The Fall of the Hotel Dumort

JULY 1977

“What do you do?” the woman asked.

“This and that,” Magnus said.

“Are you in fashion? You look like you’re in fashion.”

“No,” he said. “I am fashion.”

It was a bit of a twee remark, but it seemed to delight his seat companion on the plane. The comment had been a bit of a test, actually. Everything seemed to delight his companion—the seat back in front of her, her nails, her glass, her own hair, everyone else’s hair, the barf bag . . .

The plane had been in the air for only an hour, but Magnus’s companion had gotten up to use the restroom four times. Each time she’d emerged moments later, furiously rubbing her nose and visibly twitching. Now she was leaning over him, her winged blond hair dipping into his champagne glass, her neck reeking of Eau de Guerlain. The faint trace of white powder still clung to her nose.

He could have done this trip in seconds by stepping through a Portal, but there was something pleasant about aircraft. They were charming, intimate, and slow. You got to meet people. Magnus liked meeting people.

“But your outfit?” she said. “What is it?”

Magnus looked down at his red-plaid-and-black-vinyl oversize suit with a shredded T-shirt underneath. It was au courant for the London punk set, but New York wasn’t quite there yet.

“I do PR,” the woman said, apparently forgetting the question. “For discos and clubs. The best clubs. Here. Here.”

She dug around in her massive purse—and stopped for a moment when she found her cigarettes. She shoved one of these between her lips, lit it, and continued digging until she produced a small tortoiseshell card case. She popped this open and picked out one card, which read: ELECTRICA.

“Come,” she said, tapping the card with a long, red nail. “Come. It’s just opening. It’s going to be smash-ing. Soooo much better than Studio 54. Oh. Excuse me a second. You want?”

She showed him a small vial in the palm of her hand.

“No, thank you.”

And then she was fumbling out of the seat again, her purse bumping into Magnus’s face as she went back to the bathroom.

The mundanes had gotten very interested in drugs again. They went through these phases. Now it was cocaine. He hadn’t seen this much of the stuff since the turn of the century, when they’d been putting it in everything—tonics and potions and even Coca-Cola. He thought for a while that they’d put this drug behind them, but it was back again, in full force.

Drugs had never interested Magnus. A good wine, absolutely, but he steered clear of potions and powders and pills. You didn’t take drugs and do magic. Also, people who did drugs were boring. Hopelessly, relentlessly boring. Drugs made them either too slow or too fast, and mostly they talked about drugs. And then they either quit—a gruesome process—or they died. There was never a step in between.

Like all mundane phases, this too would pass. Hopefully soon. He closed his eyes and decided to sleep his way across the Atlantic. London was behind him. Now it was time to go home.

Stepping outside at JFK, Magnus got his first reminder of why he’d summarily left New York two summers before. New York was too damn hot in the summer. It was just touching a hundred degrees, and the smell of jet fuel and exhaust fumes mixed with the swampy gasses that hung around this far tip of the city. The smell, he knew, would only get worse.

With a sigh he joined a taxi line.

The cab was as comfortable as any metal box in the sun, and his sweating driver added to the general perfume in the air.

“Where to, buddy?” he asked, taking in Magnus’s outfit.

“Corner of Christopher and Sixth Avenue.”

The cabbie grunted and hit the meter, and then they pulled out into traffic. The smoke from the driver’s cigar streamed back directly into Magnus’s face. He lifted a finger and redirected it out the window.

The road from JFK to Manhattan was a strange one, weaving through family neighborhoods, and desolate stretches, and past sprawling graveyards. It was an age-old tradition. Keep the dead out of the city—but not too far. London, where he had just been, was ringed with old graveyards. And Pompeii, which he’d visited a few months back, had an entire avenue of the dead, tombs leading right up to the city wall. Past all of the New York neighborhoods and graveyards, at the end of the crowded expressway, shimmering in the distance—there was Manhattan—its spires and peaks just lighting up for the night. From death to life.

He hadn’t meant to be away from the city for so long. He had just been going to take the briefest trip to Monte Carlo . . . but then, these things can go on. A week in Monte Carlo turns into two on the Riviera, which turns into a month in Paris, and two months in Tuscany, and then you end up on a boat headed for Greece, and then you wind up back in Paris again for the season, and then you go to Rome for a bit, and London . . .

And sometimes you accidentally go for two years. It happens.

“Where you from?” the cabbie asked, eyeing Magnus in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, around. Here mostly.”

“You’re from here? You been away? You look like you been away.”

“For a while.”

“You hear about these murders?”

“Haven’t read a paper in a while,” Magnus said.

“Some loony-tune. Calls himself Son of Sam. They called him the forty-four-caliber killer too. Goes around shooting couples on lovers’ lanes, you know? Sick bastard. Real sick. Police haven’t caught him. They don’t do nothing. Sick bastard. City’s full of them. You shouldn’ta come back.”

New York cabdrivers—always little rays of sunshine.

Magnus got out on the tree-lined corner of Sixth Avenue and Christopher Street, in the heart of the West Village. Even at nightfall the heat was stifling. Still, it seemed to encourage a party atmosphere in the neighborhood. The Village had been an interesting place before he’d left. It seemed that in his absence things had taken on a whole new level of festivity. Costumed men walked down the street. The outdoor cafés were swarming. There was a carnival atmosphere that Magnus found instantly inviting.

Magnus’s apartment was a walk-up, on the third story of one of the brick houses that lined the street. He let himself in and sprang lightly up the steps, full of high spirits. His spirits fell when he reached his landing. The first thing he noticed, right by his door, was a strong and bad smell—something rotten, mixed with something like skunk, mixed with other things he had no desire to identify. Magnus did not live in a stinky apartment. His apartment smelled of clean floors, flowers, and incense. He put the key into the lock, and when he tried to push the door open, it stuck. He had to shove it hard to get it to open. The reason was immediately clear—there were boxes of empty wine bottles on the other side. And, much to his surprise, the television was on. Four vampires were crashed on his sofa, blankly watching cartoons.

He knew they were vampires at once. The draining of the color behind the skin, the languid pose. Also, these vampires hadn’t even bothered to wipe the blood from the corners of their mouths. All of them had dried bits of the stuff around their faces. There was a record spinning on the player. It had reached the end and was stuck on the blank end strip, hissing gently in disapproval.

Only one of the vampires even turned to look at him.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Magnus Bane. I live here.”

“Oh.”

She turned back to the cartoon.

When Magnus had left two years before, he’d left his apartment in the care of a housekeeper, Mrs. Milligan. He’d sent money every month for the bills and the cleaning. Clearly she had paid the bills. The electricity was still on. But she hadn’t cleaned, and Mrs. Milligan probably hadn’t invited these four vampires to come and stay and generally trash the place. Everywhere Magnus looked there were signs of destruction and decay. One of the kitchen chairs had been broken and was in pieces on the floor. The others were piled with magazines and newspapers. There were overflowing ashtrays, and makeshift ashtrays, and then just trails of ash and plates full of cigarette butts. The living room curtains were cockeyed and torn. Everything was askew, and some things were simply missing. Magnus had many lovely pieces of art that he’d collected over the years. He looked for a favorite piece of Sevres porcelain that he’d kept on a table in the hall. That, of course, was gone. As was the table.

