"Okay, Nana," she mumbled.

I listened to my feet crunch the gravel leading up to Rei's cabin.

What was worse, fake feelings or no feelings?

c.u.mo bellowed a warning and came charging over in a giant white huff. He circled, eyeing the scene disapprovingly. At least I thought so. The guy had so much hair you couldn't really see his eyes. Working the handle with my elbow, I stumbled through Rei's door. c.u.mo planted himself on the stoop, his body guarding the doorway like a hockey goalie. I smiled at him. Something told me Rei worried very little about being disturbed during the day.

I set Rei down on one of the two wooden chairs at her kitchen table and scoped out the s.p.a.ce. Heavy blackout curtains covered all the windows; I had to turn on a lamp to see. Such curtains weren't new to me. Plenty of folks worked graveyard shifts back in Vegas. Even my dad had a set. A small kitchenette sat to the right, a kettle and a few cups resting on the bare counter. A large silver refrigerator occupied one entire corner. The digital display on the front read 4C. Just above freezing. Perfect for storing blood. She lives on human blood. That ridiculous statement kept bouncing around my head. The fridge shouldn't have surprised me. Rei'd just puked blood all over me, but the cold metal appliance said, "This is what I am," better than anything else I'd seen.

The rest of Rei's tiny home was as understated as the kitchenette. A small bookshelf filled to capacity. I noted the usual campus lit, and a few older volumes from the library stacked on top. A signed poster of Brad Pitt occupied one wall. (I vaguely recalled that old movie. Wasn't Brad the one who ate rats?) A little fireplace sat in the center. The standard Elliot dresser and bed finished off the left side.

I stared at the bed for a long time.

No coffin...it was a bit of a let down...but also a bit of a...

Rei muttered, "dog food," from her seat face down at the table.

"Okay, this is not going to work." I roused her from her sleep, and after a bit of effort, I managed to guide her rather stiff limbs in the direction of the bathroom and turn on the water. "You, stinky, that, shower," I said fleeing the vicinity. It was scary in there. There was potpourri.

From the sound of things, there appeared to be some progress being made, so I grabbed a pair of PJs out of one of Rei drawers. Then I sorta froze up. I was stymied. Did girls wear bras to bed? How about panties? I doubted that p.o.r.n was a reliable indicator (it did tend to mislead on the important things), so I hedged, grabbed three of each, and piled them high on top of the PJs. I knocked and announced, "I'm sending in a change of clothing now," like a hostage negotiator to a madwoman. After receiving approval, in triplicate, signed and notarized, I cracked open the door and sent in the goods.

Retreating to the fireplace, I brooded. I didn't know what to do. This type of high-tension scenario didn't require napalm, floods of fruit juice, or exploding schoolhouses. I was entirely out of my element. I steadied myself with a hand on the mantle, but in my clumsiness, nudged something off onto the floor. I looked down to see a pair of Ray-Bans. The same pair I'd given her in New York. I replaced the sungla.s.ses, stepped back from the fireplace, and fumbled for a chair.

In literally all belief systems, the hearth is the center of a home. In Ancient Greece and Rome, the first offering a family made in the morning wasn't to Zeus. Nope. It was always to Hestia, the G.o.ddess of the hearth. She was a deity that far preceded the Olympian G.o.ds. In the Greek's mythology, Hestia was given pride of place as Chronos' first born. (Yea, that's right, Zeus might have kicked Chronos' a.s.s, but Hestia was his first-born.) The pagans of Europe shared a similar belief, and those two cultures didn't agree on anything.

I wiped the sweat from my brow. Why had Rei placed my sungla.s.ses at the center of her mantel? Was I reading too much into this? Perhaps. But respect for the central flame was a constant across every single continent. Africa, Asia, North and South America, take your pick. Rei would be a person intensely aware of those conventions, yet her hearth was totally barren: no idols, no photos, no commemorative plates. Just a silly pair of sungla.s.ses. In fact, the whole room was Spartan. Sure, Rei seemed to have a ton of clothes jammed into her closet, and I spotted her fencing bag by the door, but there were no stuffed animals, or letters, or care packages in sight. Even a dullard like me knew that normal people gave and received gifts from time to time. From Sadie's bunny mug, to the Dante's mom's regular pie shipments, the Lambda common room was stuffed to the brim with random crud from friends and family. Heck, even my dad had sent me a gift. (Sure, it was only a voucher for a one-way ticket back to Vegas, but it was the thought that counted, right?) As I looked around Rei's flat, I wondered. Did her family just not do that sort of thing?

