The man’s breathing slowed. The bleeding was taking its effect. “Three . . . ,” he whispered.

“Three what?”

“Three pieces of a rock. Rick said the rock had broken . . . into three chunks. Rick said Caleb already had one and wanted all three. He sent . . . two crews out. I don’t know where the other crew went. I told you . . . everything. Don’t kill me.”

Derek’s lips stretched into a smile on their own, driven not by humor but by the instinctual need to bare his teeth as the wild inside glared through his eyes. “There is gunpowder stench on your hand and blood spatter on your shirt. It smells like Michael Ives.”

The man froze.

Derek smiled wider. “I don’t make deals with child murderers.”

THE NIGHT WAS BLUE.

The deep sky breathed, as if alive, the small glowing dots of distant stars winking at him as he ran along the night streets. The moon had rolled out and soared, huge and round, spilling a cascade of liquid silver onto the half-ruined city. It called to him the way it called to all wolves. If he didn’t have a job to do, he would’ve run right out of Atlanta into the magic-fed forest beyond, abandoned his human skin for fur and four paws, and sang to it. His human vocal cords had sustained too much damage in the same fight that had altered his face, but his wolf voice was as good as always. He would soak in that silver glow until it shone from his eyes and sing a long song about hunting and running through the dark wood in the middle of the night. On nights like these he remembered that he was only twenty. But he had someplace to be.

Caleb’s five killers hadn’t gone too far from the house they destroyed, barely five miles, so he dropped into an easy run, a four-minute mile at best, and let the night air expand his lungs. The Casino flashed by, a white castle turned green by moonlight. He could just make out the gaunt, inhuman shapes of vampires crawling along its parapets, each undead telepathically driven by a human navigator. He made it a point to kill them when the opportunity presented itself. It didn’t come up too often—vampires belonged to the People, and the People and Kate had an uneasy truce. He didn’t agree with it, but it was necessary. Sometimes you had to put your personal feelings aside and do what was necessary.