“I don’t want to be rude,” Magnus said, unhappily eyeing a pile of stinking garbage on the corner of one of his best Persian carpets, “but may I ask why you’re in my house?”

This got a bleary look.

“We live here,” said the girl at the end, the spunky one who could actually turn her head.

“No,” Magnus said. “I think I just explained that I live here.”

“You weren’t here. So we lived here.”

“Well, I’m back. So you’re going to need to make other arrangements.”

No response.

“Let me be more clear,” he said, standing in front of the television. Blue light crackled between his fingers. “If you’re here, you may know who I am. You may know what I’m capable of. Perhaps you’d like me to summon up someone to help you out? Or perhaps I could open a Portal and send you to the far side of the Bronx? Ohio? Mongolia? Where would you like to be dropped?”

The vampires on the sofa said nothing for a minute or two. Then they managed to look at one another. There was a grunt, a second grunt, and then they pulled themselves up from the sofa with tremendous difficulty.

“Don’t worry about your things,” Magnus said. “I’ll send them along. To the Dumont?”

The vampires had long ago claimed the doomed old Hotel Dumont. It was the general address of all New York vampires.

Magnus looked at them more closely. He had never quite seen vampires like these. They appeared to be—sick? Vampires didn’t really get sick. They got hungry, but they didn’t get sick. And these vampires had eaten. The evidence was all over their faces. Also, they were twitching a bit.

Considering the state of the place, he didn’t feel like worrying over their health.

“Come on,” one of them said. They shuffled out onto the landing and then down the stairs. Magnus shut the door firmly and, with a swoop of his hand, moved a marble-topped dry sink to block the door from the inside. At least that had been too heavy and sturdy to break or remove, but it was full of old dirty clothes that seemed to be covering up something he instinctively knew he never wanted to see.

The smell was terrible. That had to go first. One crack of blue hit the air, and the funk was replaced with the light smell of night-blooming jasmine. He took the record off the record player. The vampires had left behind a pile of albums. He had a look through this and picked out the new Fleetwood Mac album that everyone was playing. He liked them. There was a light magical sound to the music. Magnus swept his hand through the air again, and slowly the apartment began to right itself. As a thank-you, he sent the garbage and the various disgusting little piles over to the Dumont. He had promised to send them their things, after all.

Despite the magic he used on his window air-conditioning unit, despite the cleaning, despite everything he had done—the apartment still felt sticky and dirty and unpleasant. Magnus slept poorly. He gave up at around six in the morning and went out in search of coffee and breakfast. He was still on London time anyway.

Out on the street some people were clearly just coming home for the night. There was a woman hopping along in one high heel and one bare foot. There were three people covered in glitter and sweat, all wearing flopping feather boas, emerging from a cab by his corner. Magnus settled down in the corner booth of a diner across the street. It was the only thing open. It was surprisingly full. Again, most of the people seemed to be at the end of their day, not the start, and were gobbling pancakes to soak up the alcohol in their stomachs.

Magnus had purchased a paper by the cash register. The cabbie hadn’t been lying—the news in New York was bad. He’d left a troubled city and returned to a broken one. The city was broke. Half the buildings in the Bronx had burned down. Trash piled up on the streets because there was no money for collection. Muggings, murders, robbery . . . and yes, someone calling himself the Son of Sam and claiming to be an agent of Satan was running around with a gun and shooting people at random.

“I thought that was you,” said a voice. “Magnus. Where you been, man?”

A young man slid into the other side of the booth. He wore jeans, a leather vest with no shirt, and a gold cross on a chain around his neck. Magnus smiled and folded his paper away.

“Greg!”

Gregory Jensen was an extremely handsome young werewolf with shoulder-length blond hair. Blond was not Magnus’s favorite hair color, but Greg certainly carried his well. Magnus had had a bit of a crush on Greg for a while, a crush he’d eventually let go of when he’d met Greg’s wife, Consuela. Werewolf love was intense. You didn’t get near it.

“I’m telling you”—Greg pulled the ashtray from under the table’s jukebox and lit up a cigarette—“things have been messed up recently. I mean, messed up.”

“Messed up how?”

“The vampires, man.” Greg took a long drag. “There’s something wrong with them.”

“I found a few in my apartment last night when I got home,” Magnus said. “They didn’t seem right. They were disgusting, for a start. And they looked sick.”

“They are sick. They’re feeding like crazy. It’s getting bad, man. It’s getting bad. I’m telling you . . .”

He leaned in and lowered his voice.

“Shadowhunters are going to be all over us if the vampires don’t get it under control. Right now I’m not sure the Shadowhunters know what’s going on. The murder rate in the city is so high, maybe they can’t tell. But it won’t be long before they figure it out.”

Magnus leaned back in his seat.

“Camille usually keeps things under control.”

Greg gave a heavy shrug. “I can only tell you that the vamps started coming around to all the clubs and discos. They love that stuff. But then they just started attacking people all the time. In the clubs, on the streets. The NYPD thinks the attacks are weird muggings, so it’s been kept quiet so far. But when the Shadowhunters find out, they’re going to come down on us. They’re getting trigger-happy. Any excuse.”

“The Accords prohibit—”

“The Accords my ass. I’m telling you, it won’t be long before they start ignoring the Accords. And the vampires are so in violation that anything can happen. I’m telling you, it’s all so messed up.”

A plate of pancakes was deposited in front of Magnus, and he and Greg stopped speaking for a moment. Greg stubbed out his barely smoked cigarette.

“I gotta go,” he said. “I was out patrolling to see if anyone had been attacked, and I saw you through the window. Wanted to say hi. It’s nice to see you back.”

Magnus dropped five dollars onto the table and pushed the pancakes away.

“I’ll come with you. I want to see this for myself.”

The temperature had shot up in the hour or so he’d been in the diner. This amplified the pong of the overflowing trash—spilling out of metal trash cans (which only cooked it and intensified the scent), bags of it piled up on the curbs. Trash just thrown down onto the street itself. Magnus stepped over the hamburger wrappers and cans and newspapers.

“Two basic areas to patrol,” Greg said, lighting up a new cigarette. “This area and midtown west. We go street by street. I’m working west from here. There are a lot of clubs over by the river, in the Meatpacking District.”

“It’s quite warm.”

“This heat, man. I guess it could be the heat making them freak out. It gets to everyone.”

Greg pulled off his vest. There were certainly worse things than taking a walk with a handsome, shirtless man on a summer morning. Now that it was more of a civilized hour, people were out. Gay couples walking hand in hand, in the open, during the day. That was fairly new. Even as the city seemed to be falling apart, something good was happening.

