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there was a bomb all right. In fact, I think I might still have pieces of it in my hair.”
    Fil—oh, how Spar hated that name—reached up and ran a palm over her hair, then tugged at the long tail in which it was bound. He ignored the way his own fingers itched to follow the same path.
    “I saw it as well,” he said, at least partly to distract himself. “I am not well versed in such incendiary devices, but from the information I have absorbed from my Wardens through the years, I believe it was indeed a bomb.”
    “A pipe bomb, but a pretty damned powerful one.”
    “And the human who carried it was without a doubt a member of the Order. A fully inducted one. He wore one of their robes.”
    Kees cursed, and Fil eyed him curiously.
    “There are levels of membership in evil?” she asked.
    “The nocturnis go through training and indoctrination much as those who join the Guild would do,” Spar said. “Their members might be evil inherently, but they are not born knowing how to channel the Darkness. It must be taught.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “Fil, you saw the guy, too, right? Are you certain he was targeting Spar?”
    “He said he was. I mean, the guy was a stone cold babbling nutcase, El. He had diarrhea of the psychosis, or something. I think he was mostly talking to himself, but he said someone had told him to ‘smash the Guardian.’ Of course, I had no idea what he meant, and my being there must have distracted him. He obviously didn’t expect me to be there, and once he spotted me he seemed more concerned with coming after me than setting the bomb.”
    “Did he say who gave him his instructions?”
    Fil shook her head. “No, not that I remember. Not a name anyway. I think he called him by a title, though. Um … ‘the Hierophant,’ maybe?”
    Ella frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”
    Spar heard his fellow warrior hiss and knew Kees understood exactly what that meant, just as he did. Their eyes met in the video screen, and neither one looked pleased.
    “ Hierophant is a title,” Kees confirmed. “It is given to the highest-ranking priest in the Order. In other words, if this cultist was sent by the Hierophant, it means he was ordered to destroy Spar by the head of the entire nocturnis. ”
    “Why do you look worried by that?” Fil asked. “I thought you said you guys were immortal, and since Spar not only flew away from the blast in tip-top shape, but carried me with him while he did it, clearly a little bomb is not the way to get rid of one of you. Right?”
    Kees shook his head. “Immortal does not mean invulnerable. We can be destroyed, though to do so is not easy. The problem is that we are at our most vulnerable while locked in our sleeping forms. That is one of the reasons why each Guardian was appointed a personal Warden, so that he would have someone watching his back during his slumber. While we sleep, our bodies react much like the stone we resemble. If that stone is broken to pieces, our essence is released from this plane and we cease to exist in this world.”
    “That’s why knowing the nocturnis have been bumping off the Wardens has us so freaked out,” Ella said. “Not only is losing them a blow to our knowledge base, but with the Guild destroyed the Guardians become more and more vulnerable. At first, the destruction of the headquarters helped us—by burning out the library there, the nocturnis also destroyed any records of the last known locations of the seven Guardians. Still, they can’t stay hidden forever. We’ve been trying to locate the other six—well, the other five now—in the hope that we can wake them up before the Order gets to them. Awake, a Guardian is next to impossible to kill, at least for anything less powerful than one of the Seven. While they’re asleep, though, it’s a whole different ball game.”
    Spar watched while understanding tightened Fil’s features. She looked fierce when she grasped the gravity of the situation.
    “So the fact