bringing up the profile for Considine Maledictus.

“Turned in either the Archaic or Classical period of Greece. No Family. No offspring. Was associated with Ambrose Dracos, deceased.”

I studied the picture that had been uploaded for Considine Maledictus. It was a painting in a Neoclassicism style with a dark, cloudy background. Considine was wearing a hooded cloak, and was turned to the side, only giving you an impression of his looks, showing little more than a few locks of his dark hair, his defined jaw, and his straight nose.

“What are his powers?” I clicked the tab, my eyebrows raising. “Powers… He has displayed the full powers of a vampire, and it is unknown what additional powers he’s developed. Survived several dozen slayer assassination attempts since the 1600s, including a usage of slayer blood in the 1800s?” I gaped at the painting one last time.

He survived being poisoned with slayer blood?

What were the chances Considine Maledictus was Ruin?

I glanced at the list again, my blood curdling in my veins when I saw the last one on the list. “Bat transformation—the power he used to sneak out of the snake’s mouth.”

There was a line under the power indicating it was a link. I clicked on it, flinching when I read the popup.

Less than ten vampires have displayed this ability, only two of them matching your search terms: the Ancient of the USA and Considine Maledictus.

That settled it. Ruin was Considine Maledictus.

How theheckdid such an ancient and powerful vampire decide to come to Magiford, much less make up his mind to micromanage downtown, when he easily had the power to take the whole place over?

A sick, twisted sense of curiosity poked me, and I glanced at the advised actions to carry out when meeting him.

Run. Do not engage in combat. Do not attempt to attack. Run.

The air suddenly felt stiflingly hot and oppressively silent. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, and it was hard to swallow.

I leaned back, pushing a skirt out of the way so I could rest my head on the wall of my closet and close my eyes.Breathe.The order—another product of practice—bloomed in my mind, beating down the desire to panic.

I took several deep breaths through my nose, letting them out through my mouth.

When I felt like I could look at my computer without throwing up, I cracked an eye open.