“Has Lincoln spoken to Camille?” Magnus asked.

Max Lincoln was the head of the werewolves. Everyone just called him by his last name, which fit with his tall and gaunt frame and bearded face—and because, like the more famous Lincoln, he was a famously calm and resolute leader.

“They don’t talk,” Greg said. “Not anymore. Camille comes down here for the clubs, and that’s it. You know what she’s like.”

Magnus knew all too well. Camille had always been a bit aloof, at least to strangers and acquaintances. She had the air of royalty. The private Camille was a different beast entirely.

“What about Raphael Santiago?” Magnus asked.

“He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Rumor is that he’s been sent away. I heard that from one of the fey. They claim to have overheard it from some vamps walking through Central Park. He must have known about what was happening and had some words with Camille. Now he’s just gone.”

This didn’t bode well.

They walked through the Village, past the shops and cafés, up toward the Meatpacking District, with its cobbled streets and disused warehouses. Many of these were now clubs. There was a desolate feel here in the morning—just the remains of the abandoned parties and the river slugging along below. Even the river seemed to resent the heat. They checked everywhere—in the alleys, next to the trash. They looked under vans and trucks.

“Nothing,” Greg said as they peered into and poked the last pile of trash in the last alley. “Guess it was a quiet night. Time to check in. It’s late.

This required a quick walk in the ever-increasing heat. Greg couldn’t pay for a cab and refused to allow Magnus to do so, so Magnus unhappily joined in the jog all the way down to Canal Street. The werewolves’ den was concealed behind the facade of a takeout-only restaurant in Chinatown. One werewolf stood behind the counter, under the menu and the stock photos of various Chinese dishes. She looked Magnus over. When Greg nodded, she let them pass through a beaded curtain to the back.

There was no kitchen behind the back wall. Instead there was a door that led to a much larger facility—the old Second Precinct police station. (The cells came in handy during the full moon.) Magnus followed Greg down the dimly lit hallway to the main room of the station, which was already full. The pack had gathered, and Lincoln stood at the head of the room, listening to a report and nodding gravely. When he saw Magnus, he raised a hand in greeting.

“All right,” Lincoln said. “Looks like everyone is here. And we have a guest. Many of you know Magnus Bane. He’s a warlock, as you see, and a friend to this pack.”

This was accepted at once, and there were nods and greetings all around. Magnus leaned against a file cabinet near the back to watch the proceedings.

“Greg,” Lincoln said, “you’re the last in. Anything?”

“Nope. My patch was clean.”

“Good. But unfortunately, there was an incident. Elliot? Want to explain?”

Another werewolf stepped forward.

“We found a body,” he said. “In midtown, near Le Jardin. Definitely a vampire attack. Clear marking on the neck. We slit the throat so the puncture marks were hidden.”

There was a general groan around the room.

“That will keep the words ‘vampire killer’ out of the papers for a while,” Lincoln said. “But clearly things have gotten worse, and now someone is dead.”

Magnus heard various remarks in low voices about vampires, and some in louder voices. All of the remarks contained profanity.

“Okay.” Lincoln put his hands up and silenced the general sounds of dismay. “Magnus, what do you think about this?”

“I don’t know,” Magnus said. “I only just got back.”

“Ever seen anything like this? Mass, random attacks?”

All heads turned in his direction. He steadied himself against the file cabinet. He wasn’t quite ready to give a presentation on the ways of vampires at this hour of the morning.

“I’ve seen bad behavior,” Magnus said. “It really depends. I’ve been in places where there was no police force and no Shadowhunters nearby, so sometimes it can get out of hand. But I’ve never seen anything like it here, or in any developed area. Especially not near an Institute.”

“We need to take care of this,” a voice called out.

Various voices of assent echoed around the room.

“Let’s talk outside,” Lincoln said to Magnus.

He nodded at the door, and the werewolves parted so that Magnus could pass. Lincoln and Magnus got some burned coffee at the corner deli and sat on a stoop in front of an acupuncturist’s shop.

“Something’s wrong with them,” Lincoln said. “Whatever it is, it hit fast, and it hit hard. If we have diseased vampires around causing this kind of bloodshed . . . eventually we’ll have to act, Magnus. We can’t let it go on. We can’t let murders happen, and we can’t run the risk of bringing the Shadowhunters down here. We can’t have problems like that starting up again. It will end badly for all of us.”

Magnus examined the crack in the step below. “Have you contacted the Praetor Lupus?” he asked.

“Of course. But we can’t identify who is doing this. It doesn’t seem like the work of one rogue fledgling. This is multiple attacks in multiple locations. The only luck for us is that all of the victims have been on various substances, so they can’t articulate what happened to them. If one of them says vampire, the police will think it’s because they’re high. But eventually the story will take shape. The press will get wind of it, and the Shadowhunters will get wind of it, and the whole thing will escalate rapidly.”

Lincoln was right. If this went on, the werewolves would be well within their rights to act. And then there would be blood.

“You know Camille,” Lincoln said. “You could talk to her.”

“I knew Camille. You probably know her better than I do at this point.”

“I don’t know how to talk to Camille. She’s a difficult person to communicate with. I would have spoken to her already if I knew how. And our relationship isn’t quite the same as the relationship you had.”

“We don’t really get along,” Magnus said. “We haven’t spoken for several decades.”

“But everyone knows that you two were . . .”

“That was a long time ago. A hundred years ago, Lincoln.”

“For you two does that kind of time even matter?”

“What would you want me to say to her? It’s hard to walk in after that long a time and just say, ‘Stop attacking people. Also, how have you been since the turn of the century?’”

“If there’s something wrong, maybe you could help them. If they’re just overfeeding, then they need to know that we’re prepared to act. And if you care for her, which I think you do, she deserves this warning. It would be for the good of us all.”

He put his hand on Magnus’s shoulder.

“Please,” Lincoln said. “It’s possible we can still fix this. Because if this goes on, we’ll all suffer.”

Magnus had many exes. They were strewn throughout history. Most of them were memories, long dead. Some were now very old. Etta, one of his last loves, was now in a nursing home and no longer recognized him. It had become too painful to visit her.

Camille Belcourt was different. She’d come into Magnus’s life under the light of a gas lamp, looking regal. That had been in London, and it had been a different world. Their romance had happened in fog. It had happened in carriages bumping along cobbled streets, on settees covered in damson-colored silk. They’d loved in the time of the clockwork creatures, before the mundane wars. There seemed to be more time then, time to fill, time to spend. And they’d filled it. And they’d spent it.

They had parted badly. When you love someone that intensely and they do not love you in the same way, it is impossible to part well.

