“How do you know this? Are you working for Rasouli?”

He looked blank.

“Hugo Vox?”

Krystos shook his head. “I do not know these names.”

“Who sent you here?”

“A priest of our church. He will know what you have done here. He will call down the wrath of the Almighty on you.”

His accent was atrocious but his message was clear enough; but I wasn’t buying. I’m pretty sure I could handle myself against a priest.

“I’ll take my chances,” I told him, but he sneered.

“Father Nicodemus will lay waste to your world. He has promised this!”

That, I thought, was mighty damn interesting, and it made me wonder whose side Nicodemus was on. There was Nicodemus with the Seven Kings last year. Nicodemus with the Red Order, and now Nicodemus with the Sabbatarians who were clearly enemies of the knights employed by the Red Order.

Who in hell was Nicodemus?

I left the room once more to call this in to Church, but got Aunt Sallie.

“What the fuck are you still doing at that house?” she bellowed.

“Trading Pokémon cards with the vampire hunters.”

“Why are you calling?”

When I told her about Nicodemus, Auntie shut up for a moment, then said, very grudgingly, “Good work. Now get out of there.”

“I wish I could spend some more quality time with this clown to see what else I can get.”

“If wishes were horses,” she said.

“Yeah. Tell you what, Auntie, much as it sounds goofy to say out loud, I think we need to take a look at this from the vampire doomsday perspective. I’m starting to think that maybe the Red Knights have the nukes.”

“We will, but I doubt whether your friend Krystos had that right. Circe and Dr. Sanchez have forwarded the idea of a doomsday cult.”

“You don’t buy it, though?”

“Do you?”

“No, but my logic is kind of goofy.”

“Big surprise,” she said. “Tell me.”

I said, “Answer me something first. Circe dismissed the changing into bats stuff, and we know that bullets kill the knights, so that’s two bits of folklore down the crapper. But, what do the reports you’ve collected about the Red Knights and real-world vampires say about immortality? That’s supposed to be a real theme with vampires, right?”

“Nothing lives forever, but from what little we know about the Red Knights, they’re supposed to be exceptionally long-lived. Not necessarily immortal, but with lifespans far exceeding ordinary humans.”

“Okay, so they’re immortal-ish. Enough so for the sake of argument, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Then tell me why immortals would want to destroy the world. No way that makes sense.”