“Nobody upstairs. Dungeon’s active, though. Seth’s on the horse, and that bishop is back. Upstairs is gonna get jammed later. We got DJ Bones tonight.”

“Make him a regular.” His sound had incredible drive, but there was an elegance to it that fit this club very well.

“Twenty thousand dollars a night.”

“Do it.”

So that her early guests would see her and be able to tell the later ones that she was indeed here, she went to her customary table at the rear of the bar. Also, she was most interested in watching who might come in that door. He’d had three days to find the place, and he was far from stupid. He’d be here.

At first glance, this room appeared to be the extent of the Veils. But the point of the name of the club was that there were many levels, many layers to pass through. Beyond this room, there were eight others, but many more than eight different ways to sin.

Rudi came up to her. “I got great meth,” he said, “plus them new Hi-Los and some dig hash. The hash was cheap.”

“Push it hard,” she said, looking past him. “I’m probably going to do a pipe later with a friend.” She had a room in the basement that was locked using Keeper techniques. Not even Sarah could enter it unless invited. Sometimes, when the club was crowded and some target was available, Miriam might take it down there. Hidden in the room’s floor was an entrance to a short tunnel that led into the boiler room of an adjacent building. The boiler there had a very good firebox, where Miriam could dispose of remnants quite easily. She would crush them to jagged bits, and they’d burn with a sparkle and a hiss when she threw them in. If the tunnel was ever found, it would appear to be nothing but an old, disused drainage line.

Miriam liked her room. She enjoyed the absolute privacy, the absolute secrecy. Being that it was entirely hidden, she had done some extremely wicked things there, so wicked that not even Sarah could know.

She intended to be very, very wicked to the hunter, more wicked than she’d been to any human being in hundreds of years. If he brought his little gang of helpers, so much the better. She would take them all, gorging herself in the fashion of old, tormenting them so terribly that the ones who had to watch would be sick all over themselves before their turns came.

“Cigarette me,” she said to Leo, who was hovering.

The girl lit a cigarette, handed it to her. “Um, can I go down with Seth after I do Luis? They’ve got that Presbyterian bishop in the cage.”

“Play your heart out, baby.”

Sarah leaned close to her, whispered. “Thank you so much for what you did. I’m still singing inside.”