Setrakian backed up against the wall beside the front door. Behind him, a narrow, door-framing window of Tiffany glass had been blacked over. Setrakian struck at the lead panes, smashing out the precious glass with his sword.

Daylight knifed into the foyer.

At that moment of breaking glass, Eph and Fet returned to find Setrakian standing with his sword raised, his body bathed in sunlight.

The old man saw the dark blur rising up the stairs. “There he is!” he yelled, starting after him. “Now!”

Eph and Fet charged up the steps after the old man. Two other vampires met them at the top of the stairs. Bolivar’s former security detail, his Big-and-Tall-Store bodyguards now hungry-faced hulks in dirty suits. One swatted at Eph, who stumbled backward and almost lost his balance, grabbing the wall to keep himself from tumbling down the marble stairs. He stuck out his Luma light and the big dummy recoiled and Eph chopped at his thigh with the sword. The vampire let out a gasp and swung at him again. Eph gutted him, running his sword most of the way through his belly before pulling it back, the vampire sinking to the landing like a stuck balloon.

Fet held his at bay with his lamp light, sticking and cutting at the bodyguard’s grabbing hands with his short-bladed dagger. He brought the light up, right into its face, and the vampire flailed and looked around wildly, temporarily blinded. Fet ducked him and got behind his back, stabbing the bodyguard in the back of its thick neck before shoving him hard down the stairs.

Eph’s vampire tried to rise, but Fet dropped him again with a kick to the ribs. The bodyguard’s head lay off the top step, and with a cry of anguish, Eph brought his sword down.

The head bumped down the stairs, gaining speed and rotation at the bottom, hopping the other vampire’s body and rolling all the way to the wall.

White blood oozed out of its opened neck, onto the carmine runner. The blood worms emerged, Fet frying them with his lamp.

The bodyguard at the bottom of the steps was no more than a skin sack of broken bones, but he was still animate. The fall had not severed his neck, and so had not released him. His eyes were open and he stared dumbly up the long staircase, trying to move.

Eph and Fet found Setrakian near the closed elevator grate with his sword out, taking a swipe at a dark, fast-moving blur. “Watch out—!” called Setrakian, but before the words were out of his mouth, the Master struck Fet from behind. He went down hard, nearly smashing his lamp. Eph barely had time to react before the form flew past him—slowing down just long enough for Eph to see the Master’s face again, his wormy flesh and sneering mouth—and he was thrown back against the wall.