“Kate! How pleasant to see you again.” Her smile could launch a spaceship into orbit. Coupled with a contralto, tinted with a soft Polish accent, that smile made men lose the last remnants of their self-respect.

I glanced at Derek. The boy wonder didn’t melt into a pile of goo, although his gaze was glued to Rowena’s chest. Avoiding eye contact. Good strategy.

“Sorry we’re late.”

“Not a problem. Please follow me.”

We did, climbing the staircase up the long hallway.

“You’ve been here before?” Derek asked, his gaze firmly fixed on Rowena’s ass shifting under the shimmering green silk a few steps above us.

“Wiggles,” I told him.

He blinked, then realized I wasn’t referring to Rowena’s backside. “Wiggles?”

“She’s about fourteen feet long, triangular head, gray and blue scales . . .”

He was clearly drawing a blank. “Nataraja’s pet snake,” I explained. “It bolted a few weeks ago. I found it for him at the request of the Guild.” Mentioning that I spent four solid days camped out in a swamp, covered in peat and muck, without a change of clothes, would have completely cramped my style.

An icy feeling came over me. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose. We rounded the bend and saw a vampire. It scuttled along the ceiling, heading in the opposite direction, ropy muscles working under the tightly stretched skin, probably dark during life, but now bluish purple. Rowena glanced at it and waved the way people in more technological times must’ve waved at the security cameras. I felt a particular magic flow from her in a sluggish wave. My stomach lurched and I swallowed, trying not to retch.

The undead sat unnaturally still. The urge to kill it almost overwhelmed me. My hand itched to touch Slayer, resting in its leather sheath on my back. I looked into the empty dead eyes and wondered what it would be like to slide my blade into one, scrambling the brain behind it. I would have liked to kill the man that piloted it even more.

The vampire shifted, springing into motion all at once, and moved on. “This way please,” Rowena said, favoring us with another dazzling smile. And we had no choice but to follow while the vampire disappeared behind the turn of the corridor.

The hallway terminated in a huge arched door. It opened at our approach, splitting down the middle. Beyond, Nataraja’s pentagonal throne room stretched like a hashish dream stolen from the mind of an ancient teller of The Arabian Nights. Graceful statues stood bathed in the glow of magic lamps that mixed with the gentle reflected radiance of Nataraja’s gold throne. Velvet pillows dotted the Italian tile floor and priceless pieces of art struggled to add a touch of refinement to the shocking opulence. Nataraja himself reclined on his throne, like a sultan of legend.