Rei didn't give me much time to ponder. She was already fumbling with the door to her bathroom. Her sungla.s.ses were a little off kilter, so I leapt to my feet to right them. I was unclear on the consequences, but "do not f.u.c.k with vampire-hearth" was ringing in my ears. Rei opened the door, and I jammed my guilty hands back into my soggy pockets.

Mr. Duck PJ top? Check. Floral panties? Check.

PJ bottoms?

PJ bottoms?

I swallowed hard. Three feet of naked white legs were making their way across the tiny room. Eyes already closed, Rei fumbled for her bed.

Vampiress, I repeated to myself. Big. Bad. Vampiress.

Rei crawled on top of the covers and collapsed onto her belly with a sigh.

My head exploded.

Stars above, not the a.s.s...do they even make a.s.ses like that? Like...like...little bubbles...that must be all muscle...I mean to flex like that...

I engaged countermeasures. I counted floorboards. Listed off prime numbers. Mapped out state capitals. It wasn't enough. My libido went into open revolt. Desperate, I pulled out my hand and bit down on my knuckle. I gagged. It was a blood-puke covered knuckle...that did it.

"Dieter," Rei whined. "I'm cold."

I put my hands on my hips and frowned. I'd not be tricked so easily.

"Rei Bathory, you are a vampire. You spent all of last night walking around in a tank top."

"Everybody likes warm covers."

d.a.m.n it. That was basically irrefutable...

"Fine," I grumbled.

Come on, Dieter, my libido urged, you already defused one bomb today...

I frowned. That guy was getting shifty. The key was no skin-to-skin contact. If I could avoid any skin-to-skin, I was golden. I grabbed the sheet by its corners and rolled Rei up like a taco. Withdrawing to a safe distance, I crossed my arms and examined my work.

Curses! The maneuver had covered her head, and unfortunately the part about vampires not needing to breath was false. I moved in again and peeled back the sheets. Rei turned to face me. Her sleepy eyes met my own. I dodged desperately.

Vampiress. Big. Bad- "Dieter?"

She smelled faintly of lavender...it was a trap. The bite was coming. I just knew it.

"Yes?" I asked, preparing for the worst.

"My most rancid colleague, go take a shower."

I raised an eyebrow. Her voice had changed.

"Hey, since when did you sober up?"

"Since you started stinking up my home. Bathe. You smell of sweat, gasoline, and stale Mexican hit men. Fetch a pair of sweatpants from my dresser. They shall offer a pa.s.sable fit."

"Sure thing, Rei," I said, sneaking toward the front door.

"Dieter Resnick, I will glamour you so fast..."

"No fair, you sobering up." I shuffled over to the drawer and looked through the sweats. They were all pink. "Oh, come on, Rei."

"Dieter, I cannot have you walking around in public covered in our enemies' blood. Relations are tenuous and appearances matter. There is washer out back. I must rest now, but we can talk tonight. Good day."

"Yes, master," I grumbled.

"Don't give me ideas," Rei shot back.

I walked into the bathroom and peeled of the disgusting remnants of my western and jeans. It took some effort. I couldn't raise my right arm easily. The swelling and pain was coming on strong. Getting my shirt off, I noticed a huge welt was developing right above my hip. I stared at the mirror for a good thirty seconds. I'd been shot. Remembering to fortify my robe had saved my life.

The shower felt great. The heat worked like magic on my sore muscles. I watched as the water made a gradual transition from pink to clear, the lives of three men washing off with it. I felt nothing for them. Sure, I could appreciate the loss of life, the waste of it, but their deaths didn't come with one ounce of guilt or shame. That puzzled me. I'd hurt a lot of people last night. I'd made a willful decision to kill. At least two had died by my own hands. And yet I felt nothing. I shifted uncomfortably. It was just like with Tyrone. But even that sore topic couldn't hold my attention. There were larger concerns. Why were we attacked? Were the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds coming back? My friends had nearly been murdered, and I did have feelings about that. I also knew an absolute truth: You couldn't let a bully hit you and hope he'd go away. You had to make him bleed; that was the only way.

I decided to get moving. I cut the water and grabbed for a towel. There was only one.

