The crusaders served as the Order’s equivalent of a lancet. Got a nasty boil ready to rupture—throw a crusader at it. Loners, highly skilled and deadly, they were great at what they did and after they did it, they returned to where they came from. Ted expected me to “investigate the crime,” meaning he expected me to make lots of noise and draw attention to myself, while the crusader quietly worked under my smoke screen. It chaffed at me for about two seconds, but in the end both parties got what they wanted: Ted got his lightning rod and I got to search for Greg’s killer. Everybody won.

I flipped open the Almanac and pulled the m-scan and the folded cutout of the article Bono had given me from between the book’s pages. Glancing at the m-scan one last time, I slid it onto the glass table, unfolded the article, and began to read. The owner of the apartment would arrive shortly. He rarely stayed out past two in the morning—he thought 3:00 a.m. to be an unlucky hour.

IT WAS CLOSE TO TWO O’CLOCK WHEN A SINGLE cab made its way up the avenue below me. I raised binoculars to my eyes.

The door of the cab opened and a blonde stepped onto the pavement. She was tall and very slender. The short black dress clung to her narrow hips and long waist, flaring to artfully enclose breasts that looked too large for her body. Her hair, so pale it shimmered white, fell to her shoulders without a trace of a curl.

Her face was perfectly formed, with high prominent cheekbones, aquiline nose, huge eyes, and a full mouth. As she strode to the highrise, her face wore an expression which on someone less attractive would be called a sneer. Elegant, graceful, and arrogant in her beauty, she was like a young Arabian horse, haughty and cruel and an irresistible challenge to any male.

A lone passerby stopped, struck by the sight of her. I thought he whistled but could not tell for sure. The blonde ignored his presence without even trying; for her, he simply did not exist. I put away the binoculars and returned to my Almanac.

Five minutes later the lock clicked and the blonde walked through the door. She saw me and stopped. The sneer vanished. “Oh, good. I have something for you.”

Not again.