Before this last trip to the Continent, he’d not been certain which of them he should target. But now he knew. Those two from the park—they would be his focus.

He ran his thumb lightly along the blade of Der Vampir. For centuries, it had thirsted. Tasting a bit of human blood here and there as skirmishes and wars charged through Bavaria. But now it drowned in red. Would it be satiated or crave more?

Which would he?

Exhaustion tickled his lungs, brought the dreaded cough back. The telegram on the table taunted him. Because one task was not enough for them anymore. Perhaps because he had yet to succeed at it. Perhaps because they wanted to keep him busy. Perhaps because they assumed that with this, at least, he could succeed, even if he was useless elsewhere.

Identify targets.

Targets. His nostrils flared. He could still smell it. Blood, every time he drew in a breath. They would expect him, require him to obey. To distance himself from everything that happened elsewhere. As a ghost should do naturally. Das Gespenst, that was all he could be. All he could afford to be.

But when he closed his eyes, the waters that drowned the Boynton rushed over him again. His lungs ached. His hands were red. It wasn’t as simple as obedience. Obedience had made him a ghost. And if he were dead already . . . why obey only them? Why not obey his own thirsts too? They could do nothing worse than kill him again.

He struggled back to the surface, back to the blade dulled by red and the smiling Japanese face in the photograph and the game board sitting in its position of honor on the side table. Good strategy could harbor two goals at once. An attack here and a parry there.

Obedience could pair with revenge. Revenge on the ones who had done this to him. Who had made him a ghost.

A game. It was just a game. It didn’t matter if he was alone, if there was no Heinrich to tell him stories or Yūrei to meet for tea. A ghost didn’t need brothers and friends. He only had to win.

10

They’d said that whatever drug they’d slipped into his veins would make the journey comfortable. They’d said that he wouldn’t even be aware of the trip, that he’d wake up in London and be on the mend. They’d said that rest was all he needed.

They’d lied.

Drake dug his fingers into the miserable cot under him and stared up at the ceiling of the ward in Charing Cross Hospital. It was white. Like all the walls. Like every ceiling and every wall in every hospital in the world, no doubt. All the more plain and stark because he well knew he’d be staring at it for days and weeks to come.