Camille had arrived in New York at the end of the 1920s, just as the Crash had been happening and everything had been falling apart. She had a great sense of drama, and a good nose for places that were in crisis and in need of a guiding hand. In no time at all she’d become the head of the vampires. She had a place inside the famous Eldorado building on the Upper West Side. Magnus knew where she was, and she knew where Magnus was. But neither of them contacted the other. They had passed each other, purely by accident, at various clubs and events over the years. They’d exchanged only a quick nod. That relationship was over. It was a live wire, not to be touched. It was the one temptation in life Magnus knew to leave alone.

And yet here he was, just twenty-four hours back in New York, stepping into the Eldorado. This was one of New York’s great art deco apartment buildings. It sat right on the west side of Central Park, overlooking the reservoir. It was notable for its two matching square towers jutting up like horns. The Eldorado was the home of the old money, the celebrities, the people who simply had. The uniformed doorman was trained not to take notice of anyone’s attire or mien as long as they looked like they had come to the building for a legitimate reason. For the occasion Magnus had decided to skip his new look. There would be no punk here—no vinyl or fishnet. Tonight was a Halston suit, black, with wide satin lapels. This passed the test, and he got a nod and a light smile. Camille lived on the twenty-eighth floor of the north tower, a silent oak-paneled and brass-railed elevator ride up into some of the most expensive real estate in Manhattan.

The towers made for some very small, very intimate floors. Some had only one or two inhabitants. There were two in this case. Camille lived in 28C. Magnus could hear music seeping out from under the door. There was a strong smell of smoke and the leftover perfume of whoever had just passed this way. Despite the fact that there was activity inside, it took about three minutes of knocking before someone answered.

He was surprised to find that he recognized this person at once. It was a face from long ago. At the time the woman had had a little black bob and had worn a flapper dress. She’d been young then, and while she had retained the basic youth (vampires didn’t really age), she looked world-worn. Now her hair was bleached blond and formed into heavy, long curls. She wore a skin-tight gold dress that skimmed her knees, and a cigarette dangled from the side of her mouth.

“Well, well, well. It’s everyone’s favorite warlock! I haven’t seen you since you were running that speakeasy. It’s been a long time.”

“It has,” Magnus said. “Daisy?”

“Dolly.” She pushed the door open wider. “Look who it is, everyone!”

The room was full of vampires, all of whom were dressed extremely well. Magnus had to give them that. The men wore the white suits that were so popular this season. The women all had fantastic disco dresses, mostly in white or gold. The mix of hair spray, cigarette smoke, incense, and colognes and perfumes took his breath away for a moment.

Aside from the strong smells, there was a tension in the air that had no real basis. Magnus was no stranger to vampires, yet this group was uptight, looking to one another. Shifting around. Waiting for something.

There was no invitation to enter.

“Is Camille in?” Magnus finally asked.

Dolly cocked a hip against the door.

“What brings you here tonight, Magnus?”

“I’ve just gotten back from an extended vacation. It just felt right to pay a visit.”

“Did it?”

In the background someone turned down the record player until the music was barely audible.

“Someone go talk to Camille,” Dolly said without turning around. She remained where she was, blocking the doorway with her tiny body. She closed the door a bit to reduce the space she had to fill. She continued smiling up at Magnus in a way that was a bit unnerving.

“Just a minute,” she said.

In the background someone moved into the hallway.

“What’s this?” Dolly said, plucking something from Magnus’s pocket. “Electrica? I’ve never heard of this club.”

“It’s new. They claim to be better than Studio 54. I’ve never been to either, so I don’t know. Someone gave me the passes.”

Magnus had stuck the passes into his pocket as he’d been walking out the door. After all, he had gone to the effort of dressing up. Should this errand end as badly as he thought it would, it would be nice to have somewhere to go afterward.

Dolly twisted the passes into a fan and waved it lightly in front of her face.

“Take them,” Magnus said. It was evident that Dolly had already taken them and was not giving them back, so it seemed polite to make it official.

The vampire emerged from the hallway and conferred with some others on the sofa and around the room. Then a different vampire came over to the door. Dolly stepped behind the door for a moment, closing it farther. Magnus heard a mumbling. Then the door opened again, wide enough to admit him.

“It’s your lucky night,” she said. “This way.”

The white wall-to-wall carpet was so shaggy and thick that Dolly wobbled on her high heels as she traversed it. The carpet had stains all over it—spilled drinks, ash, and puddles of things he supposed were blood. The white sofas and chairs were in similar condition. The many large plants and potted palms and fronds were all dry and sagging. Several pictures on the walls were askew. There were bottles and empty glasses with dried-up wine at the bottom everywhere. It was the same kind of disarray Magnus had found in his apartment.

More disturbing was the silence from all the vampires in the room who watched him being led along by Dolly to the hallway. And then there was the sofa full of unmoving humans—subjugates, no doubt, all dazed and slumped, their mouths hanging open, the bruises and wounds on their necks and arms and hands looking quite ugly. The glass table in front of them had a fine coating of white powder and a few razor blades. The only noise was the muted music and a low rumble of thunder outside.

“This way,” Dolly said, taking Magnus by the sleeve.

The hall was dark, and there were clothes and shoes all over the floor. Muffled noises came from the three doors along the hall. Dolly walked right to the end, to a double door. She rapped on this once and pushed it open.

“Go ahead,” she said, still smiling her weird little smile.

In stark contrast to the whiteness of everything in the living room, this room was the dark side of the apartment. The carpet was an indigo black, like a nighttime sea. The walls were covered in deep silver wallpaper. The lamp shades were all covered by gold and silver shawls and throws. The tables were all mirrored, reflecting the view back and forth again. And in the middle of it all was a massive black lacquer bed with black sheets and a heavy gold cover. And on it was Camille, in a peach silk kimono.

And a hundred years seemed to vanish. Magnus felt himself unable to speak for a moment. It might as well have been London again, the whole twentieth century rolled up into a ball and tossed aside.

But then the present moment came crashing back when Camille began an ungainly crawl in his direction, slipping on the satin sheets.

“Magnus! Magnus! Magnus! Come here! Come! Sit down!”

Her silver-blond hair was long and down, looking wild. She patted the end of the bed. This was not the greeting he’d been expecting. This was not the Camille he remembered, or even the one he had seen in passing.

As he made to step over what he thought was a lump of clothing, he realized there was a human on the floor, facedown. He bent down and gently reached into the mass of long black hair to turn the person’s face upward. It was a woman, and there was still some warmth in her, and a faint pulse beating in her neck.

“That’s Sarah,” Camille said, flopping onto the bed and hanging her head off the end to watch.

“You’ve been feeding from her,” Magnus said. “Is she a willing donor?”

“Oh, she loves it. Now, Magnus . . . You look marvelous, by the way. Is that Halston? . . . We’re just about to go out. And you are coming with us.”

She slid from the bed and tripped her way into a massive closet. Magnus heard hangers being scraped along rails. Magnus examined the girl on the floor again. She had punctures all over her neck—and now she was smiling weakly at Magnus and pushing back her hair, offering him a bite.