"Great," I grumbled. I didn't see any other options, and I could just throw it in with the rest of the wash, so I just grabbed it and toweled off. The easy smell of lavender filled my nostrils. The smell of Rei...it was such a wonderful scent. It reinvigorated me like a cup of coffee. Finished drying off, I slid into the ill-fitting pink sweats, collected all the nasty garments, and opened the door to her room. Rei was curled up in a ball, and it looked like she was out cold. I crept across her room and out the front door as quietly as I could. c.u.mo raised his head, took a whiff of the clothes, and trotted a few yards down the road.

I smiled grimly. You know it's bad when the dog thinks it stinks. Around back there was a sink, a tool cabinet, and an ancient washing machine. I scrounged around in the cabinet. The thing was full of all sorts of stuff. Some of the tools were for yard work and others for working with livestock. Being city folk, I couldn't make heads or tales of most of it, but I did find some detergent and a can of black polish. I dumped the clothes in the washer and started it up. As it roared to life, I threw the two sets of boots into the sink and got to work.

Call me strange, but I love shining up shoes. You start with two dirty old sacks of leather and end up with something brand spanking new. I smiled as I hosed off the caked on blood. Rei knew her boots. Most people don't. They buy some fu-fu pair made in China with cool colors and weird laces, but if you're working full shifts on your feet, you better learn fast. A good pair of boots should have a simple design that's easy to clean. They should be built of high quality leather so they'll breathe and come with the best soles you can afford. It surprised me that Rei was in the know. I'd figured her for rich and clueless, but Rei wore the same brand that I did-except she had opted for the steel-toe version. I paused to rub the welt growing above my pelvis. Maybe Maria could order me a pair on the company card. After last night, it seemed a rather reasonable school expense.

I was finishing the buff on my own when the washer ground to a halt. All the clothes were salvageable, minus Rei's fatigues. Military issue or not, no pair of pants was going to survive a jump through a roof. I tossed them in the trash and hung up the rest on her clothesline. I checked my watch. I still had an hour to kill before Dean Albright wanted me back. I decided to slip on my boots and jog back to IKM.

Visions of frosted flakes dancing through my head, I came running around the bend. IKM was missing most of its second story. The other two dorms were mostly rubble. Faculty and students plodded along, picking through the wreckage and recovering what they could. I sighed. Fridge Lambda was probably toast.

I spotted Monique standing in front of IKM and walked over to her.

"Hey, Cap'n. Have you been inside yet?"

Monique gestured at IKM's caved in front door. Roster and a few of the Mu guys were working on the rubble pile. His shirt off, he was flexed against a crowbar. A group of girls sat off to the side, carefully supervising the effort.

"Try prying lower, Roster," one of the girls shouted.

Monique rolled her eyes.

"Hey, nice sweatpants."

"They're temporary," I grumbled.

Monique put her hands on her hips and looked up at what was left of the second floor. "No need to explain. None of us have much of a wardrobe now. On the bright side, I did find one of my bras." She gestured to a nearby tree, where a pair of red C-cups was fluttering in the breeze. "Maria raided the student store. She's handing out clothes and toiletries over by the amphitheater. There's some oatmeal too."

My stomach growled. Oatmeal...yum.

"Cool."

"Yep. And Dieter, from what I hear, you did us proud last night. Good work."

"Thanks, cap'n." I glanced over to the smoldering trees behind IKM. A group of folks had cordoned off the area. Most were wearing yellow windbreakers with DEA printed on the back.

"The Drug Enforcement Agency? Monique, what are they doing here?"

"You don't know? The DEA is the enforcement arm of the Department of Mana Affairs. The men and women in yellow windbreakers are fiscals. They're like FBI agents. Now the fellow in the black fatigues...you don't see his kind too often. He's an alguacil. He's probably the ICE representative for this incident." Monique noticed the surprise look on my face. "What, didn't you think that having both the FBI, the ATF, and the DEA was kinda redundant?"

I scratched my head. Come to think of it, that never did make any sense. I guess I should have been making an effort to learn more about the Department-especially considering I had signed up to work for them-but networking opportunities were scarce when your taskmaster worked in the woods. So far I hadn't met anyone from the Department besides the faculty. I went over the names Monique gave me. Fiscal sounded like the Spanish word for prosecutor. That sorta made sense. But alguacil?

"Doesn't alguacil mean bailiff in Spanish? What's an officer of the court doing at a crime scene?"

