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fast he didn’t see her move: now she was standing ten feet away, glaring like a snake. Her mouth was open, fangs shining. Neither had broken the other’s flesh. He wielded the blade in a figure of eight, as if weaving a shield to protect himself. Trails of silver light hung in the air; he felt the force keeping her away.
    She pointed at the cabinet behind him, but he held it shut with the pressure of his back. Nothing would make him give up his father’s haul, his precious ritual weapons.
    “Get out, demon,” he hissed.
    Her face twisted with fury and she lunged again. With a cheetah’s speed her hands were on his shoulders, her mouth near his neck. Her grip paralysed him. He waved his knife hand feebly, could not get the blade to connect with her flesh. Her fingernails dug in like claws. She paused, uttered a noise of revulsion in her throat, and pushed him away – thrust him back so hard that his shoulders hit the cabinet, making it shudder.
    Again she stood feet from him, thwarted and furious. Her face was the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen, a carnival mask.
    “What are you?” He was breathing hard through his teeth. She was plainly repelled by the knife so he brandished it all the more, noticing how its light reflected silver from her eyes. She glared back, but made no attempt to get through his defence. “Who are you?”
    No answer.
    Instead she vanished. The air crackled. Like breath on a winter morning, she was gone.
    Godric became aware he was wheezing from pure fear. He regained control of his breathing, checked every shadow to make sure the chamber was empty. There was no one, nothing there.
    He relocked the cabinet, then stumbled in shock to his bedroom and bolted the door – as if that could keep her out. The air stayed motionless, lukewarm… ordinary. He stood guard for a long time before he dared let himself believe she was not coming back.
    Godric’s bedroom was another square, masculine room furnished only with necessities: bed, dressing table and a wardrobe of black wood. He took off his waistcoat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, sat on the edge of the bed.
    A thousand questions crowded his brain but he put them all aside. The apparition had been some kind of warning, a call to battle. No time for fear. He needed power – more than ever, if the
strigoi
planned to come back.
    He drew out his knife and, biting a handkerchief between his teeth, set the blade to the soft flesh just above his elbow. He began to cut a small rune: three vertical lines. The symbol represented the three-fingered salute of the Eternal Alliance: the historic oath that had founded Switzerland.
    His hand shook, and the pain made him sweat. A familiar dizziness and tingling surged through him, filling his vision with white stars. Before he’d finished the first line, blood streamed out and he fumbled to press his handkerchief on the wound, cursing. He’d cut too deep again.
    Reiniger sank back on to the pillows, gasping. The energy rush was incredible, like a drug.
    There were blood drops spattered on the white bedcover and the floor. He was usually so careful not to make a mess. Running his thumb down the inside of his upper arm he felt the scars of older runes, and echoes of the addictive power they’d given him.
    With a trembling hand he pressed the blade to his skin and began the next cut.

CHAPTER THREE

LAMIA
    K arl forced his way through the tornado that blew up in the skull-creature’s wake. He was somewhere over Switzerland at last, but the ether was so wild he hardly knew which way was up or down. He was dangerously tired, and knew he must drop to Earth and feed, even if it took him the rest of the night to get home.
    Then he saw a faint gold coil of energy below: the trace of a vampire he knew.
    Two traces, in fact, nearly identical, wading up towards him through the foggy darkness of Raqia’s lower layers.
    They were struggling, he realised. Karl swooped down to intercept them. Close to the ground, the