“I’m not a vampire,” he said, resting her head gently on the floor again. “And you should get out of here. Do you want my help?”

The girl made a sound that was just between a laugh and a whimper.

“Which one of these?” Camille said as she came stumbling back out of the closet, holding two almost identical black evening dresses.

“This girl is weak,” he said. “Camille, you’ve taken too much blood from her. She needs a hospital.”

“She’s fine. Leave her alone. Help me pick a dress.”

Everything about this exchange was wrong. This was not how the reunion should have gone. It should have been coy; it should have had many strange pauses and moments of double meaning. Instead Camille was acting like she’d just seen Magnus yesterday. Like they were simply friends. It was enough of an entry to allow him to get to the point.

“I’m here because there’s a problem, Camille. Your vampires are killing people and leaving bodies on the street. They’re overfeeding.”

“Oh, Magnus.” Camille shook her head. “I may be in charge, but I don’t control them. You have to allow for a certain amount of freedom.”

“This includes killing mundanes and leaving their bodies out on the sidewalk?”

Camille was no longer listening. She had dropped the dresses onto the bed and was picking though a pile of earrings. Meanwhile Sarah was attempting to crawl in Camille’s direction. Without even looking at her, Camille set a mirror full of white powder down on the floor. Sarah went right for it and began sniffing it up.

And then Magnus understood.

While human drugs didn’t quite work on Downworlders, there was no telling what would happen when that drug was run through a human circulatory system and then ingested through the human blood.

It all made sense. The disarray. The confused behavior. The frenzied feeding in the clubs. The fact that they all looked so ill, that their personalities seemed to have changed. He’d seen this a thousand times in mundanes.

Camille was looking at him now, her gaze unwavering.

“Come out with us tonight, Magnus,” she cooed. “You are a man who knows a good time. I am a woman who provides a good time. Come out with us.”

“Camille, you have to stop. You have to know how dangerous this is.”

“It’s not going to kill me, Magnus. That’s quite impossible. And you don’t understand how it feels.”

“The drug can’t kill you, but other things can. If you continue like this, you know there are people out there who can’t let you go on murdering mundanes. Someone will act.”

“Let them try,” she said. “I could take on ten Shadowhunters once I’ve had some of this.”

“It may not be—”

Camille dropped to the floor before he could finish and buried her face into Sarah’s neck. Sarah flailed once and groaned, then became silent and motionless. He heard the sickening sound of the drinking, the sucking. Camille lifted her head, blood all around her mouth, running down her chin.

“Are you coming or not?” she said. “I would simply love to take you to Studio 54. You’ve never had a night out like one of our nights out.”

Magnus had to force himself to keep looking at her like this.

“Let me help you. A few hours, a few days—I could get this out of your system.”

Camille dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the blood onto her cheek.

“If you’re not coming along, then stay out of our way. Consider this a polite warning, Magnus. Dolly!”

Dolly was already at the door. “Think you’re done here,” she said.

Magnus watched Camille sink her teeth into Sarah again.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I am.”

Outside, a downpour was in progress. The doorman held an umbrella over Magnus’s head and hailed him a cab. The incongruity of the civility downstairs and what he’d seen upstairs was . . .

It wasn’t to be thought about. Magnus got into the cab, gave his destination, and closed his eyes. The rain drummed onto the cab. It felt like the rain was beating directly onto his brain.

Magnus wasn’t surprised to find Lincoln sitting on the steps by his door. Wearily he waved him inside.

“Well?” Lincoln said.

“It’s not good,” Magnus replied, pulling off his wet jacket. “It’s the drugs. They’re feeding on the blood of people who are taking drugs. It must be escalating their need and lowering their impulse control.”

“You’re right,” Lincoln said. “That isn’t good. I thought it might have something to do with the drugs, but I thought they were immune to things like addiction.”

Magnus poured them each a glass of wine, and they sat and listened to the rain for a moment.

“Can you help her?” Lincoln asked.

“If she lets me. But you can’t cure an addict who doesn’t want to be cured.”

“No,” Lincoln said. “I’ve seen that myself with our own. But you understand . . . we can’t let this behavior continue.”

“I know you can’t.”

Lincoln finished his wine and set the glass down gently.

“I’m sorry, Magnus. I really am. But if it happens again, you need to leave it to us.”

Magnus nodded. Lincoln gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, then let himself out.

For the next several days Magnus kept to himself. The weather was brutal, flicking between heat and storm. He tried to forget about the scene in Camille’s apartment, and the best way to forget was to keep busy. He hadn’t really kept up with his work for the last two years. There were clients to call. There were spells to study and translations to do. Books to read. The apartment needed redecorating. There were new restaurants and new bars and new people. . . .

Every time he stopped, he flashed back to the sight of Camille squatting on the carpet, the girl limp in her arms, the mirror full of drugs, Camille’s face covered in blood. The mess. The stink. The horror. The blank looks.

When you lost someone to addiction—and he had lost many—you lost something very precious. You watched them fall. You waited for them to hit the bottom. It was a terrible wait. He would have nothing to do with it. What happened now was not his problem. He had no doubt that Lincoln and the werewolves would take care of things, and the less he knew the better.

It kept him awake at night. That, and the thunder.

Sleeping alone was Hell, so he decided not to sleep alone.

He still woke up.

It was the night of July thirteenth—lucky thirteen. The thunderstorm outside was incredibly loud, louder than the air conditioner, louder than the radio. Magnus was just finishing up a translation and was about to go out to dinner, when the lights flickered. The radio faded in and out. Then everything went very bright as power surged through the wires. Then . . .

Out. Air conditioner, lights, radio, everything. Magnus flicked his hand absently and lit a candle on his desk. Power outages were not uncommon. It was a moment before he realized that things had grown very quiet and very dark indeed, and there were voices shouting outside. He went to the window and opened it.

Everything was dark. The streetlights. Every building. Everything except the headlights of the cars. He took the candle and carefully walked down the two flights to the street and joined the excited masses of people. The rain had stopped—it was just thunder grumbling in the background.

New York . . . was off. Everything was off. There was no skyline. There was no glow of the Empire State Building. It was utterly, utterly dark. And one word was being yelled from window to window, from street to car to doorway . . .

“BLACKOUT.”

The parties started almost at once. It was the ice cream shop on the corner that kicked it off, selling anything they had for a dime a cone, and then just giving away the ice cream to anyone who came by with a bowl or a cup. Then the bars started passing around cocktails in paper cups to passersby. Everyone poured out onto the streets. People propped battery-powered radios in the windows, so there was a mix of music and news reports. The outage had been caused by a lightning strike. All of New York was down. It would be hours—days?—before service was restored.