"Dieter, an alguacil isn't an officer of just any court."

I stared at her blankly.

"The Court of Inquisition, Dieter. He's an ICE freelancer."

"Oh. Peachy," I said with a gulp. The International Council on Evocation was like the United Nations of magic...except they were ruthless, not toothless. The ICE answered only to the Church. The Magi acquiesced to their will. "Didn't they used to call those guys-"

"Witch hunters." Monique's jaw tensed. "But that's not really fair, Dieter. Alguacils are equal opportunity savages. They'll burn anything that gets out of line."

This alguacil was short, stalky, and built like a Big Ten running back. A deep scar ran from below his collar to up behind his right ear. He was talking with two men in yellow DEA jackets. I squinted. I could have sworn I'd seen the two of them before.

Walking in front of me, a girl from Mu said, "Hiya, pinky."

"Looks better on me than it would on you, fat a.s.s."

"Mature, Resnick," Monique quibbled.

I only had forty minutes before I had to meet Albright, so I thanked Monique and hustled over to the aid station. As I waited in the queue, I couldn't help but hear the whispers. They kept causing my Sight to flare up. The more people there were staring at me, the more difficult it became. While I worked on finding my happy place, Roger, a chubby kid I knew from Iota, wandered over and patted me on the shoulder.

"Good work, Resnick. You sure saved our b.u.t.ts last night." Even more eyes on me. Great. "And I never believed any of that stuff people were saying about you, either." He leaned in close. "But, dude, I wouldn't go around wearing stuff like that, you're gonna start other types of rumors."

I smiled meekly. Roger was a nice guy, but capital-A awkward.

"Hola, Dieter," Maria said, waving.

"Hey baby, you got what I need?"

Maria examined my sweats and giggled. "I'm guessing you want another pair?"

"Yes, please."

Maria handed me a new set of Elliot brand sweats along with a fresh toiletry set. I would have stopped to chat, but I had to get moving. Maria shouted, "Good work last night!" as I ran off to change.

Chapter 22.

DISTRUST.

Central was abuzz with activity when I arrived. Two men from the Department where checking ID's at the entrance. They looked my battered frame up and down before clearing me. I hustled up to the third floor and was greeted by a very harried Betty Strouse. She was struggling to manage the bank of blinking red lights in front of her.

"Oh, Mr. Resnick," she said over the incessant ringing, "Dean Albright is in his office. Go right on in, dear." Then she went right back to the phones. "Yes, Mrs. Carter, your son is fine ...Yes, all the students are fine ...No, none of the students were drained ..."

I shuddered. Panicky parents were the eleventh plague.

Dean Albright was behind his desk talking to someone on the phone. From the look on his face, it wasn't a pleasure call. Albright motioned for me to sit down. His desk was piled high with papers, and a map had been hastily thrown up across one of the walls. It was covered in red, white, and blue thumbtacks. The white ones were grouped in nearly straight lines stretching North and South across the continent. One of them marked the location of Elliot College. I didn't have to guess at what they were. They were the leynodes of North America; we were expected to memorize their locations in Magic Theory I.

Leynodes are turbulent intersections where converging flows of mana slow to a crawl. Even the Imperiti are attracted to them. Cities are almost always built on top of them. That vibrant energy you feel when you visit the Big Apple? It isn't just because of the hustle and bustle. The ground is literally buzzing with the churning mana below. But where are the leynodes' precise locations? The best tip is to head to the nearest cathedral. Places of worship are usually constructed right on top of them. That explains why when a new religion comes to power, they knock down the old holy places and replace them with their own. For the last two thousand years, the Catholic Church has made it their business to plant their flag atop as many of these nodes as possible. They've been so successful that if you want a halfway good map of the ley network, all you have to do is plot down all the Catholics' cathedrals and start connecting the dots.

I scratched the stubble on my chin. The ley network explained the white pins, but what about the others? The blue ones occupied the majority of the East Coast, some of the Midwest, and all of Canada. The red ones swooped down from Oregon, deep into Mexico, and all the way across Texas. But it got even stranger. Most of Florida, and every single Mississippi River State, didn't bear a single colored pin.

The dean delivered an "I agree" into the receiver and snuck over to his car-priced coffee machine. He kicked out two cups of joe, and I accepted one gratefully. Albright finished his conversation with, "I'll get right on it, sir," and leaned back in his chair.

"That didn't sound fun, sir."