If we did have a rogue Master of the Dead on our hands, then I had absolutely no idea how to ferret him out. Maybe if I had a big box leaning on a stake, and tied one of Ghastek’s vampires under it . . .

We arrived at Rufus and turned north, heading toward the White Street. It was named for the snowfall of ’14, when three inches of fine powder covered the street’s ugly asphalt. Three inches of snow was not terribly unusual for Atlanta except that it had come in May and refused to melt in the following months despite the hundred-degree heat. Three and a half years later it finally gave in and thawed during an Indian summer.

I reached the corner and halted. The twisted form of Ghastek’s vampire perched on top of a lamppost, wound about it like a snake around a tree limb. It looked at me, its eyes glowing with dim red, betraying an influx of magic. Ghastek was concentrating hard to hold it in place.

“Problems?” I asked softly.

“Interference.” Ghastek’s voice sounded like it came through clenched teeth. Someone was trying to wrestle away his control over the vamp.

I freed Slayer and laid it across Frau’s back. The metal smoked. A thin sheen of moisture glistened on its surface. It could be reacting to Ghastek’s vamp or to something else.

Behind me Derek’s gelding neighed gently.

“Don’t get off your horse,” I said.

As long as Derek stayed in the saddle, he would remember to act human.

I dismounted and tied the horse to an iron fence. Ghastek’s vamp uncoiled from the lamppost and slid soundlessly to the ground. It took a few unsure staggering steps into the intersection.

“Ghastek, where are you going?”

A cart drawn by a couple of horses thundered down the street at breakneck speed. The horses spied the vamp and shied, jerking the cart to the side, but not far enough. The cart’s right wheel smashed into the vampire with a loud meaty thump, flinging it aside. The driver spat a curse and snapped the reins, forcing the horses into a frenzied gallop, rumbling down the street and vanishing in the space of a breath.

The vamp lay still in a pitiful crumpled heap.

How convenient.

Slayer in hand, I stepped into the street. “Ghastek?” I called softly.

I circled it, sword in hand. An ugly grimace froze the vampire’s face. Its left foot twitched.

“Ghastek?”

A faint hiss tugged on my attention. I turned. Nothing. A small drop of liquid luminescence slid off my blade and fell onto the asphalt.

A blast of icy terror hit me like a sledgehammer. I whirled, lashing out on instinct, and felt the saber graze flesh as a grotesque shape plummeted at me from above. The creature twisted away from the sword in midair and landed softly to the side.