Magnus returned to his apartment, got a bottle of champagne from his refrigerator, and returned to his front stoop to drink it, sharing it with a few people who walked past. It was too hot to stay inside, and the outside was far too interesting to miss. People started dancing on the sidewalk, and he joined in for a while. He accepted a martini from a nice young man with a beautiful smile.

Then there was a hissing. People gathered around one of the radios, one playing news. Magnus and his new friend, who was named David, joined them.

“. . . .ires throughout the five boroughs. More than a hundred fires have been reported in the last hour. And we have multiple reports of lootings. Gunfire is being exchanged. Please—if you are out tonight, use extreme caution. Though all police have been called in to duty, there are not enough officers to . . .”

Another radio a few yards away, on a different station, gave a similar report.

“. . . .undreds of stores have been broken into. There are reports of total breakdowns in some areas. You are strongly advised to stay indoors. If you cannot get home, seek shelter in . . . .”

In the short silence, Magnus could hear sirens in the distance. The Village was a tight community, so it celebrated. But clearly this was not the case all over the city.

“Magnus!”

Magnus turned to find Greg breaking through the group. He pulled Magnus away from the crowd, into a quiet space between two parked cars.

“I thought that was you,” he said. “It’s all happening. They’ve gone nuts. The blackout. . . . The vampires are going crazy at this club. I can’t even explain it. It’s on Tenth Ave and down a block. No cabs in this blackout. You have to run.”

Now that Magnus was trying to get somewhere, he realized the pure madness of the blacked-out streets. Since there were no traffic lights, normal people were trying to guide traffic. Cars were either frozen in place or moving far too fast. Some were parked and turned inward, their headlights being used to illuminate stores and restaurants. Everyone was out—the Village had poured out of every building, and there was no room anywhere. Magnus and Greg had to weave through the people, through the cars, tripping in the dark.

The crowds thinned somewhat the closer they got to the river. The club was in one of the old meatpacking warehouses. The brick industrial facade had been painted silver, and the word “ELECTRICA,” along with a lightning bolt, was above the old service doors. Two werewolves stood by these, holding flashlights, and Lincoln waited off to the side. He was deep in conversation with Consuela, who was his second-in-command. When they saw Magnus, Consuela stepped aside to a waiting van, and Lincoln came over.

“This is what we feared,” Lincoln said. “We waited too long.”

The werewolves guarding the entrance parted, and Lincoln pushed open the doors. Inside the club it was entirely pitch black, save for the beams from the werewolves’ flashlights. There was a strong smell of spilled, mixed liquor and something unpleasantly tangy and sharp.

Magnus raised his hands. The neon lights around the room buzzed and glowed. The overhead work lights—unflattering fluorescents—sputtered on. And the disco ball crept to life, slowly spinning, sending a thousand points of colored reflected light around the room. The dance floor, made of large squares of colored plastic, was also illuminated from below.

Which made the scene all the more terrible.

There were four bodies, three women and one man. All looked like they had been running for various points of exit. Their skin was the color of ash, marked everywhere with greenish-purple bruises and dozens of marks, and garishly lit by the red, yellow, and blue lights below them. There was very little blood. Just a few small puddles here and there. Not nearly as much blood as there should have been.

One of the dead women, Magnus noticed, had familiar long blond hair. He’d last seen her on the plane, handing him the passes . . .

Magnus had to turn away quickly.

“They were all drained,” Lincoln said. “The club hadn’t opened for the night yet. They were having trouble with their sound system even before the power went out, so the only people here were the employees. Two there. . . .”

He pointed to the raised DJ platform with its piles of turntables and speakers. Some werewolves were up there examining the scene.

“Two behind the bar,” he continued. “Another one ran and hid in the bathroom, but the door was broken down. And these four. Nine total.”

Magnus sat down on one of the nearby chairs and put his head in his hands for a moment to gather himself. No matter how long you lived, you never got used to seeing terrible things. Lincoln gave him a moment to collect himself.

“This is my fault. When I went to see Camille, one of them took the passes to this place from my pocket.”

Lincoln pulled over a chair and sat next to Magnus.

“That doesn’t make it your fault. I asked you to speak to Camille. If Camille came here because of you . . . it doesn’t put the blame on either of us, Magnus. But you can see now, it can’t go on.”

“What do you plan on doing?” Magnus said.

“There are fires tonight. All over the city. We take this opportunity. We burn this place down. I think it would spare the victims’ families for them to think their loved ones died in a fire, rather than . . .”

He indicated the terrible scene just behind them.

“You’re right,” Magnus said. “No good could come of anyone seeing their loved one like that.”

“No. And no good would come of the police seeing this. It would send the city into a complete panic, and the Shadowhunters would be forced to come down here. We keep this quiet. We deal with it.”

“And the vampires?”

“We’re going to go and get them, and lock them in here while it burns. We have permission from the Praetor Lupus. The entire clan is to be treated as infected, but we’ll try to be judicious. The first one we’ll be getting, though, is Camille.”

Magnus exhaled slowly.

“Magnus,” Lincoln said, “what else can we do? She’s the clan leader. We need this to end now.”

“Give me an hour,” Magnus said. “One hour. If I can get them off the streets in an hour—”

“There’s already a group headed up to Camille’s apartment. Another will go to the Hotel Dumont.”

“How long ago did they leave?”

“About a half hour.”

“Then I’m going now.” Magnus stood. “I have to try to do something.”

“Magnus,” Lincoln said, “if you stand in the way, the pack will remove you from the situation. Do you understand that?”

Magnus nodded.

“I’ll come up when we’re done here,” Lincoln said. “I’ll go to the Dumont. That’s where they’ll end up anyway.”

A Portal was required. Given the situation on the streets, there was every chance that the werewolves hadn’t gotten to Camille’s apartment yet—if that was even where she was. He would just need to get to her. But before he could even start to draw the runes, he heard a voice in the dark.

“You’re here.”

Magnus turned on his heel and threw up a hand to illuminate the alley.

Camille was moving toward him, unsteady. She wore a long, black dress—rather, it was a dress that was now colored black from the sheer quantity of blood on it. It was still wet and heavy, and it stuck to her legs as she made her way forward.

“Magnus . . .”

Her voice was thick. Smears of blood covered Camille’s face, her arms, her silver-blond hair. She held one hand against a wall for support as she moved toward him in a series of heavy, toddler-like steps.

Magnus approached her slowly. As soon as he got close enough, she gave up the effort of standing and fell forward. He caught her halfway to the ground.

“I knew you’d come,” she said.

“What have you done, Camille?”

“I was looking for you. . . . Dolly said you were . . . you were here.”

Magnus gently lowered her to the ground.

“Camille . . . do you know what’s happened? Do you know what you did?”

The smell coming from her was nauseating. Magnus breathed sharply through his nose to steady himself. Camille’s eyes were rolling back into her head. He gave her a shake.

“You need to listen to me,” he said. “Try to stay awake. You need to summon all of them.”

“I don’t know where they are. . . . They’re everywhere. It’s so dark. It’s our night, Magnus. For my little ones. For us.”

