Hugo Vox was grinning as he entered his study in Verona. Everything had played out perfectly. The Red Order was in ruins, and good riddance to the self-important pricks. The Tariqa were being hunted with quiet vengeance by their own people. Although they had been inactive since their leaders were killed during the invasion of Baghdad, many of them had old blood on their hands, and all of them were clearly willing to continue the centuries-old insanity. The surviving members of that sect would feel a wrath greater than anything Islam had leveled against the West.

Payback, Vox mused happily, was a real bitch.

He regretted that the knights were done, or as close to done as made no difference. They were interesting as all hell. They were one of the things that pulled him into this. Vox knew that he was a sucker for something with a biblical spin. Vampires. Bloodsucking hit men for the Church. You couldn’t make this shit up.

Shame the real story didn’t get into the press. That would have been legendary. That would be books and movies. Maybe they’d have gotten Ron White to play him. Vox loved that guy, never missed his stand-up act. Looking at him was like looking in a mirror. Well, a younger mirror.

He turned on a single light, locked the door, and crossed to his computer. He had looked for Toys on the Net, using the resources that had once belonged to the Seven Kings, but he hadn’t found him. The kid was all the way off the grid.

Vox’s smile flickered when he thought of Toys and the last, hard words between them.

I hate you, Hugo. I wish you were already dead.

Had Toys really meant that?

Probably.

Fuck.

He switched on the computer, entered his passwords, and accessed his banking records. His wealth was so scattered and so well protected that it was almost impossible to calculate. Somewhere a hair’s breadth south of one hundred billion. Nothing to piss on.

Enough to rebuild the Seven Kings.

Or, maybe find the scattered remnants of the Upierczi.

Hell, maybe both.

If he was going to live forever, he might as well have some fun.

He was smiling as he tapped in his banking codes. The screen buzzed with an error message. Mistype, he figured, and tried again. And again.

“What the fuck?”

He switched to a different bank and tried to log in.

The same thing happened.

He tried seven more, his fingers trembling with panic. Nothing.

“Goddamn son of a bitch, what the f—?”

A voice behind him said, “You’re wasting your time, Hugo.”

Vox jumped and spun around in his seat. He had not seen the figure sitting quietly in the darkness of the far side of the study. Vox had not even sensed his presence. The figure was seated in a leather chair, legs crossed, body relaxed and casual, face completely hidden by shadows.