Accidents happened even to vampires. They weren’t perfect. Statistically, if you live long enough, you will meet with some sort of accident. That was their disease—statistics.

That’s why vampires did not travel. They were highly territorial and obsessed with accidents. So the trick was to kill them all in a given area as quickly as you could, then move on before the others realized that they were gone.

Paul’s next target was going to be Europe. There were many references to Paris in the Book of Names. He’d been looking forward to working out of Paris. Not that he disliked Kuala, but he could use a little less humidity and a little more familiar beauty around him. The Musée Marmottan with its magnificent collection of Monet water lilies was a favorite. He considered Monet to be one of the most evolved of all human beings, on a par with the D. T. Suzukis and Foucaults of the world. From those paintings, a man could obtain the true balm of peace. The light that shone in from the garden at the Marmottan, that light was holy.

“God help me!” he cried out loud.

“Yessir!”

“Please, son, be quiet. And stop running people down.”

“I didn’t run anybody down. I just got around that truck.”

“You need to go back there later. Give that guy some dough for his cart.”

“Sir?”

“Without the cart, he and his wife will starve. Their children become prostitutes. Do you understand that?”

“Sir, I hardly think —”

“Do you understand that?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Could this be a marine out of uniform? No, look at the hair. Foreign service all the way. He was just yanking Paul’s chain with his military lip. He’d be sneering later with his State Department buddies about the old CIA asshole he’d driven around.

With his cart wrecked, that fruit vendor might as well open his veins, and Paul knew this kid would not go back, he would not give the guy the twenty bucks it would take to put his life back together again.

Funnily enough, Paul was in his work because he liked people. He’d seen the CIA take such incredible shit over the years and save so many damn lives. The Company could not defend herself, not without giving away secrets she was bound to keep. So she just took it. He’d seen the effects of all the Company bashing in his own life. There’d been a time when the merest hint of a Company connection brought women swarming like darling honeybees. Not anymore.

The car swung around another corner, and the Royal Orchid Hotel finally appeared down the smog-hazed street.

What the hell was he about to find? This would be the first actual victim they had ever had a chance to study. The vampires were obsessive about destroying remains. Except, apparently, this time.