“You must have grave dirt,” Magnus said.

This got a loose nod.

“Okay. We get the grave dirt. You use it to summon them. Where is the grave dirt?”

“In the vault.”

“And where is the vault?”

“Green-Wood . . . Cemetery. Brooklyn . . .”

Magnus stood and began to draw the runes. When he was finished and the Portal began to open, he picked Camille up from the ground and held on to her tightly.

“Think of it now,” he said. “Get it clearly in your mind. The vault.”

Considering Camille’s state, this was a risky proposition. Holding her closer, feeling the blood on her clothing seep through his shirt . . . Magnus stepped through.

There were trees here. Trees and a bit of moonlight cutting through the cloudy night sky. Absolutely no people, no voices. Just the distant rumble of the stuck traffic. And hundreds of white slabs jutting up from the ground.

Magnus and Camille were standing in front of a mausoleum that resembled a folly—the front piece of a tiny colonnaded temple. It was built directly into the side of a low hill.

Magnus looked down and saw that Camille had found the strength to wrap her slender arms around him. She was shuddering a bit.

“Camille?”

She tipped her head upward. She was crying. Camille did not cry. Even under these circumstances, Magnus was moved. He still wanted to console her, wanted to take the time to tell her everything would be all right. But all he could say was, “Do you have the key?”

She shook her head. There hadn’t been much chance of that. Magnus put his hand on the lock securing the wide metal doors, closed his eyes, and concentrated until he felt the light click under his fingertips.

The vault was about eight-foot square and was made of concrete. The walls were lined with wooden shelves, floor to ceiling. And those shelves were filled with small glass vials of earth. The vials varied quite a bit—some were thick green, or yellow blown glass with visible bubbles. There were thinner bottles, some extremely small bottles, a few tiny brown bottles. The oldest ones were stopped up with corks. Some had glass stoppers. The newest had screw-on caps. The age was also seen in the layers of dust, the grime, the amount of webbing running between them. In the back, you wouldn’t have been able to lift some of the bottles from the shelves, so thick was the accumulated residue. There was a history of New York vampirism here that would probably have interested many, that was probably worth studying. . . .

Magnus put out his hands, and with one great blast of blue light, all the vials burst at once. There was a great cough of dirt and glass powder.

“Where will they go?” he asked Camille.

“The Dumont.”

“Of course,” Magnus said. “Them and everyone else. We’re going there, and you’re going to do as I say. We need to make this right, Camille. You have to try. Do you understand?”

She nodded once.

This time Magnus was in control of the Portal. They emerged on 116th Street, in the middle of what appeared to be a full-scale riot. There were fires here. The echoes of screams and breaking glass went from one end of the street to the other. No one took any notice of the fact that Magnus and Camille were suddenly in their midst. It was too dark, and far too crazy. The heat was much worse in this area, and Magnus felt his entire body dripping with sweat.

There were two vans parked directly in front of the Dumont, and an unmistakable crowd of werewolves was already gathered. They had baseball bats and chains. That was all that was visible. There were undoubtedly some containers of holy water. There was already plenty of fire around.

Magnus pulled Camille down behind the cover of a parked Cadillac that had already had all its windows smashed. He reached around inside and popped open the door.

“Get in,” he said to Camille. “And stay down. They’re after you. Let me go and talk to them.”

Even as Magnus was making his way around the car, Camille found the strength to crawl across the glass-strewn front seat and was falling out through the driver’s side door. When Magnus tried to get her back inside, she pushed him away.

“Get out of the way, Magnus. It’s me they want.”

“They’ll kill you, Camille.”

But she had been seen. The werewolves crossed the street, bats at the ready. Camille held up a hand. Several vampires had just arrived in front of the hotel. Several others had already fought, and several others were lying, still, on the sidewalk. A few more were being restrained.

“Go inside the hotel,” she ordered.

“Camille—they’ll burn us,” one said. “Look at them. Look at what’s happening.”

Camille looked to Magnus, and he understood. She was leaving this to him.

“Get inside,” she said again. “That is not a request.”

One by one over the course of the next hours, every vampire in New York—no matter what condition they were in—appeared on the steps of the Dumont. Camille, leaning against the doors for support, ordered them inside. They passed through the phalanx of werewolves with their bats and chains, looking wary. It was almost dawn when the last groups appeared.

Lincoln arrived at the same time.

“Some are missing,” Camille said as he got out of his car.

“Some are dead,” Lincoln replied. “You have Magnus to thank that more aren’t dead.”

Camille nodded once, then went inside the hotel and shut the doors.

“And now?” Lincoln said.

“You can’t cure them without their consent—but you can dry them out. They stay locked in there until they are clean,” Magnus said.

“And if this doesn’t work?”

Magnus looked at the broken-down facade of the Dumont. Someone, he noticed, had changed the n to an r. Dumort. Hotel of the dead.

“Let’s see what happens,” Magnus said.

For three days, Magnus kept the wards on the Dumont. He went by several times a day. Werewolves patrolled the perimeter all hours, making sure no one got out. On the third day, just after sunset, Magnus released the ward on the front door and went inside, and sealed it again behind him.

Clearly there had been an organizing principle at work inside the hotel. The vampires who had not been affected by the drug were littered throughout the lobby and on the balconies and steps. They were mostly sleeping. The werewolves now permitted them to rise and leave.

With Lincoln and his aides by his side, Magnus retraced the steps he had taken almost fifty years before, to the ballroom of the Dumont. Once again the doors were sealed—this time with a chain.

“Get the cutters from the van,” Lincoln said.

There was a truly terrible smell coming from under the door.

Please, Magnus thought. Be empty.

Of course the ballroom would not be empty. It was a silly wish that all the events of the last three days simply hadn’t happened. Because in the end nothing is worse than seeing the fall of one you loved. It was somehow worse than losing a love. It made everything seem questionable. It made the past bitter and confused.

The werewolf returned with the bolt cutters, and the chain was snapped, and landed on the floor with a hollow clank. A few of the unaffected vampires had remained behind to watch, and they were gathered at the werewolves’ backs.

Magnus pushed the door open.

The white marble floor of the ballroom was splintered. Had that really been fifty years ago, right here, where Aldous had opened the Portal to the Void?

The vampires were scattered in every part of the room, maybe thirty in all. These were the sick, and they were all in a profound state of suffering. The smell alone was enough to gag anyone. And the werewolves lifted their hands to their faces to block it out.

The vampires made no move and gave no greeting. Only a few lifted their faces to see what was happening. Magnus stepped over them, looking at each one. He found Dolly near the center of the room, not moving. He found Camille sprawled behind one of the long curtains that hung at the far end of the ballroom. Like the others, she was surrounded by a number of foul pools of regurgitated blood.

Her eyes were open.

“I want to walk,” she said. “Help me, Magnus. Help me walk a bit. I need to look strong.”

