Jitka took the sword and looked around, her body language relaxed. She walked to the spasming vampire, looked closely at his face with a frown, then beheaded him. Without a guillotine or, evidently, a scythe, beheading someone isn’t as easy as the werewolves made it look, which is why most human-strength people are better off hammering a wooden stake into a sleeping vampire’s heart.

Martin and I were both watching Jitka, so we jumped when the vampire who was wearing the scythe burst into flame, scorching the grass, the fence, and the scythe, but not quite getting Martin, who’d been standing too close.

The scythe fell to the ground, a third of its blade blackened.

Jitka looked at me. “Do you know how long it’s going to take to sharpen that blade after this?”

I touched it with my toe, and the blade broke in half. “Huh,” I said. “When a job can’t be done, does that mean it will take forever—or no time at all?”

She laughed. “You fight good,” she said. “And smart, which is rarer.”

Martin said, “I think we might have a problem.”

She turned to look at him.

“Did you recognize any of them?”

She snorted and nodded at the vampire Martin had disabled and she had killed. That one had done the creepy thing where one moment it was a body and the next the body had become ash, which blew away.

“I would know that idiot,” she said, “if I were blindfolded. Someone should have rid the world of him fifty years ago. Ivan Novák.”

“What if I told you that the vampires who attacked the bakery were from Kocourek’s seethe?”

It certainly told her something more than it told me, because she stiffened and grunted. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up and go inside before someone looks out of the big house and wonders what we are doing.”

—

JITKA’S HOUSE WAS MORE OF A STUDIO APARTMENT than a house. The bedroom, kitchen, and living room were all one space. She sat on the bed, and Martin and I each took one of the kitchen chairs. There wasn’t any more furniture in the room than that. Jitka was not a cluttered person—except for the wall of plants that were set about two feet from the north-facing windows.

“So what do you think, Martin?” she asked. “Are the two seethes working together?”

“Excuse me,” I said. “You think that the vampires who attacked the bakery and the ones who attacked us here are two different groups of vampires?”

“Yes,” said Jitka.

“We know they are,” said Martin. “The thing is, having them fighting on the same team is like . . .”

“Bosnians and Serbs,” suggested Jitka helpfully. “Russians and Germans—or cowboys and Indians.”

“I get it,” I said. “Would they both follow orders from Bonarata? Cooperate by mistake because they are doing what Bonarata tells them to do?”

Both shook their heads, and Martin added, “No.”

“Kocourek is the Master of Praha,” said Martin.