There was a steadiness to her voice, despite the fact that she was too weak to get up on her own. Magnus bent down and lifted her to her feet, then supported her as she walked, with as much dignity as she could, over the slumped bodies of her clan. He sealed the doors again when they had left.

“Up,” she said. “Around. I need to walk. Upstairs.”

He could feel the strain as she took each step. Sometimes he was mostly carrying her.

“Do you remember?” she said. “Old Aldous opening the Portal here . . . remember? I had to warn you about what he was doing.”

“I remember.”

“Even the mundanes knew to stay away from the place and let it rot. I hate that some of my little ones live in rotten places, but it’s dark. It’s safe.”

It was too difficult to talk and walk, so she fell silent again and leaned against Magnus’s chest. When they reached the top floor, they stood against the rail and looked down at the wreckage of the hotel lobby.

“It never really went away for us, did it?” she said. “There’s really never been another—not like you. Is it the same for you?”

“Camille . . .”

“I know we can’t go back. I know. Just tell me there’s never been another like me.”

In truth there had been many others. And while Camille was certainly in a class by herself, there had been much love—at least on Magnus’s part. Yet there was a hundred years of pain in that question, and Magnus had to wonder if maybe he had not been so alone in his feeling.

“No,” Magnus said. “There’s never been another like you.”

She seemed to gain some strength from that.

“It was never meant to happen,” she said. “There was a club downtown where some of the mundanes enjoyed getting bitten. They had the drugs in their system. They are quite powerful, these substances. It just took hold. I was given some of the infected blood to drink as a gift. I didn’t know what I was drinking—I only knew what effect it had. I didn’t know we were capable of addiction. We didn’t know.”

Magnus looked at the char on the ceiling. Old wounds. Nothing ever really went away.

“I will . . . I will make the command,” she said. “What happened here will never happen again. You have my word.”

“It’s not me you have to tell.”

“Tell the Praetor,” she replied. “Tell the Shadowhunters if you must. It will not happen again. I’ll forfeit my life before I allow it.”

“It’s probably best you speak to Lincoln.”

“Then I will speak to him.”

The mantle of dignity had returned to her shoulders. Despite all that had happened, she was still Camille Belcourt.

“You should leave now,” she said. “This isn’t for you anymore.”

Magnus wavered for a moment. Something—some part of him wanted to remain. But he found that he was already walking down the steps.

“Magnus,” Camille called.

He turned.

“Thank you for lying to me. You have always been kind. I never have been. That was why we couldn’t be, wasn’t it?”

Without replying, Magnus turned and continued down the stairs. Raphael Santiago passed him on the way up.

“I am sorry,” Raphael said.

“Where have you been?”

“When I saw what was happening, I tried to stop them. Camille attempted to make me drink some of the blood. She wanted everyone in her inner circle to participate. She was sick. I have seen such things before and knew how they would end. So I went away. I returned when a vial of my grave soil was broken.”

“I never saw you enter the hotel,” Magnus said.

“I entered through a broken basement window. I thought it was best to remain hidden for a while. I have been caring for the sick. It has been very unpleasant, but . . .”

He looked up, past Magnus’s shoulder, in Camille’s direction.

“I must go now. We have much to do here. Go, Magnus. There’s nothing for you here.”

Raphael had always been able to read Magnus a little too well.

Magnus made his decision when he was in the cab going home. Once he got inside his apartment, he prepared without hesitation, gathering everything he would need. He would need to be very specific. He would write it all down.

Then he called Catarina. He drank some wine while he waited for her to arrive.

Catarina was perhaps Magnus’s truest and closest friend, aside from Ragnor (and that relationship was often in a state of flux). Catarina was the only one who’d gotten any letters or calls while he’d been on his two-year trip. He hadn’t, however, actually told her he was home.

“Really?” she said when he opened the door. “Two years, and then you come back and don’t even call for two weeks? And then it’s, ‘Come over, I need you’? You didn’t even tell me you were home, Magnus.”

“I’m home,” he said, giving what he considered to be his most winning smile. The smiling took a bit of effort, but hopefully it looked genuine.

“Don’t even try that face with me. I am not one of your conquests, Magnus. I am your friend. We are supposed to get pizza, not do the nasty.”

“The nasty? But I—”

“Don’t.” She held up a warning finger. “I mean it. I almost didn’t come. But you sounded so pathetic on the phone that I had to.”

Magnus examined her rainbow T-shirt and pair of red overalls. Both of these stood out strongly against her blue skin. The contrast hurt Magnus’s eyes. He decided not to comment on her attire. The red overalls were very popular. It was just that most people weren’t blue. Most people did not live the rainbow.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Seriously, Magnus—”

“Let me explain,” he said. “Then yell at me if you want.”

So he explained. And she listened. Catarina was a nurse, and a good listener.

“Memory spells,” she said, shaking her head. “Not really my thing. I’m a healer. You’re the one who handles all this kind of stuff. If I do it wrong . . .”

“You won’t.”

“I might.”

“I trust you. Here.”

He handed Catarina the folded piece of paper. On it was a list of every time he’d seen Camille in New York. Every time in the entire twentieth century. These were the things that had to go.

“You know, there’s a reason we can remember,” she said more softly.

“That’s much easier when your life has an expiration date.”

“It may be more important for us.”

“I loved her,” he said. “I can’t take what I saw.”

“Magnus . . .”

“Either you do this or I attempt to do it on myself.”

Catarina sighed and nodded. She examined the paper for several moments, then took hold of Magnus’s temples very gently.

“You remember you’re lucky to have me, right?” she said.

“Always.”

Five minutes later Magnus was puzzled to find Catarina sitting beside him on the sofa.

“Catarina? What—”

“You were sleeping,” she said. “You left the door open. I let myself in. You have to lock your door. This city is nuts. You may be a warlock, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get your stereo stolen.”

“I usually lock it,” Magnus said, rubbing his eyes. “I didn’t even realize I fell asleep. How did you know I was—”

“You called me and said you were home and wanted to go out for pizza.”

“I did? What time is it?”

“Time for pizza,” she replied.

“I called you?”

“Uh-huh.” She stood and put out a hand to help him up. “And you’ve been back for two weeks and just called me tonight, so you’re in trouble. You sounded sorry on the phone but not sorry enough. More groveling will be needed.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was . . .”

Magnus struggled for the words. What had he been doing the last couple of weeks? Working. Calling clients. Dancing with handsome strangers. Something else too, but he couldn’t quite think of it. It didn’t matter.

“Pizza,” she said again, pulling him to his feet.

“Pizza. Sure. Sounds good.”

“Hey,” she said as he was locking the door. “Have you heard anything about Camille recently?”

“Camille? I haven’t seen her in at least . . . eighty years? Something like that? Why are you asking about Camille?”

“No reason,” she said. “Her name just popped into my mind. By the way, you’re buying.”